Assessment of groundwater suitability using remote sensing and GIS: a case study of Western Rajasthan, India

Abstract

The overexploitation of natural freshwater resources has been observed in recent years, leading not only to a depletion of the groundwater table but also to degradation in the groundwater quality. This situation is more serious in the arid to hyper-arid regions. To ensure sustainable management of groundwater, it is essential to investigate the improved mechanism for the integrated use of groundwater for rural and urban communities. With the fast advancement in the area of remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS), it has now become possible to make an estimate of the Earth’s resources with high accuracy both spatially and temporally. The current study attempts to describe potential zones of the availability of groundwater and its quality status based upon the water quality parameters’ spatial distribution by applying a GIS approach integrated with remote sensing technique. All suitable data has been created by developing thematic layers of critical parameters such as rainfall, land use, soil map, slope, land cover, drainage density, and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) using Landsat 8 imagery from Earth Explorer, United State Geological Survey (USGS), and other conventional datasets. Groundwater maps have been prepared using GIS by keeping in view the relative importance of thematic layers. The outcomes of the study will allow users to identify, visualize, understand, assess, and analyze the suitability of groundwater quality as well as quantity.