Identification of Groundwater Potential Zones Using RS, GIS and AHP Techniques: A Case Study in a Part of Deccan Volcanic Province (DVP), Maharashtra, India

This article deals with the remote sensing and geographic information system techniques in assessing groundwater potential zones by the manipulation and analysis of the individual layer of spatial controlling data in a part of Deccan Volcanic Province, Maharashtra. Available geology, geomorphology, and soil maps were collected. Land use and land cover (LULC) and Lineament maps had been prepared using the LANDSAT-8 (TM and OLI) Satellite Image (November 2015). The SRTM DEM (resolution: 30 m) data had been employed for the preparation of slope and drainage maps. These maps were converted into the raster format. Analytic hierarchy process was applied to weight, ranking, and reclassify these maps in the ArcGIS version 10.4. Then, groundwater prospect map had been prepared by overlaying the maps. The results show that five groundwater potential zones such as very poor (11.77%), poor (21.73%), moderate (30.13%), good (25.34%), and very good (11.02%) exit. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the lineament density, LULC, and slope increase the area slightly only in the very poor to poor potential zones. Besides, the well yields, groundwater level fluctuation corresponding rainfall data had been utilized to validate. The yield values vary from 5.94 to 14.88 l/s in the good to very good potential zones, whereas 0.38 to 1.37 l/s within the poor to very poor potential zones. In addition, cross-correlation coefficients among groundwater level and rainfall is well-related to the groundwater potential index (R2 = 0.84), which will help to construct artificial recharge structures and the planning of sustainable groundwater management.