Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466

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Groundwater for Sustainable Development

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/gsd

Research paper

A fuzzy based MCDM–GIS framework to evaluate groundwater potential

index for sustainable groundwater management - A case study in an
urban-periurban ensemble, southern India
N.P. Jesiya a, *, Girish Gopinath a, b
a
Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), Kunnamangalam, Kerala, 673 571, India
b
Department of Remote Sensing & GIS, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), Kochi, 682 508, India

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The study encompasses the application of fuzzy based multi-criteria decision making (MCDM)- geospatial
Groundwater potential index framework (GIS-Fuzzy-AHP) for evaluating index based groundwater potential assessment in two differently
Fuzzy urbanized clusters of Northern Kerala, Southern India. The framework presents a very powerful way of managing
Analytic hierarchy process
groundwater at a regional and global level due to its succinct performance. The study area is characterized by a
Geospatial technology
coastal zone with a high rate of urban development and relying on groundwater supply to meet their basic needs.
In the Fuzzy-analytic hierarchy process (Fuzzy-AHP), a three-level hierarchical model is built using 8 criteria and
34 subcriteria of groundwater controlling factors. Weights and ratios of these factors have been generated by
pairwise comparisons of fuzzified values in Saaty’s 9-point fundamental scale, taking relative importance into
account. Finally, the integration of spatial and non-spatial data into the GIS platform created a groundwater
potential zone map with a unique integer value known as the groundwater potential index (GWPI). The resulting
groundwater potential map classified the study area into four zones using quantile method and has shown that
the very good potential zone occupies 34% and 10% of the urban and peri-urban zones of the study area,
respectively. Gentle slope gradient with coastal alluvium formation, sandy loam to sandy clay textured soil type
with moderate to rapid permeability favours aquifer recharge in these zones, resulting in a very high potential
zone. The consistency analysis using the Eigenvector method showed that the consistency was well within the
tolerance limit and validation analysis using the average depth of water level data checked the statistical effi­
ciency and reliability of results in the overall decision-making phase. A well-balanced fuzzy framework has
allowed the rapid and reliable assessment of hydrological behaviour of two differently urbanized environments.

