Groundwater Potential Zone Mapping with an Integrated Approach of AHP and GIS Techniques for Koraiyar Basin, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India

The overexploitation of groundwater resources and the obvious effects of climate change are putting the world's water supplies under tremendous strain. Evaluating groundwater potential and aquifer productivity is more critical than ever before due to the growing need for drinkable water for people, farms, and factories. Due to its speed and ability to give first-hand knowledge on the resource for future developments, GIS-based studies have lately become quite popular in groundwater research. The purpose of this research is, thus, to identify the groundwater potential. The present investigation made use of a GIS in tandem with the analytical hierarchical process (AHP) method. Lithospheric, geomorphological, land use/cover, lineament density, drainage density, rainfall, soil, and slope were the eight thematic layers that were produced and researched in order to define the groundwater potential zone. Each class in thematic maps is given a weight based on its attributes and water potential capacity, as estimated by the AHP technique. As a result, the groundwater potential zone map was categorized into five levels: very high, high, moderate, low, and very low. A medium groundwater potential zone spanning 180.28 km2 of the river basin was determined by the research. The low groundwater potential zone covers 140.44 km2 and the high groundwater potential zone 117.39 km2. Within the basin, there are 127.57 km2 of territory classified as having very low potential and 97.49 km2 as having very high potential.