Photonirvachak
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessment of Groundwater Potential Zones using GIS Technique
M. Nagarajan . Sujit Singh
Received: 15 July 2008 / Accepted: 11 March 2009
Keywords ArcGIS . Groundwater . Weighted overlay . Thematic maps
Abstract A case study was conducted to find out
the groundwater potential zones in Kattakulathur
block, Tamil Nadu, India with an aerial extent of
360.60 km2. The thematic maps such as geology,
geomorphology, soil hydrological group, land use /
land cover and drainage map were prepared for the
study area. The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) has
been generated from the 10 m interval contour lines
(which is derived from SOI, Toposheet 1:25000 scale)
and obtained the slope (%) of the study area. The
M. Nagarajan (
)1 . S. Singh2 respectively. The potential zone wise study area was
1
School of Civil Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering & Technology,
SRM University,
Kattankulathur, Chennai – 603 203, Tamil Nadu, India
2
School of Civil Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering & Technology,
SRM University,
Kattankulathur, Chennai – 603 203, Tamil Nadu, India
email : nagaswce@gmail.com
123
groundwater potential zones were obtained by
overlaying all the thematic maps in terms of weighted
overlay methods using the spatial analysis tool in
ArcGIS 9.2. During weighted overlay analysis, the
ranking has been given for each individual
parameter of each thematic map and weights were
assigned according to the influence such as soil –
25%, geomorphology – 25%, land use/land cover –
25%, slope – 15%, lineament – 5% and drainage /
streams – 5% and find out the potential zones in
terms of good, moderate and poor zones with the
area of 49.70 km 2 , 261.61 km 2 and 46.04 km 2
overlaid with village boundary map and the village
wise groundwater potential zones with three
categories such as good, moderate and poor zones
were obtained. This GIS based output result was
validated by conducting field survey by randomly
selecting wells in different villages using GPS
instruments. The coordinates of each well location
were obtained by GPS and plotted in the GIS platform
and it was clearly shown that the well coordinates
were exactly seated with the classified zones.
70
Introduction
General
Groundwater is a dynamic and replenishing natural
resource. But in hard rock terrains, availability of
groundwater is of limited extent. Occurrence of
groundwater in such rocks is essentially confined to
fractured and weathered horizons. Poor knowledge
about this resource, because of its hidden in
nature and its occurrence in complex subsurface
formations, has been and is still a big obstacle to
the efficient management of this important resource.
In India, 65 per cent of the total geographical area is
covered by hard rock formations with low porosity
(less than 5 per cent) and very low permeability
(10-1 to 10-5 m/day) (Saraf and Choudhary, 1998).
Therefore, efficient management and planning of
groundwater in these areas is of utmost importance.
An extensive hydro geological investigation is
required for thorough understanding of the
groundwater conditions. In the latest development,
the central government’s cabinet committee on
economic affairs gave its approval on 15.11.2007 for
a subsidy based scheme on “Artificial Recharge of
Ground water through Dug wells” in hard rock areas
at a total cost of Rs 1871.10 crores. It envisages
groundwater recharge programme in 1180 over-
exploited, critical and semi critical units through 4.45
million existing irrigation dug wells owned by the
farmers. The scheme will be implemented over three
years in the XI plan period till 2010 (Anonymous,
2007).
The Remote Sensing and GIS tools have opened
new paths in water resources studies. Remote
sensing provides multi-spectral, multi-temporal
and multi-sensor data of the earth’s surface
(Choudhury et al., 2003). One of the greatest advan-
tages of using remote sensing and GIS for hydro-
logical investigations and monitoring is its ability to
generate information in spatial and temporal domain,
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77
which is very crucial for successful analysis, predic-
tion and validation (Sarma and Saraf, 2002).
Materials and methods
Location of study area
The Kattankulathur block is bounded on the North
by St. Thomas Mount block, North West by
Walajabad block, South west by Uttiramerur block,
South by Thirukalukkundram block, East by
Thiruporur block. The block lies at latitude of 12º 40’
to 12º 55’ N and longitude 79º 55’ to 80º10’E with an
areal extent of 366.60 km2. The block is covered in
survey of India toposheet 66D/1 and 66D/5.
Spatial data
Survey of India topomaps, village-wise map, soil
map, Land use/Land cover map, Drainage map and
Geology and Geomorphology maps were used in the
analysis.
Physiographic characteristics
Soil: The soils of the study area fall in A, B, C and
D Soil hydrological groups. The B type soil, which
is of clay loam, is the predominant soil found in the
study area followed by C and then A and C.
Land use: Twelve types of land use patterns were
identified in the entire study area, which includes
agricultural plantations, crop land, fallow or
harvested land, built-up land, upland with or without
scrub, salt pan, mining/Industrial wasteland, sand/
Inland coastal, hills/stony wasteland, degraded
forest, dense forest and water bodies.
Geology and Geomorphology: The types of geo-
morphological features were found to be pediment,
inselbergs, buried pediment shallow, buried pediment
deep, residual hills, sedimentary plains and flood
plains respectively.
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77 71

