IDENTIFICATION OF GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL ZONES USING REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM

The objective of the study area is to identify the groundwater potential zones using RS and GIS software 9.3. The various thematic maps are Boundary, Drainage, DEM, Drainage Density, Slope, Soil, Lineaments, Land Use/ Land Cover, Rainfall maps. The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) has been generated from the 20 m contour interval contour lines derived from SOI toposheets. The Slope map has been prepared from DEM. These maps have been overlaid in terms of weighed overlay method using Spatial Analysis tool in Arc GIS 9.3. During weighed overlay analysis, the ranking has been given for each individual parameter of each thematic map and weights were assigned according to their influence for Soil (40%), Land use/Land cover (25%), drainage density (10%), rainfall (10%), lineaments (5%) and Slope (10%). The resulting maps presents the ground water potential zones in terms of Very Good (3.91 Km2), Good (22.27 Km2), Fair (25.65 Km2), Moderate (22.31 Km2) and Poor zones (1.23 Km2). The result depicts the groundwater potential zones in the study area and found to be helpful in better planning and management of groundwater resources.