1. Introduction urbanization, agricultural intensification or climate change, which can

The groundwater system plays a dynamic role in nature because of its
ability to interact with the ambient environment, relative stability and
well-organized spatial flow distribution (Toth, 1979). It is a critical but
often underestimated resource for urban water supply, a serious and
expensive hazard to urban infrastructure and the ‘invisible link’ between
different facets of the urbanization process (Foster, 2016). The United
Nations has estimated that over 2 billion people worldwide depend on
GW for their diverse needs such as agriculture, irrigation,
manufacturing, domestic, etc. (United Nations, 2015). Since ground­
water is an essential component of total water supply, the situation was
likely to worsen by drivers of change, such as global population,
be attributed directly or indirectly to human activity. (Hutchins et al.,
2018; Proskuryakova et al., 2018; Wen et al., 2019). The impacts of
these change drivers were more pronounced in an urban environment
resulting in water table lowering, drying up of springs and wells in
several areas, detrimental changes in water chemistry, etc. (Foster et al.,
1999; Howard and Gelo, 2002; Kløve et al., 2014; Boughariou et al.,
2018; Le Brocque et al., 2018; Howard and Gerber, 2018). Reduced
groundwater head can also contribute to poor water quality entering
deeper parts of the aquifer from rivers and polluted shallow aquifer
systems, leading more seriously to land subsidence, saline water flow
from deeper geological formations or the sea (Buapeng, 2006; Ebrahimi
et al., 2016; Katsanou and Karapanagioti, 2017 ; Kakar et al., 2019).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: jesynp@gmail.com (N.P. Jesiya), ggcwrdm@gmail.com, gg@cwrdm.org (G. Gopinath).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsd.2020.100466
Received 3 July 2020; Received in revised form 31 July 2020; Accepted 6 August 2020
Available online 11 August 2020
2352-801X/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath
Fig. 1. Base map of the study area with depth to water level classes.
Therefore, these scenarios substantially necessitating to carry out the
groundwater management with support of emerging techniques.
Among these techniques, spatial predictions using various ground­
water influencing parameters viz. geology, geomorphology, slope, soil
characteristics, drainage parameters, landuse/landcover, etc. with the
advent of geospatial and modified multi-criteria decision making
(MCDM) processes. Various combinations on MCDM process such as
AHP, AHP/ANP, fuzzy based AHP, etc were confirmed its accuracy in
preparing index based frameworks for sustainable groundwater devel­
opment (Swetha et al., 2017; Kaur et al., 2020; Arabameri et al., 2020).
As an index-based evaluation methodology, groundwater functional
zoning (GWFZ) including groundwater potential and vulnerability pre­
sents a very positive effect on groundwater management at a regional
scale due to its concise results (Guo et al., 2019). Furthermore, the
combination of hydrogeological characteristics along with urban im­
pressions such as landuse/landcover changes, groundwater de­
velopments have been able to assess the difference in groundwater
occurrence along with the geo-environment effect during groundwater
extraction (Jesiya and Gopinath, 2015; Jesiya and Gopinath, 2019a,
2019b). Indiscriminate anthropogenic activities adversely interfered
with the hydrogeology of coastal aquifers Chachadi (2005). MCDM
methods such as ANN is more effective in delineating the groundwater
protection area from the intrusion of saline water in coastal aquifers, as
the framework is flexible in reconstruction with changes in criteria such
as well depth, pumping conditions, and groundwater levels, etc. (Kim,
2
Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466
2020). Many studies have been proved the power of AHP originally
developed by Saaty (1980) and GIS as a tool mix to evaluate multiple
criteria together (Saaty, 2005; Mandal et al., 2016 ; Girish et al., 2016;
Swetha et al., 2017 ; Jesiya and Gopinath, 2019a). At the same time, a
certain level of inconsistencies may occur while making pairwise com­
parisons of the criteria in the AHP.
The fuzzy-AHP method firstly proposed by Van Laarhoven and
Pedrycz (1983) can be considered as best to fit alternative to overcoming
these problems. The fuzzy-AHP is a fuzzy extension of AHP and is
applied to solve the hierarchical fuzzy multicriteria decision-making
problems (Cho and Lee et al., 2013; Calabrese et al., 2019; Ren et al.,
