Multi-criteria decision analysis for planning and management of groundwater resources in Balod District, India

Present study is carried out to assess potential groundwater recharge zone and to identify artificial groundwater recharge sites in the Balod district of Chhattisgarh State, India using Remote sensing (RS), Geographical information system (GIS) and Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) technique. In this study different thematic layers were considered viz. drainage, lineament, geology, geomorphology, soil texture, soil depth, land use/land cover, rainfall, groundwater depth and slope for identification of groundwater recharge zones and sites, which are generated in the RS and GIS environment. The relative weights were assigned to different thematic layers using Analytical hierarchical process (AHP), which is a MCDA technique. While determining the weightage of the various parameters, expert opinions were taken and the artificial groundwater recharge zones and suitable sites for groundwater recharge were deduced. In the present study, five categories of groundwater recharge zones were identified viz. very poor, poor, moderate, good and very good according to their suitability of area for groundwater recharge purposes. It was found that about 31, 14, 12, 15 and 28 % of the study area falls under very poor, poor, moderate, good and very good areas for artificial groundwater recharge, respectively. In this study a total of 178 number of suitable recharge structures with their sites were found for water harvesting to enhance the groundwater conditions of the study area.