Evaluation and mapping of impacts of land use/land cover on groundwater quality using remote sensing and GIS techniques

Increase in population and built up area results in an increase in the pressure on the civic amenities, which directly affect the quality of environment. Most of the lakes and rivers are forced to serve as drainage channels, which in turn affect the ground water quality of the surrounding area. Need for a study to understand the correlation between land use and environmental parameters is longfelt and a methodology to derive this correlation has been worked out using Remote sensing and GIS. Keeping this in view an attempt has been made to identify the problematic areas in Zone-X under Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad by evaluating the quality of ground water and the impact of land use /land cover on it. Two types of database (spatial and attribute) created using Remote sensing and GIS are integrated for the generation of maps showing spatial distribution of water quality parameters using curve fitting technique of ARC/VIEW GIS software for identifying the problematic areas. Water Quality Index (WQI) was then calculated to determine the suitability of water for human consumption. For places like Hasan Nagar, Nandi Musalaiguda, Falaknuma and Fateh Darwaza the WQI was found to be >100 indicating that the groundwater in these areas is unfit for drinking and in rest of the areas the water quality was found to be moderately polluted.