Mapping of Groundwater Potential Zones and Artificial Recharge Structures Using Rmote Sensing and GIS: A Case Study of Bichhiya River Basin, India

Abstract Water plays a crucial role in the functioning of modern, developed and developing society, is essential for sustenance of life. Proper water resource management and protection are brought difficulties by population increase, rising demand on water and land resources due to competitive consumption, and degradation of restricted water resources in many regions of the world. Besides adequate rainfall, the study area experiences a water shortage for drinking and irrigation throughout the summer months. To address these issue groundwater potential zones of the study area has been carried out. Groundwater potential zones are delineated using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS). The purpose of study was to delineate groundwater potential zones in Bichhiya river sub basin, Central India and to find the relevant aspects that influence the availability of groundwater resources. The study examined the impact of seven factors on groundwater recharge, including geology, geomorphology, land use and land cover, lineament density, drainage density, slope, and soil type. Spatially distributed maps/thematic layers of all the aforementioned criteria were constructed in a GIS context utilizing both remotely sensed and ground truth data. The weights and characteristics of the thematic layers were then normalized using the AHP approach. Groundwater potential zones are delineated and interpreted according to appropriate assigned weights; the zones are divided into high (29.25%), moderate (55.80%) and low (14.94%) groundwater potential zones. The results reflect that geospatial approaches may be important tools for planning and managing surface and subsurface water resources. The outcome of the research work is validated by randomly picking 50 dug wells from the study area using a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. The Area under the ROC Curve (AUC) value of the data comes 0.821 indicating better accuracy of the result. These findings will help researchers and stakeholders to locate appropriate locations with the potential for groundwater. To manage groundwater resources, numerous artificial recharge structures are proposed. Overall, the results show that remote sensing and GIS have the potential to be significant tools for better planning and management of the water resources of the area. This is a reliable strategy for investigating groundwater resources in inaccessible places which might be used to manage groundwater resources more effectively.