Author : Veerendra Gopi K, Rajesh M, Shirisha K

The integration of Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) has become a refinement in the field of groundwater research. As every year, water demand is increasing rapidly, which indicates that there will be more water demand for groundwater resources because the source of surface water is no longer to meet the demand. In the present study, an effort was made to delineate the groundwater recharge potential zones for the Hyderabad city using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in Arc GIS by incorporating remote sensing data. The various thematic layers (lineament density, land use and land cover, drainage density, slope, and geomorphology) were prepared using remote sensing data. The normalized weights of these layers were calculated using analytical method of AHP pair wise matrix. The ranks and weightages obtained from AHP were given in the weighted overlay analysis tool of ArcGIS to find the recharge potential zones. As a result, the groundwater recharge potential zones map was generated and categorized into five classes, namely very high, high, moderate, low, and very low based on the specified parameters. The regions categorized under best are considered as the best regions for ground water recharge. The groundwater recharge potential zone map will be useful to implement suitable recharge methods to increase the groundwater levels.

Keywords: Remote sensing, Geographic Information System, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Weighted overlay analysis.