2019). This method uses the concept of fuzzy set theory and hierarchical
structure analysis and it includes selection of an alternative and sys­
tematic approaches weighting (Şener and Şener, 2015; Şener et al.,
2018; Das and Pal, 2019; Khashei-Siuki and Sharifan, 2020). The sub­
jective judgments that belong to experts are used to determine weight
ratios (Tan et al., 2014). In the fuzzy-AHP method, fuzzy numbers are
used instead of the weight values to achieve the most realistic and ac­
curate results (Kahraman et al., 2003). Together, the fuzzy-AHP hybrid
method has the capacity to overcome the irregularities associated with
the decision-maker’s decisions. (Kumar and Krishna, 2018). An inte­
grated AHP-Fuzzy model is more reliable for estimating the ground­
water potential and vulnerability analyses (Kumar and Krishna, 2018;
Şener at al. 2018; Chaudhry et al., 2019; Rajasekhar et al., 2019). Study
on groundwater vulnerability in shallow aquifers of urbanized
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath
Fig. 2. A Fuzzy-AHP framework for groundwater potential assessment (a) defining criteria and subcriteria weights (b) Pair-wise comparison matrix with triangular
fuzzy elements in the fuzzy AHP tool (c) The results obtained by the eigenvector method with consistency values.
environment proved the reliability and accuracy of applying fuzzy-AHP
approach in groundwater studies (Jesiya and Gopinath, 2019b).
The study area has been experiencing drastic changes in land use
patterns and agricultural practices in the state were brings out conver­
sion of a considerable area of paddy cultivation, mixed crops, scrubland
and evergreen forest into built-up areas, highly water intensive com­
mercial crops, rubber plantations, etc (Chattopadhyay, 2005; Sheeja
et al., 2011). The high density of population and urban settlements in
coastal areas of the region has reached such an unprecedented level and
has intensified the demand for freshwater services in both urbanized and
outer areas of the urban spectrum. (Jesiya and Gopinath, 2015). Pres­
ently, along with this drastic change in landuse pattern, the state prac­
tising exploitation of groundwater from unconfined aquifers through
dug wells to uncontrolled exploitation of groundwater resources with
the advent of technology, high-speed rigs and quality deterioration of
surface water (Shaji, 2011; Central Ground Water Board, 2012; Shaji
et al., 2018). The aforementioned These scenarios necessitate the
implementation of an integrated framework for the assessment of the
groundwater potential zone by combining all relevant parameters,
including land-use/land-cover classes. However, the integration of
FAHP and GIS has not been applied once to the delineation of ground­
water potential zonation mapping in the study region as well in a
different urbanized context. The primary objective of this study is to
evaluate the spatial data of the groundwater potential zones of the two
differentially urbanized ensembles Kozhikode districts, Northern Kerala,
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Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466
Southern India through a comprehensive groundwater potential index
(GWPI) and GIS and a fuzzy-based AHP functionality. The integrated
Fuzzy – AHP – GIS method has made it possible to interpret the hy­
drological response of areas with different types of development by
incorporating geological, hydrological and anthropogenic indicators.
2. Environmental settings
2.1. Location and hydrometeorology of the study area
Urban and selected peri-urban clusters of the Kozhikode district
located in the southwest coast of India has been selected for the study
and has an areal extent of 524 km2 with 36 km seashore and lies between
North latitudes 11◦ 7′ 23.11′′ and 11◦ 28′ 35.67′′ and East longitudes 75◦
42′ 0.87′′ and 75◦ 57′ 47.49’’ (Fig. 1). According to the State Urbanisa­
tion Report - Kerala, 2012 , demographic study, basic amenities, built-up
nature and administrative set-up revealed the degree of further densi­
fication of population density and physical growth in and around the
urban cluster. Therefore, areas with high-density spatial growth and
with more than two closely associated higher order (up to 5th order)
urban centers are delineated into the urban cluster of the study area
(Jesiya and Gopinath, 2019a). The areal extent of the urban cluster
having an areal extent of 212 km2 with a population density of 3746
person/km2 (Census of India, 2011). And it is greater than the state
average. The urban cluster of the study area shows high potential for
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466

