Identification of Groundwater Potential Zones using geospatial techniques in the Varattar sub-basin, Dharmapuri district, South India

An attempt has been made to map groundwater potential zones by integration of spatial data using remote sensing and GIS techniques. The input data for this analysis are different parameters that can be considered in identifying the groundwater potential zone, such as drainage density, geology, slope, lineament density, geomorphology, land use / land cover and soil, generated using remote sensing, topographical and secondary data. These parameters are converted to raster format and assigned scores and weightings computed from multi influencing factor (MIF) technique. The weighted parameters are statistically computed and integrated to obtain the groundwater potential zones in the Varattar sub basin. The final integrated groundwater potential zones are classified into five categories like very low, low, moderate, high and very high. The delineated groundwater potential map is validated with the well location data using the R-index method. This groundwater potential zone map will be useful for extraction and manage- ment of groundwater in the study area.