Identification of Groundwater Potential Zones using Remote Sensing and GIS of K-J Watershed, India

Groundwater potential zone mapping has become easier with the inputs from Remote Sensing (RS) & Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques. Various thematic maps like geology, geomorphology, drainage density, slope, landuse/landcover etc can be easily generated through RS & GIS. The present study is aimed at generating groundwater potential map of Koshalya-Jhajhara (K-J) watershed by using integrated approach of RS & GIS. Various thematic layers have been generated and assigned weightages and ranks. These layers have been integrated in GIS software for generating Groundwater Potential Zone (GPZ) map of K-J watershed. The area falls into five categories of groundwater potential zones i.e. very good, good, moderate, poor and very Poor depending on the likelihood of availability of ground water. On the basis of this study it is found that only 5.83 km(2) and 4.91 km(2) area is under very good and good category of groundwater availability respectively. An area of 24.48 km(2) is found under moderate category whereas dominant portion of K-J watershed i.e. 61.83 km(2) and 37.87 km(2) area falls under poor and very poor category of availability of groundwater respectively.