A Remote Sensing and GIS based evaluation of groundwater prospects of Karanja river basin, Bidar district, Karnataka, India

The present paper has made an attempt to evaluate groundwater prospect zones in Karanja river basin, Karnataka, India using remote sensing and GIS techniques, which assists in assessing, monitoring and management of groundwater resources. The thematic maps such as the lithology, geomorphology, lineaments, slope, drainage density, land use/land cover and Groundwater prospectus maps were prepared for the study area using IRS-IV satellite imagery and SRTM data. Finally, the thematic maps were integrated using ArcGIS 10.0 software. The area of investigation has been classified into 7 groundwater prospectus zones. viz., good, moderate, moderate to poor, poor, poor to nil, very good to good and water body mask. Groundwater prospectus zones are spread over 39.68 sq. km (2.07%), 64.49 sq. km (3.36%), 98.19 sq. km (5.12%), 103.48 sq. km (5.39%), 439.17 sq. km (22.89%), 484.00 sq. km (25.23%) and 689.51 sq. km (35.94%) respectively. It has been concluded that about 484 sq. km area having good to very good groundwater prospectus zones, which is about 25.23 percent of the total area. The ultimate conclusion of the present study shows that the Remote sensing and GIS can be efficiently used as an easy prospective guides for the exploration and exploitation of the groundwater resources for the domestic and irrigational purposes.