Remote Sensing and GIS Based Groundwater Potential Zone Mapping in Ariyalur District, Tamil Nadu

The groundwater is the most precious resources around the world and is shrinking day by day. In connection, there is a need for demarcation of potential ground-water zone. The geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing techniques have become important tools to locate ground-water potential zones. This research has been carried out to identify groundwater potential zone in Ariyalur of south India with help of GIS and remote sensing techniques. To identify the groundwater potential zone used by different thematic layers of geology, geomorphology, drainage, drainage density, lineaments, lineaments density, soil, rainfall, and slope with inverse distance weightage (IDW) methods. From the overall result the potential zone of groundwater in the study area classified into five classes named as very good (13.34 %), good (51.52 %), moderate (31.48 %), poor (2.82 %) and very poor (0.82 %). This study suggested that, very good potential zone of groundwater occur in patches in northern and central parts of Jayamkondam and Palur regions in Ariyalur district. The result exhibited that inverse distance weightage method offers an effective tool for interpreting groundwater potential zones for suitable development and management of groundwater resources in different hydro-geological environments.