International Journal of Geomatics and Geosciences

Groundwater is considered as the preferred source of water for meeting domestic, industrial and agricultural requirements, due to its longer residence time in the ground, low level of contamination, wide distribution, and availability within the reach of the end user. Even the existing wells are getting dried-up due to depletion of ground water table as the natural recharge is not sufficient. Groundwater recharge is a basic pre-requisite for efficient groundwater resource development and management, which is particularly vital for India with widely prevalent semi-arid and arid climate. In case the natural recharge is not sufficient, it has to be met through artificial recharge. To provide scientifically, appropriate locations for constructing artificial recharge structures, each hydro-geomorphic unit will be evaluated for its recharge potential and suitably a map showing such groundwater recharge potential zones for appropriate recharge will be prepared. Using remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) it is possible to take number of different thematic maps of the same area and overlay them on top of one another to form a new integrated layer. This study was aimed to identify the groundwater recharge potential zones, to be used for better and improved groundwater resources. The thematic layers considered in this study are geomorphology, soil, land use land cover, slope (%), drainage density and lineament density, which are prepared using satellite imagery and other conventional data. The thematic layers were first digitized from satellite imagery, supported by ancillary data such as toposheets and field investigation data, finally all thematic layers were integrated using ArcGIS software to identify the groundwater recharge potential zones for the study area and generate a map showing these groundwater recharge potential zones namely ‘poorly suitable’, ‘moderately suitable’ and ‘most suitable’ on knowledge based weightage factors.