Yogesh P. Badhe¹, Rajaram H. Choudhar^2,, Tushar P. Raut³

Groundwater is a significant source of drinking and agricultural activities. Attributed to the prevalence of various geomorphology, climatic, hydro-chemical, and geological formations, groundwater behavior on the Indian subcontinent is exceedingly difficult. Geo-spatial technologies have emerged as one of the most powerful tools in groundwater research, which helps to assess, monitor and conserve groundwater resources. The Karha river basin is a left-bank tributary of the Nira River which is a tributary of Bhima River basin located in Pune district, Maharashtra, India. A study was performed to understand the groundwater potential zones (GPZ) in the Karha river basin. Various criteria or constraints like Geomorphology, slope, geology, drainage density, lineament density, land use land cover, and soil texture are taken into consideration and the thematic maps were generated with geospatial technology and transformed into raster format. Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method statistical weights were used to superimpose all of the thematic layers using the weighted overlay approach. The final map of the groundwater potential zone was prepared by assigning suitable weightage to different criteria to understand the groundwater potential zone. The prepared map will help to a systematic development of groundwater resources in this area to meet the increasing water demand for various anthropogenic activities.

Karha river basin, groundwater, potential zones, DVP, AHP, ArcGIS 10.3