Fig. 3. Geomorphology of urban and peri-urban zones in the study area.

development contributing to the economic development of the entire
northern region of the State. Nearby urban cluster areas which indicate a
propensity to integrate into urban areas in the near future are catego­
rized as peri-urban centers and it covers 312 km2 of the study area.
The region encompasses with heavy rainfall and abundant surface
water resources, the availability of water resources, especially ground­
water is not uniform throughout (Shaji, 2011). The urban and peri-urban
clusters are in a humid tropical region with an average annual rainfall of
about 3400 mm. The climate of the area is divided into four seasons
–summer, South West Tropical Monsoon period, North East Tropical
Monsoon period and winter. Two monsoon seasons experienced by the
study area are South-West and North-East monsoons and the SW and NE
monsoons mainly contribute with 82.77% of the rainfall in the area. The
minimum and maximum temperatures are around 23.5 ◦ C and 34 ◦ C.
The relative humidity ranges from 74 to 92% during morning hours and
from 64 to 89% in evening hours. The annual Potential Evapotranspi­
ration (PET) is 1505.7 mm. The monthly PET ranges from 92.9 to 170.2
mm. The PET is less than the rainfall during May to November and hence
the possibility of recharge to groundwater regime is more during these
months (CGWB, 2013).
2.2. Groundwater scenario
Groundwater abstraction structures like wells have increased to five
million in Kerala following urban expansion and area for shallow water
table decreased for the past three decades depicting an increasing depth
trend (Nair et al., 2016). Depth to water level (DWL) Ranges in the
urban–peri-urban zone were classified into shallow (<2 mbgl), moder­
ately shallow (2–4 mbgl), moderately deep (4–6 mbgl) and deep (6 -
>12 mbgl) well types The majority of the sample area was occupied by

