Abstract
Geographical Information System techniques are widely used to determine suitable sites for groundwater recharge through artificial recharge techniques. The present research work is to identify suitable locations for constructing artificial recharge structures in the Kadavanar Sub-basin, South India. People in the Sub-basin mainly depend on the groundwater resources for drinking and irrigation purposes. Groundwater resources are often overexploited in many parts of this Sub-basin to meet the water demand leading to groundwater consumption. A lot of surfaces and sub-surface information and criteria are required for mapping the groundwater recharge zone. This is where the geographic information system [GIS] provides the right impetus besides the groundwater prospective zone to harness multilayered spatial data so that multi-criteria analysis is possible. This analysis integrates historic rainfall data analysis, groundwater level fluctuation, stream network, aquifer thickness, land use/land cover and basin slope. Drainage map, slope map and land use/land cover maps were prepared from satellite imageries. Vertical electrical sounding (VES) geophysical survey with Schlumberger electrode configuration was also conducted in the basin at 50 locations to map the aquifer thickness. Spatial variation maps for groundwater level and aquifer thickness were generated using GIS. Weighted aggregation method was used in this study to obtain groundwater recharge maps. Finally, multi-criteria analysis has been carried out to identify and assess the potential sites for groundwater recharge according to the associated weightages. It is established that GIS is best suited for the mapping of groundwater recharge zones. A similar study can be extended to any other hard-rock region facing water crises.
Highlights
Groundwater serves as the primary source for drinking, other domestic uses, irrigation and industrial purposes in India [1]
Weighted Index Overlay Analysis (WIOA) method is based on the relative importance of the parameters and the classes belonging to each parameter
Geographic Information System (GIS) is a useful tool for groundwater studies, as it has the capability to store and manipulate a vast array of data
Summary
Groundwater serves as the primary source for drinking, other domestic uses, irrigation and industrial purposes in India [1]. Despite of receiving high monsoon rainfall, there is acute water scarcity in various parts of the country due to improper water conservation [2]. A major part of the rainfall is wasted through overflow causing the lowering of water table. Sustainable management of groundwater through artificial recharge techniques has been implemented by a few researchers [3]. These researches show that in different regions of the world artificial recharge techniques can be applied successfully to recharge the groundwater [4, 5]. For the artificial groundwater recharge site selection, it is very important to conduct a detailed study on the geology, topography, structural features, and soil and drainage density to provide explicit details about that area [6]
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