Delineation of groundwater storage and recharge potential zones using RS-GIS-AHP: Application in arable land expansion

An integrated approach for concurrent delineation of groundwater storage and recharge potential zones using remote sensing, geographical information systems (GIS), and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for applications in agricultural expansion is presented in this paper. The intersecting zones of the groundwater recharge and storage potential are utilized for quantification of safe yield. The results of this study conducted on the Rana groundwater basin in Odisha, India, suggested that about 83.5% and 64.6% of the area is under moderate to very good groundwater storage and recharge potential zones, respectively. It is also observed that the thematic layers used in the study such as lineament density and drainage density are least sensitive to the potential zones, whereas, soil and land use/land cover shows higher sensitivity to the groundwater potential. Additionally, the percentage overlap of recharge zones over that of storage zones is found to be in the range of 31%-52%. The safe yield potential of the intersecting zones estimated through this study is in the range of 0.011-0.049 km(3)/year for moderate to very good storage zones. The results indicated that there is a large scope for expanding winter cultivation in this basin utilizing the estimated groundwater. The generated potential maps have huge potential in decision making on sustainable groundwater resource management.