Modeling and mapping of groundwater potentiality zones using AHP and GIS technique: a case study of Raniganj Block, Paschim Bardhaman, West Bengal

摘要

Water is the most significant natural resources stirring both surface water and groundwater for human civilization. This precious resource is occasionally scarce, sometimes plentiful but not uniformly concentrated, both in space and time. Groundwater is most valuable and dynamic resource that is not equally distributed. The dimensions of groundwater in an area are determined by numerous factors such as topography, lithology, geological structure, depth of weathering, slope, drainage pattern, land use and land cover (LULC), rainfall pattern. Delineation of groundwater potentiality zone is an indispensable part for the management of water resources numerous themes are included according to their relative magnitude for the potentiality mapping, these are-geology, slope gradient, LULC, soil texture, rainfall, lineament density, drainage density and groundwater fluctuation etc. The analytical hierarchical process (AHP) method has been used to find out the weights of different themes and their associated sub-themes and finally overlay analysis has been done in the geospatial environment. Groundwater potential zone is categorized as 'very poor' (18.22), 'poor' (28.39), 'moderate' (31.98), 'good' (13.24) and 'excellent' (8.17). The groundwater potential map has been validated with Dug well data for accounting the implication of this model.