APPLICATION OF REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNIQUES FOR GROUND WATER POTENTIAL ZONES MAPPING IN AIZAWL DISTRICT, MIZORAM, INDIA

Availability of groundwater in an area depends largely upon the terrains. Mizoram state is blessed with abundant rainfall and number of perennial streams. However, large amount of rain water is lost through runoff due to rugged topography and high degree of slope resulting from complex geologic formation. This leads to the insufficiency of ground water resources which is essential for domestic as well as agricultural purposes within the state. Preparation of ground water potential zonation map is the first and foremost step in exploring and exploiting the ground water resources. In the present study, potential zones for the occurrence of ground water in Aizawl district of Mizoram of have been identified and delineated using remote sensing and GIS techniques. Important factors which are responsible for the potentiality of an area within the district were identified and accordingly, five thematic layers viz., slope morphometry, geological structures like faults and lineaments, lithology, geomorphology and land use / land cover were generated. These thematic layers were ranked and weighted based on their relative importance for the occurrence of ground water. Each class within a thematic layer was assigned an ordinal rating from 1 to 10 as attribute information in the GIS environment. These attribute values were then multiplied by the corresponding rank values to yield the different areas of suitability. The final map shows the different classes of ground water potential zones within the distirct.