4
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath
Fig. 4. Spatial distribution of topography in the study area.
moderately deep wells, with well depths varying from 0.7 to 13 m across
the entire area. Majority of the urban zone was covered with 4–6 mbgl
followed by 2–4 mbgl ranges of DWL. In the peri-urban zone, major
DWL classes occurred in 4–6 mbgl followed by 6–8 mbgl and 2–4 mbgl.
Compared to peri-urban aquifers, urban aquifers were laid more in
shallow water level conditions except for two locations on the eastern
side (Fig. 1) (Jesiya and Gopinath, 2019b).
3. Materials and methodology
GWPZ mapping was performed in the study using an integrated
approach to remote sensing and GIS based fuzzy analytic hierarchy
process (FAHP). The index based GWPZ achieved through three suc­
cessive phases, such as the preparation of the geo-database of factors
influencing the groundwater potential of the region, the relative ranking
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Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466
of such features through the numerical ranking method-Fuzzy analytic
hierarchy process (FAHP) and the spatial and non-spatial integration
through ArcGIS 10.5.1.
3.1. Preparation of geo-database for groundwater potential assessment
In the present analysis, based on expert’s opinions, literature reviews
and field observations we considered three indicating groups to assess
groundwater potential of the region, i.e. geological, hydrological and
anthropogenic factors. Geology, geomorphology and slope characteris­
tics are factors considered to be part of the geological properties of the
area. Whereas drainage density, linear density, soil texture, proximity to
water bodies and aquifer characteristics were classified as hydrological
properties and land-use/landcover classes as anthropogenic factors.
Geology, hydrogeology and soil texture thematic data were derived
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath
Fig. 5. Drainage density of the study area.
using a series of geoprocessing functions such as georeferencing, digi­
tization, etc. on the corresponding data sources (Table 2). Landuse/
landcover classes of the study area were derived from IRS-LISS-III data
with a spatial resolution 23.5 m. Drainage pattern was extracted from
the 1:50,000 scale survey of India topographical maps and lineaments
were delineated from thematic services of Bhuvan web portal. Further,
line density analysis was carried out to prepare the lineament and
drainage density data in km2. Slope (in %) analysis was performed with
SRTM DEM (30 m) data employing spatial analyst tool of ArcGIS 10.5.1.
Finally, proximity to surface water bodies was generated through buffer
analysis using proximity tool of Analysis tools of Arc GIS 10.5.1.
3.2. Groundwater potential index (GWPI)
The Groundwater potential index is a dimensionless quantity that
has been determined using the ratings and weight values obtained using
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Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466
the ratings and weights of each of the control parameters obtained by
the fuzzy-AHP structure. As an initial stage, each parameter assigned a
subjective rating of 1–9 based on the expert opinion and the related
scientific findings. Ranking 1 assigned to components with the least and
9 assigned to the maximum potential.
After the introduction of Saaty’s Analytic Hierarchy System (AHP),
the Dutch scholars van Laarhoven and Pedrycg have proposed a struc­
ture in which a fuzzy comparison is represented by a triangular judg­
ment. They used a fuzzy number with a triangular membership structure
and basic operating rules. Chang (1996) proposed a new model for
handling fuzzy AHP was used in the current study. First of all, triangular
fuzzy numbers are used for a pairwise comparison scale of fuzzy AHP.
Then, by using the extent analysis method (Chang, 1992), the synthetic
extent value Si of the pairwise comparison is introduced, and by
