Identification of Potential Zones for Groundwater Recharge in Kosigi Mandal, Kurnool District, using Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract

Ground water, the major source of rural domestic water requirements in India is depleting fast in many areas due to its large scale withdrawal. To tackle the hazardous de-saturation of aquifer zones and consequent deterioration of ground water quality, there is an urgent need to recharge the groundwater resources through suitable watershed management interventions. In this study, Kosigi which is one of drought prone mandal of Kurnool district was taken up to identify potential zones for groundwater recharge using GIS techniques. There are 26 villages covering an area around 420 km2 predominantly by black cotton soils and nearly flat terrain surface with small isolated hillocks. By considering suitability of terrain surface, soil and its depth; thematic maps such as geomorphology, drainage density, lineament density, and land use / land cover were prepared for Weighted Overlay Analysis (WOA) using ArcGIS 10.2 desktop software. The weights of selected themes were computed using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. From the results, the groundwater potential zones with poor (34.76 km2), moderate (227.91 km2), good (117.02km2), very good (36.37 km2), and excellent (5.20 km2) prospective zones were identified.