Identification of ground water potential zones for Mula river basin using RS and GIS techniques

Abstract

Groundwater serves as a vital source of fresh water for both rural and urban populations. With increasing global water demand due to population growth and industrial needs, managing water resources sustainably is crucial, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. This study identifies the groundwater potential zones in the Mula River basin of Ahmednagar district (Maharashtra), using Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), specifically the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) techniques. The study area covering of 2570.73 km², different data sets were collected for the study area for generation of different thematic layers, this generated thematic layers were used for identification of ground water potential zones, using Saaty’s AHP scale the weights were assigned to different thematic layers as per the influence on groundwater potential and consistency of weights were checked using AHP techniques. The resulting groundwater potential map categorized the basin into four zones: excellent, good, moderate and poor. The results show that 26.99 km2 (1.05%) have excellent groundwater potential, 1287.16 km2 (50.07%) have good potential, 843.71 km2 (32.82%) have moderate potential, and 412.86 km2 (16.06%) have poor groundwater potential. The ground water potential zones corresponding to the recharge depths of groundwater well data were validated for 25 groundwater well of study area. It was observed that the number of wells in the poor, moderate, good and excellent potential zones were 2, 9, 5 and 9 respectively. This study also highlights the RS, GIS, and AHP techniques were effective tools for sustainable groundwater management.