applying the principle of the comparison of fuzzy numbers (Chang,
1992), i.e.
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath
Fig. 6. Lineament density of the study area.
V(MI ≥ M2) = I iff m1≥ m2
and
V(M 2 ≥ M) = hgt(M I ∩ M 2) = μ M1 . d
the weight vectors with respect to each element under a certain criterion
can be represented by d(Ai) = minV(Si ≥ Sk), k = l … n, k ∕ = i.
The first task of the fuzzy AHP method is to determine the relative
importance of each pair of factors in the same hierarchy. The element i
with the highest priority over element j under a certain criterion: then aij
= (l, 9, u), where l and u represent a fuzzy degree of judgment. The
greater u - l, the fuzzier the degree; when u - l = 0, the judgment is a
nonfuzzy number. It remains the same for scale 9 in the general sense. If
strong importance of element j over element i retained, then the pairwise
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Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466
comparison scale can be expressed by the fuzzy number aij= (l/u, l/m, l/
I). Using triangular fuzzy numbers, a fuzzy evaluation matrix A= (aij)n
× m is constructed by pairwise comparison. Principle of comparison for
fuzzy numbers The theory of comparison for fuzzy numbers was used to
estimate the vectors of weights according to each criterion. The matrix
for eight factors and its subcriteria are constructed with triangular fuzzy
elements and pairwise comparisons are made using extent analysis
method. The resultant weights and ratings without fuzziness for each
factor were obtained by the eigenvector method for a pair-wise com­
parison matrix (Fig. 2). Finally, The non –spatial data (ratings &
weights) are integrated with spatial data (thematic layers) through a
series of spatial analyses such as reclassification and weighted overlay
analysis within the GIS platform (ArcGIS 10.5.1) and generated spatial
data of GWPI. The study area was divided into four zones by categori­
zation of GWPI using the quantile method.
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath
Fig. 7. Proximity to surface water bodies.
4. Result and discussion
The exploitation of groundwater in the urban and peri-urban zone of
the study area for their water needs confirms the necessity to predict the
groundwater potential of the area.
4.1. Description of factors influencing groundwater occurrence
4.1.1. Geological indicators
The study area is divided into two physiographic regions viz. coastal
low land and midland terrain. The predominant geological formations in
the area are recent coastal alluvium, sub recent laterite and archaean
crystalline formations such as charnockite and Hornblende–biotite
Gneiss. The narrow strip of low land/coastal plain is situated in north-
south direction along the coast which consists of alluvium formation.
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Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466
Coastal alluvium has located in the western part of the study area and
the riverine alluvium occurs along with river courses. The riverine and
coastal alluvium consists of sand, silt and clay were covered an extent of
95.2 km2 (18.1%). Alluvium formation has attributed to a very good
potential groundwater region under phreatic conditions and major
water abstraction structures are dug wells in these formations. Char­
nockite is the dominant geological formation in the region, covering
305.2 km2 (58.2 per cent) of the total area. Laterite formations form
moderate to good potential phreatic aquifers along with topographic
lows and valleys (CGWB, 2013; Swetha et al., 2017).
. The coastal plain covering an area of 77.6 km2, i.e. 14.78% of the
total area and low rolling terrain in the midland area consists of rolling
laterite hills surrounded by valleys. The lateritic forms and valley fills
were covered 304.09 km2 (58%) and 79.85 km2 (15.2%) study area
respectively. The midland terrain consists of low rolling terrain and
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466

