Multi-criteria Decision-Making Approach Using Remote Sensing and GIS for Assessment of Groundwater Resources

Abstract

In the field of groundwater investigation, integrated remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) has become a significant approach to explored groundwater resources, its assessment, monitoring, and conservation. The present study of Purulia district in West Bengal, India, tries to assess the potential groundwater zones using remote sensing and GIS technique. As groundwater recharge and its availability depend on some geophysical factors, a multi-criterion decision-making approach (MCDA) has been adopted to recognize the potential zones in the studied district. Thus, most significant factors viz. geomorphology, lithology, slope, lineament, drainage, soil, and land-use land-cover have been considered and assigned weights in respect to their relative importance to find out groundwater potential zones. Thematic maps of these selected factors were transformed to raster data using raster converter tool in ArcGIS. The groundwater prospective zones were obtained through weighted overlay analysis technique and categorized into six sub-classes viz., unavailable, very poor, poor, moderate, good, and very good zones. The outcome shows that about 7.5, 36.86, and 27% areas have very high, high and moderate potentiality respectively whereas, about 19.54 and 8.56% areas are under poor to very poor condition in terms of groundwater potentiality of the study area. The recharge and availability of groundwater are mainly depending on surface topography, slope, underlying rock composition, and lineaments as these factors determine the porosity, permeability, and rate of infiltration.