Preparation of thematic maps
The following maps were scanned, geo-referenced,
subsetted and digitized the study area using ArcGIS
9.2.
1) Drainage base map 2) Soil map 3) Land use/
Land cover map 4) Village-wise map 5) Geology and
Geomorphology 6) DEM and Slope (%).
DEM and slope (%)
The DEM was generated through 10 m contour lines
which were obtained from SOI topomaps (1:25,000).
The slope (%) was derived from DEM.
GIS database development
The features of the study area such as topography,
soil type, land use pattern and drainage pattern,
Geology and Geomorphology were obtained and
thematic maps were prepared and generated the
attributes for each thematic map were generated. All
the thematic maps were superimposed by weighted
overlay method using spatial analysis tool.
Assessment of groundwater potential zones
The groundwater potential zones were obtained by
overlaying all the thematic maps in terms of weighted
overlay methods using the spatial analysis tool in
ArcGIS 9.2. During the weighted overlay analysis,
the ranking has been given for each individual
parameter of each thematic map and the weightage
were assigned according to the influence of the
different parameters and was presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Rank and weightage of different parameters for Groundwater potential zones

Sl. Criteria Classes Rank Weights

no. (%)
flood plain, sedimentary plain 1
1 Geomorphology 25
buried pediments (shallow, deep) 2
Isenberg, pediment complex 3
agricultural plantation, cropland 1
2 Land use degraded forest, fallow harvested land, upland with or
2
without scrub 25
built up land, hill/barren rock/stone waste/sheet rock,
mining/industrial waste/effluents, salt pan, salt affected land 3

3 Hydrological A 1
soil group B 2 25
C, D 3
4 Slope 0-20 1
20-50 2 15
>50 3
5 Lineament present 1
5
not present 3
6 Drainage First order 1
Second order 2 5
Third order 3
72 J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77

Collection of Maps

SOI Toposheet Village base map

Land use, soil,
Geomorphology,
watershed map
Geo-referencing and
Digitization to base map

Contour map Thematic/Vector map

Raster map
DEM

GIS data base

Slope map

Criteria definition, Composite,

Assigning weightage

GIS overlay analysis

Groundwater potential zones

Village boundary map Village wise groundwater

potential zones Validation

Fig. 1 Methodology steps.

