An Integrated Approach of Groundwater Management in Wakal River Basin using Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System

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Date
2012
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MPUAT, Udaipur
Abstract
Groundwater is a precious resource of limited extent. A systematic planning of groundwater exploitation using modern techniques is essential for the proper utilization and management of this precious but shrinking natural resource. Wakal river basin (study area), situated in the hard-rock terrain of Udaipur district in Rajasthan, suffers from water scarcity. Present study aimed at in-depth hydrogeologic and geochemical investigations in the study area for efficient management of scarce groundwater resources. It was analysed in the process of study that use of GIS can make the cumbersome geomorphological analysis and prioritization of sub-basin as an easy task. The Wakal river basin is maximum seventh order basin. The total drainage area of Wakal river basin is divided into seven sub-basins for the analysis. The determination of geomorphological characteristics included area and perimeter, stream number (order wise), stream length, basin length, stream frequency, bifurcation ratio, stream length ratio, form factor, circulatory ratio, elongation ratio, drainage density, constant of channel maintenance, length of overland flow, relief ratio, relative relief and ruggedness number. The prioritization of the basin was carried out on the basis of the geomorphological parameters and based on this the first priority is given to sub-basin-3 for soil and water conservation measures. The groundwater quality of the Wakal river basin was also analyzed. The different water quality parameter map was prepared under GIS environment and the spatio-temporal variations of groundwater quality parameters were analyzed. The highest EC, TDS, Na, SO4 was found in village Kotra and Ca, Mg, Cl in village Bira of Jhadol block during pre monsoon period. During post monsoon period the highest EC, TDS, Ca, Mg, Na, K, Cl and SO4 was found in village Kotra. The suitability of groundwater for irrigation use was evaluated on the basis of Sodium Absorption Ratio (SAR), Kelly’s Ratio (KR), Residual Sodium Carbonate (RSC), Soluble Sodium Percentage (SSP) and Permeability Index (PI) and found that most of the study area groundwater is suitable for irrigation purpose during both pre and post monsoon period. The aquifer parameters i.e. transmissivity and specific yield were determined by pumping test and it ranges from 132.82 to 343.94 m2/day and from 0.00176 to 0.0245, respectively, suggesting strong heterogeneity. In the present study, Geographical Information System (GIS) is used to integrate multiparametric data to generate several thematic maps, delineate groundwater potential zones and identify sites of artificial recharge in the Wakal river basin. The thematic layers considered to delineate groundwater potential zones are geomorphology, soil, slope, topographic elevation, land use/land cover, recharge, post-monsoon groundwater depth and transmissivity, which were prepared using conventional maps and data. All these themes and their individual features were then assigned weights according to their relative importance in groundwater occurrence and the corresponding normalized weights were obtained based on the Saaty’s analytical hierarchy process. The thematic layers were finally added using Arc GIS software to yield groundwater potential zone map of the study area. The study area is classified into four groundwater potential zones, ‘good’, ‘moderate’, ‘poor’, and ‘very poor’, which encompass 20, 31.17, 34.19, and 14.64 per cent of the study area, respectively. The thematic layers used in this study to determine artificial recharge zones are transmissivity, recharge, groundwater level (post-monsoon), topographic elevation, soil and slope. These layers were combined using boolean logic analysis to delineate zones of suitability for artificial recharge structures. The area suitable for artificial recharge is 174.39 km2, which is 9.2 per cent of the total study area.
Description
An Integrated Approach of Groundwater Management in Wakal River Basin using Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System
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Citation
Sinha and Singh, 2012
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