Sustainable Groundwater Resources for Environmental Management in Watershed Areas– A Case Study

The Deccan Volcanic Basalt Province (DVB) has been facing acute shortage of groundwater for drinking and irrigation purposes. The distribution of the aquifers in this region is limited due to the porosity of the Deccan Basalts also due to the increasing population groundwater in shallow aquifers are overexploited. Infiltration is less due to the insufficient seasonal rainfall and hence there is a continuous decline of the groundwater in the area. The environment management has suffered a great loss due to the unethical practices adopted by the community to overexploit the groundwater situation in this region. The impact of equal groundwater sharing has developed inconsistency in the eco-system management of the area the need of the hour is sustainable governance for groundwater resources. Geophysical exploration tools for groundwater to develop and monitor a watershed have proved to be promising and solutions for sustainable groundwater management have also been developed. As a case study to solve such problems in the DVB the TE41 mini watershed No.4/4 of Tapi Basin, Dharangaon Taluka, Jalgaon, District, Maharashtra State was chosen. The Very Low Frequency Electromagnetic (VLFEM) method that has proved to as a successful, fast, and simple tool to map shallow aquifers in hard rock terrain was used for this purpose. The study area is occupied by the basaltic flows of Deccan Trap of Sahyadri group of cretaceous to Eocene age. The area consists of compound flow of vesicular basalts with exclusive weathering and joints. The paper presents a simple and effective method using the 2-D interpretation of the VLF-EM data to delineate fracture zones in the area and in locating the groundwater sources that successfully helped in providing a sustainable development socially, economically and in environmental to protect and enhance this valuable resource for future generations.