Hydrogeomorphological Study for Shallow Groundwater Prospecting Within Solani Watershed in Haridwar District, Uttranchal. India

Abstract

Hydrogeomorphological study has been carried out to demarcate shallow groundwater prospecting zones of the Solani watershed in Haridwar district, Uttranchal, India. An integrated geographic database, consisting of spatial and non spatial data, has been generated for the study area using remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) technique coupled with ground truth investigations. The spatial database layers like hydrogeomorphology, land use/land cover, soil, slope and geology generated from topographic maps and satellite data while the non spatial data is derived primarily from ground checking during field survey and from the available literature. These data have been stored in the GIS databank for digitization, computational purpose and output generation to locate the availability of shallow groundwater in solani watershed for prospecting purposes. The result had been show that the southern part of solani watershed associated with hydrogeomorphological unit of lower piedmont (covering 367 km2) has very good to excellent categories of prospect zones while the shallow groundwater prospect zones is very poor in the northern part (hilly area) covering about 163km2of the study due to steeply slopes and very high drainage densities which are grouped together as runoff zone in the study area. In the middle part associated with upper piedmont zone, the category of prospecting shallow groundwater is good and covering about 96 km2 of the area with gentle slope and low drainage density. The present study shows that a spatial technique has been proved to be very efficient in delineation of groundwater prospect zone of the considered area.