Result and discussions Soil hydrological group

Village-wise map of the study area
In the study area, consist of 95 villages and the total
geographical area of the block was found to be 366.60
km2. Out of 95 villages the maximum and minimum
geographical area were found to be Palur (23.75 km2)
and Edayankodumaithangal (0.151 km2) respectively.
The village wise map is depicted in Fig. 2.
Out of four soil hydrological groups, ‘B’ is the
predominant soil group (223.63 km2) and followed by
‘C’ (76.99 km2), ‘A’ (56.83 km2) and ‘D’ (9.16 km2) soil
hydrological group. Based on the four types of soil
hydrological group the study area consist of
moderate (‘B’) infiltration and runoff potential zones
as shown in Fig. 3.
J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77
Fig. 2 Village wise map in the study area.
Land use pattern map
The land use map is depicted in Fig. 4. There are
twelve types of land use patterns identified in the
entire study area namely Agricultural plantations
(12.74 km 2), Crop land (91.78 km 2), Fallow or
Harvested land (55.69 km2), Built-up land (20.84
km2), Upland with or without scrub (27.01 km2), Salt
pan (0.25 km2), Mining/Industrial wasteland (0.93
km2), Sand/Inland coastal (0.43 km2), Hills/Stony
wasteland (5.81 km2), Degraded forest (89.22 km2),
Dense forest (0.55 km2) and water bodies (51.96 km2)
respectively. Agricultural, Forest and Water bodies
are the predominant land use types in the study area.
Geology and geomorphology
There are eight types of geomorphologic features
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Fig. 3 Map of soil hydrological group.
were found in the study area. The predominant geo-
morphological features were found to be buried
pediments deep with an areal extent of 133.60 km2,
followed to be inselberg complex (70.48 km2), buried
pediments shallow (48.82 km2), pediment (36.45 km2),
flood plain & residual hill (each 35.811 km2) and
finally inselberg covered minimum area of 2.66 km2
(Fig. 5).
Digital elevation model and slope (%)
From the contour lines (10 m interval) the DEM
was generated and depicted in Fig. 6. The slope (%)
was derived from DEM and percentage of slope was
found to be 1 to 90 %. More than 70% of the area
will be covered less than 20% slope (as shown in
Fig. 7).
74 J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77

Fig. 4 Land use/Land cover map. Fig. 5 Geomorphology map.

Fig. 6 Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Fig. 7 Slope map (%).

J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77
Groundwater potential zoning
All the thematic maps were converted into grid
(raster format) and superimposed by weighted
overlay method (rank and weightage wise thematic
maps). From the analysis the groundwater potential
zones in-terms of good, moderate and poor zones
with the area of 49.70 km2, 261.61 km2 & 46.04 km2
respectively (Fig. 8) were obtained. The output
groundwater potential zone map overlaid with Village-
wise map and the groundwater potential zones in
terms of village wise with good, moderate and poor
zones classifications were obtained. Out of 95
villages more than 70 villages have all this three
type of zones. Only 10 villages have moderate and
poor zones and 5 villages having only poor zones.
Fig. 8 Groundwater potential zones.
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Model validation
The village-wise groundwater potential zone maps
were validated by hand-held GPS instruments. The
field study was conducted in the study area, to
check the three different zones. The three zones
wise wells were identified in randomly selected
village and found the groundwater level depth in
each zones. the groundwater level depth were
found to be normally 10 – 20 ft in good zones, 20 –
40 ft in moderate zones and >50 ft in poor zones. The
co-ordinates were collected using GPS in all the
selected wells and incorporated in village wise
groundwater potential zones map as depicted in
Figs. 9-12.
Fig. 9 Village-wise groundwater potential zones.
76 J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77

Fig. 10 Validation for good potential zones.

Fig. 11 Validation for moderate potential zones.

J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens. (March 2009) 37:69–77
Fig. 12 Validation for poor potential zones.
Conclusions
The ground water potential zones have been derived
for the entire Kattankulathur block and it has been
divided into three categories as good, moderate and
poor zones. Also obtained the village wise ground-
water potential zones with the same three
classifications and found out the each classified
zone areas in each village.
Acknowledgement The author wish to record
deep sense of gratitude to R. Annadurai, C.P.
Shanmuganathan and Sathyanathan for their support
in study. The author thankful to Nigam and Cefil
Mathew for suggestions and contributions made
during the project.
77
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