Geospatial technique for delineation of groundwater potential zones in mine and dense forest area using weighted index overlay technique

In the present study, groundwater potential zones for the assessment of groundwater availability in Samij sub-basin, which lies in Tensa valley of Sunderghar district, Odisha were established with the integration of remote sensing and geographical information system support. Delineation of potential groundwater zones in the study area was done using the IRS-LISS III, Cartosat-I satellite data of 30m resolution and Survey of India toposheets. Various thematic layers viz., geomorphology, slope, land-use, lineament density, drainage density, and soil map generated in this study were transformed to raster data using the feature to raster converter tool in ArcGIS 9.3. The integration of all the thematic maps results into five groundwater potential zones: poor, moderate, good, very good, and excellent. Further, the weighted range for various groundwater potential zones was categorized as excellent (7.10–8.00), very good (6.1–7.0), good (5.1–6.0), moderate (4.1–5.0), and poor (0.0–4.0). The results were compared with the vertical electrical sounding survey data for ground truth cross-verification. The results showed that the study area falls within the range of ‘moderate to good’ groundwater potential zones, which accounts for about 75% of the total study area.