Table 1
GWPI Rating and criteria weights evaluated after Fuzzy-AHP analysis.
Criteria Sub-criteria Area Weight Rating Total Weight
2
Km %

Geomorphology Waterbody 22.4 4.3 0.2182 0.2537 0.0554

Young Coastal Plain 77.6 14.8 0.2132 0.0465
Flood plain 30.9 5.9 0.1723 0.0376
Valley fill 79.9 15.2 0.1687 0.0368
Lower Plateau [Lateritic] 304.1 57.9 0.1100 0.0240
Residual hills 10.3 2.0 0.0750 0.0164
Geology Hornblende-Biotite Gneiss 107.06 20.4 0.1233 0.1413 0.0174
Charnockite 305.2 58.2 0.1877 0.0231
Fluvial coastal alluvium 95.21 18.1 0.2233 0.0275
Laterite 2.41 0.5 0.2157 0.0266
Pebble bed 14.7 2.8 0.2413 0.0298
Drainage Density (km/km2) <1 92.2 17.6 0.1588 0.281 0.0446
1–2 150.1 28.6 0.2477 0.0393
2–3 52.4 10.0 0.1913 0.0304
3–5 126.4 24.1 0.1542 0.0245
>5 103.4 19.7 0.1238 0.0197
Lineament Density (km/km2) 0–0.5 395.8 75.4 0.1588 0.1310 0.0208
0.5–1 42.27 8.1 0.1560 0.0248
1–1.5 29.6 5.6 0.1925 0.0306
1.5–2 19.6 3.7 0.2375 0.0377
>2 37.9 7.2 0.2827 0.0449
Slope (%) 0–5 14.2 2.7 0.1758 0.3160 0.0556
5–15 112.2 21.4 0.2705 0.0476
15–25 92.8 17.7 0.2228 0.0392
>25 306.0 58.3 0.1898 0.0334
Proximity to Surface water bodies (m) <50 m 56.3 10.7 0.079 0.4623 0.0365
50–100 m 11.1 2.1 0.2807 0.0222
>100 m 457.1 87.2 0.2623 0.0207
Soil texture Sandy clay loam 30.8 5.8 0.0822 0.354 0.0291
Loam to clay 32.87 6.2 0.243 0.0200
Sandy loam to clay loam 26.50 5.0 0.206 0.0169
Gravelly clay loam to gravelly clay 364.37 69.0 0.201 0.0165
Landuse/landcover Vegetation 330.9 63.0 0.071 0.273 0.0194
Built-up area 140.3 26.7 0.198 0.0141
Others 34.5 6.6 0.186 0.0132
Waterbody 19.3 3.7 0.351 0.0249

moderately undulating terrain valley fills have contributed good
groundwater potential zones whereas lateritic terrain has been assigned
with moderate potential to groundwater (Dinesh Kumar et al., 2007).
Good to very good potential of the valley fills are due to its topo­
graphical settings at the bottom of the hill and geological composition
consisting of highly porous materials. The other landforms such as water
bodies and Residual Hills covers an area of 22.41 km2 (4.27%) and 10.33
km2 (1.97%) respectively. The residual hills are poor in groundwater
occurrence, therefore, least rating is allocated (Fig. 3).
Another important parameter which is directly influencing ground­
water occurrence is slope gradient. The surface water runoff through the
nearly flat to gentle slope terrain (0–5%) is very slow, allowing more
residents time for rainwater to percolate and enhances the rate of
infiltration. Therefore Urban and peri-urban zones of the study area fall
in very good category for groundwater storage. The areas with 5–25%
slope terrain were consist of rolling lateritic hills and valley fills covered
an area of 39% of the total area. This slightly undulating topography
allows some run-off and consequently moderate infiltration rate in the
terrain, hence moderate ratings for groundwater storage. The slope re­
gion of >25% of the category consists of steep slope terrain with less
infiltration and enhanced high surface runoff, thus with a low potential
for groundwater occurrence (Arulbalaji et al., 2019) (Fig. 4).
4.1.2. Hydrologic indicators
Drainage density is an expression of the closeness of spacing of
channels and it is expressed as length of stream within a square grid of
the area in km/km2 (Strahler, 1957). As groundwater recharge is
directly related to the drainage density, the study region with higher
drainage density (>5 km/km2) was given the lowest possible ground­
water assessment ranking and vice versa. High density areas are not
suitable for groundwater potential due to increased surface runoff. The
area with a low level of drainage density (i.e. 0.06–2 km/km2), reduces
surface runoff while increasing infiltration and thus recharge of
groundwater (Fig. 5). The prominent directions of the lineaments are
NW and NE and it ranges from 0 to 4.6 km/km2. Since the intersection of
lineaments and lineaments parallel to the drainage network areas is
proof of the movement and storage of groundwater, the lineament
density pattern of the region may indirectly reveal the groundwater
potential (Rao et al., 2001). The frequency of the lineament density in
the geographical region is directly proportional to the occurrence of the
groundwater in the field. Most of the study area with a lineament density
range of 0–0.5 km/km2 and it was assigned least ratings in groundwater
potential assessment scores. Isolated patches in both urban and
peri-urban areas of the study region have a linear density level > 2
km/km2, hence the highest ranking (Fig. 6).
Urban and peri-urban aquifers of the study area consist of four major
soil types viz. sandy clay loam, loam to clay, Sandy loam to clay loam
and gravelly clay loam to gravelly clay. The coastal plain covered with
alluvial soil characterized by sandy loam and sandy loam texture. Low
water holding capacity (sand content-80 per cent) of this soil and
excessive draining with moderately rapid to rapid permeability generate
a significant infiltration rate and are therefore very good for water po­
tential. Lateritic soil with gravelly clay loam to gravelly clay textured
soil occupied in the majority of areas marked by well-drained, relatively
slow permeability. The groundwater potential of this soil group is
therefore moderate to poor. Groundwater potential of the area increases
with increase in proximity to surface water bodies. Based on the prox­
imity to surface water bodies, study area can be categorized into three
classes such as (a) <50 m, (b) 50–100 m, and (c) >100 m and which are
covers 10.7%, 2.1% and 87.2% the area respectively. Areas within <50

