Appraising the accuracy of GIS-based Multi-criteria decision making technique for delineation of Groundwater potential zones

Increased demand of water in different sectors and restriction of water resources, necessitate the planning of groundwater recharge. In this study, groundwater potential zone are delineated by combining remote sensing, geographical information system (GIS) and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques in the Durg district, Chhattisgarh. Groundwater potential zones prepared using various thematic layers viz. geology, slope, land-use, lineament, drainage, soil, and rainfall. The thematic layers and their features were assigned suitable weights on the Saaty’s scale according to their relative significance for ground water occurrence. The assigned weights of the layers and their features were normalized by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and eigenvector method finally; the selected thematic maps were integrated using weighted linear combination method to create the final ground water potential zone map. Each criterion/factor was assigned an appropriate weight based on Saaty’s 9 point scale and the weights were normalized through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The process was integrated in the GIS environment to produce the groundwater potential prediction map of the study area. The groundwater potential map of the Durg district was found to be 75 % and 56 % accurate for seven and four factors respectively. The ground water potential zone map was finally validated using the groundwater depth data from 16 pumping wells respectively in the study area.