Abstract
The growing demand for food is the key player for the over-exploitation of groundwater for agriculture in many parts of the globe, which is manifested with a rapid decline in the water table. Without any focus on artificial recharge, over-exploitation of groundwater for irrigation is a common practice in the Kantamal catchment of the Mahanadi river basin, which is prone to frequent droughts. In this research, a GIS-based multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach was employed to delineate the potential groundwater recharge sites. The thematic layers influencing groundwater recharge including lithology, geomorphology, lineament density, slope, soil texture, drainage density, soil hydraulic conductivity, land use/land cover, rainfall and pre-monsoon groundwater depths were used to identify the suitable recharge areas. Based on the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), different weights were allocated to the themes and their features. The delineated groundwater recharge zones are categorised as: very good, good, moderate and poor zones. It is observed that 27% of the catchment has very good and 38% has good groundwater recharge potential. Moderate and poor recharge zones cover 26% and 9% of the catchment, respectively. The groundwater recharge zones were validated using observed dynamic groundwater data of existing well points. The recharge zones having very good, good, moderate and poor groundwater potential showed 67%, 57.6%, 42.1% and 55.5% matching with the areas having very good, good, moderate and poor dynamic groundwater potential, respectively. The study suggests the imposition of restrictions on anthropogenic activities in these potential recharge areas and the installation of appropriate groundwater recharge structures for ensuring sustainable groundwater recharge.
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All the data used in this study are available with the author(s).
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ArcGIS software has been used in this study, which is available with ESRI.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their sincere thanks to the National Remote Sensing Centre (ISRO), Hyderabad; Central Groundwater Board, Bhubaneswar; Special Relief Commissioner (SRC), Government of Odisha; National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS & LUP), Nagpur; and Geological Survey of India (GSI) for providing necessary data and information that made this study possible. Necessary hardware and software support received from the College of Agricultural Engineering & Technology, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar, is sincerely acknowledged.
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Nayak, D., Das, D.M., Raul, S.K. et al. Delineation of Potential Groundwater Recharge Zones in the Middle Reach of Mahanadi River Basin using GIS-Based MCDM Technique. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 51, 1465–1478 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-023-01708-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-023-01708-x