9
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466

Fig. 8. Groundwater potential map of Urban peri-urban cluster.

Table 2
Areal distribution of groundwater potential zones of urban-peri-urban ensemble.
Groundwater potential Zones Area

Urban Peri-urban

Poor 5.85 km2 (2.76%) 62.04 km2 (19.81%)

Moderate 67.50 km2 (31.83%) 158.32 km2 (50.56%)
Good 65.76 km2 (31.01%) 60.77 km2 (19.40%)
Very Good 72.95 km2 (34.40%) 32.03 km2 (10.23%)

m class assigned high ratings and with the decrease in proximity to

surface water bodies such as 50–100 m and >100 m were assigned with
moderate and east ratings in groundwater potential assessments (Fig. 7).
Fig. 9. Validation analysis of groundwater potential zones with depth to
waterlevel data.

10
N.P. Jesiya and G. Gopinath
4.1.3. Anthropogenic factors
Anthropogenic activities have a significant impact on the hydrolog­
ical properties of the geographical landscape and changes in land use
can be interpreted as indicators for anthropogenic activities. Land use
classes have a direct influence on changes on soil properties including
infiltration capability, surface runoff, evapotranspiration and ground­
water recharge (Dinesh Kumar et al., 2007). Since the spatial change in
urban extent and imperviousness in differently developing areas were
dynamic, fuzzy-AHP endowed a significant platform to predict the hy­
drological changes.
Built-up land, including commercial/residential areas, has been
occupied an area of 140 km2 (7.43%) which causes a decrease in the
infiltration rate and therefore adversely affects the recharge of the
groundwater regime. Vegetation class in the study area were included
croplands (coconut, rubber, and other crops), mixed trees and forest
area which together covered an area of 330.9 km2. Vegetation land has
been assigned a moderate rating in the study because the rate of infil­
tration is directly proportional to the vegetation cover, i.e. the increase
in the vegetation cover will result in more infiltration and less runoff
(Jesiya and Gopinath, 2019b). Fallow land, mining/industrial wasteland
and barren rocky area came under ‘others’ landuse/landcover class and
covered an area of 34.5 km2. Water bodies and river channel were
assigned with the highest rating whereas built-up land, Fallow land and
mining/industrial wasteland were assigned with least ratings in
groundwater potential assessment (Table 1).
4.1.4. Delineation of groundwater potential zones
Geomorphological characteristics, geological structures, slope
shapes, soil texture, lineaments, drainage network and land-use/land-
cover changes play a key role in the evolution of the hydrogeological
conditions of the basin, thereby determining the potential groundwater
areas. Fuzzy dependent AHP approach was efficiently used to fuzzify
fully organized decision-making issues with these criteria and its sub-
criteria. A clear and transparent way of AHP logic essentially aggre­
gates criteria and sub-criteria to a single hierarchical stage and imple­
ments a complete integral framework for evaluating decision-making
indices. Integration of resultant weightages in corresponding thematic
layers followed by overlay analysis enables to evaluate groundwater
potential map of the study area for sustainable groundwater
management.
The groundwater potential zone of the study area divided into four
classes such as very good, good, moderate and poor zone (Fig. 8). The
very good potential zone occupied 34% and 10% of urban and peri-
urban zones of the study area respectively. Gentle slope gradient with
coastal alluvium formation, sandy loam to sandy clay texture soil type
with moderate to rapid permeability favours aquifer recharge in these
zones, thereby very high potential zone. Since rainfall is the main source
of groundwater recharge in both the urban and peri-urban ensemble,
high recharge index in this very high potential zone confirms the
occurrence of groundwater. Open Dug wells are suitable for water col­
lecting structures for the shallow very good potential zones. While the
urban region is treated separately, factors such as geology, geo­
morphology, slope, soil composition, and drainage and lineament pat­
terns differentiate the region by moderate to very strong groundwater
capacity (Table 2). Moderate to steep sloping terrain along with lateritic
plateau, patches of residual hills together contribute moderate ground­
water potential in peri-urban zone (50.6% of the peri-urban area). Steep
slope gradients, low linear density and weathered rocks and poor
permeable soil conditions together will diminish the active function of
high rainfall in potential groundwater recharge zones. The undulating
midland terrain leads variation in aquifer recharge, hence affect
groundwater flow direction, evapotranspiration, etc. Consequently, 3%
of urban and 19.8% of peri-urban areas of the study region have a low
groundwater potential level. The spatial data of the aquifer vulnerability
analysis using modified DRASTIC-L method which is discussed in a
previous study (Jesiya and Gopinath, 2019b) correlated with
11
Groundwater for Sustainable Development 11 (2020) 100466
groundwater potential analysis was depicted that very good ground­
water potential zones of the urban and peri-urban areas were vulnerable
to contamination from water pollutants.
The GWPZ was validated using average depth to water level (in
mbgl) collected from the field investigation by taking advantage of its
spatial relationships. The validation study showed that the very good
groundwater potential region dominated by wells with an average depth
of 3.9 mbgl and a shallow water level in the region indicated a high
water yield. The corresponding average water level of poor, moderate
and good potential zones is 7.4, 5.6 and 5 mbgl, respectively (Fig. 9).
5. Conclusion
The paper presents an index-based framework through a fuzzy–AHP-
GIS technique to tackle fully organized decision-making problems, i.e.
the groundwater potential assessment of two distinct urbanized areas.
The fuzzy-AHP approach used in the study effectively integrated
groundwater controlling criteria and sub-criteria to a unique hierar­
chical level and applied a complete integral method for comparing geo-
environmental features. The concise findings have shown that the fuzzy
– AHP paradigm significantly helps to emphasize not only hydrody­
namics but also the incorporation of human interventions in urban and
peri-urban zones of districts of Kozhikode to demonstrate the func­
tioning of the aquifer system. A judgment is drawn from the Fuzzy-AHP
of linguistically articulated preferences between parameters shown that
the geomorphology followed by slope was of the highest importance in
GWPZ decision-making. As a result of the difference in GW potential, the
study area was divided into four areas, such as very good, good, mod­
erate and poor. Majority of peri-urban zone was characterized by poor to
moderate GWPZ owing to its hydrogeological and topographical char­
acteristics. Despite that 65% of the urban area was characterized by
good to very good GWPZ, the intense urban activities, along with the
hydrogeological settings in the area, trigger the contaminant attenua­
tion of the GW system.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to the Executive Director, CWRDM (Centre
for Water Resources Development and Management), Kozhikode, Ker­
ala, India and Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Envi­
ronment (KSCSTE), Kerala, India for the facilities provided to prepare
this manuscript.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.gsd.2020.100466.
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