Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
CHARACTERIZATION OF GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL
ZONES DEDUCED THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF GIS
IN SEMI-ARID GRANITIC TERRAIN
V. S. SINGH
∗
andA.K.MAURYA
National Geophysical Research Institute, Uppal Road
Hyderabad 500 007 (A.P.) India
∗
vssingh77@hotmail.com
In the recent years, there has been growing demand for groundwater with
increase in population and developmental activities in the industry as well as
agricultural sectors. In order to meet the rapid growing demand delineation
of potential groundwater zone becomes essential and one of the cost effective
and rapid technique is to integrate various data on geo-information through
the application of GIS, followed by ground truth verification. This technique
is widely being used, particularly in hard rock terrain.
In a hard rock granitic terrain, application of GIS is being made to inte-
grate various data such as geology, drainage density, slope, lineaments and
geomorphology to obtain different groundwater potential zones. In the present
paper, an attempt has been made to characterize such groundwater potential
zone derived through the application of GIS. The area is typically characterized
by scarcity of groundwater and also affected due to high salinity and fluoride
content in groundwater. In order to characterize them, various hydrogeological
data such as well yield, water level and water quality collected from these zones
have been analyzed.
1. Introduction
There are several methods such as geological, hydrogeological, geophysical,
and remote sensing techniques, which are employed to delineate ground-
water potential zones. A systematic integration of these data with follow
up of hydrogeological investigation provides rapid and cost-effective delin-
eation of groundwater potential zones. The various data are prepared in
the form of thematic map using Geographical Information System (GIS)
software tool. These thematic maps are then integrated using “Spatial
Analyst” tool. Arithmetic, Boolean, and Relational mathematical opera-
tors are used to develop model depending on objective of problem at hand,
such as delineation of groundwater potential zones. Many researchers
1
-
9
have done integrated study to estimate groundwater potential zones using
GIS with numerous conceptual models. Khairul
et al.
7
have concluded that
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