Mapping of groundwater potential zones of Khordha District using GIS and AHP approaches

The most dependable source of fresh water is groundwater. Groundwater supplies are severely threatened by a number of factors, including urbanization, industrialization, and population growth. The amount, quality and variables affecting groundwater supplies are significantly impacted by climate variability. The fall in groundwater levels is often exacerbated by poor quality surface water resources and unreliable monsoons. Therefore, in order to supplement the groundwater supply, it is important to locate and define the groundwater potential zone (GPZ). The analysis is conducted for the Khordha district, where groundwater rather is a primary source for agricultural uses. In order to determine the possible groundwater zones, many factors, including geomorphology, geology, elevation, slope, precipitation, soil type, soil texture, drainage density (DD), lineament density (LD), Land use/Land cover (LULC), and lineament density (LD), are constructed as separate layers in the geographical information system (GIS) backdrop. The multi-criteria decision-making technique and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which enable pairwise evaluation of criteria impacting the potential zone, were utilized to establish the weights for the different layers and after that, the weighted overlay analysis (WOA) tool in ArcGIS10.8 was used to produce the final groundwater potential map. The output map of specified region was delineated into five new classes-very good, good, moderate, poor, and very poor of which 12% (325.1745 km²) falls under ‘very low’, 22% (603.9765 km²) under ‘low’, 26% (700.7715 km²) under ‘moderate’, 26% (694.2591 km²) under ‘high’, 14% (376.7553 km²) under ‘very high’. Approximately 1395 km² area concerning 52% of study region, falls under ‘high’ and ‘very high’ categories of GPZ. Validation of the generated GPWZ map was done with data acquired from Central groundwater board. The accuracy assessment was done by kappa coefficient error matrix, and based on overall accuracy, the obtained map was 81.538% accurate to field value. As dependable results were produced with the proposed methodology, future management plans incorporating natural and artificial recharge practices can be created in these locations with effectiveness.