Tracing dynamics of groundwater potential zones for a watershed in Pune, India using geo-spatial technique

Water acts as a most required thing in human life as well as for any living thing. Also, it is preferred requirement for achieving the targets of growth and development of a country or a region. Considering the limitations on exploration of water, may be surface or groundwater, it is obvious to identify and manage the available water resources with proper planning and efficiency. Present study is aimed to trace the new water resources using geo-spatial technique. Various thematic layers have been used in this study for conducting multi-criteria analysis in GIS environment and these themes were digitized from satellite data. By integrating thematic maps multi-criteria overlay analysis, based on knowledge based assigned weightage and ranked influence factors, is conducted in GIS environment. The results, obtained using geo-spatial technique, are validated with field data. It is observed that the results obtained by geo-spatial technique are in good agreement with the field observations data collected from observation wells. Groundwater prospect zones map has been generated with prospect zones classified as good, moderate and poor in accordance with their respective groundwater potential. It is concluded that the geo-spatial technique is very efficient, time and cost effective for exploration of water resources.