Groundwater Drought Analysis of Sagar District in Bundelkhand Using Groundwater Drought Index (GDI)

Drought is an important phenomenon in recent years which caused a lot of problems for most of the areas in Bundelkhand region in Central India. Bearma basin is one of the considerable groundwater resource fields of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh, which is sub-basin of Ken River. In the present study the Bearma basin has been selected with the objective to analysis the groundwater drought condition in Sagar district by using groundwater drought index (GDI). The quarterly ground water levels of 17 observation wells falling in and around of Sagar district has been used since 1984 to 2010. The Groundwater drought index for all observation wells were computed with the help of ground-water level of each station. With the help of temporal variations of groundwater drought index (GDI) for each observation well, the groundwater drought characteristics of the basin falling under Sagar district were analyzed. Result showed that the maximum number of 10 frequency of drought events occurred at Kesli with a total severity of -26.82 with a average drought intensity of -0.31 followed by 9 drought events at Copra with a total severity of -28.83 having an average drought intensity of -0.34. The maximum cumulative groundwater drought duration of 130 months has been observed at Chhula with an average drought intensity of -0.20. The maximum average drought intensity of -0.60 has been observed at Gourjhamar followed by -0.59 at Chandpur and -0.57 at Patha. The overall drought intensity in Bearma basin falling under Sagar district is -0.35. The overall average frequency of groundwater drought in Sagar district has been found as once in 5 years.