Assessment of Ground Water Potentiality by using GIS and AHP based Multi-criteria Decision Making: Case Study in Noamundi area, Jharkhand

Abstract In the present era, due to immense demand and excessive exploitation, ground water is thriving depletion and stress. Sustainable groundwater management and development is essential for the green revolution and industrialization through scientific and modern quantitative techniques. The integrated geographical information system (GIS) based analytical hierarchy process (AHP) of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) technique is adopted to establish the importance of ground water influencing factors. In the present study eight groundwater influencing parameters viz. geology/lithology, geomorphology, lineament density, drainage density, slope, soil permeability, land use/land cover and rainfall have been used to assess ground water potential zone (GWPZ).An appropriate weight was assigned for each factor/parameter based on 9 point scale of Saaty and the weights were normalized by AHP and eigenvector method with standard value (0.000000085) of continuity ratio (CR). The Noamundi area of Jharkhand has been selected as a projected area for the study. In accordance with MCDA's GIS based AHP model, five GWPZs have been categorized in the projected area comprising very good (2.07%), good (15.15%), moderate (41.18%), poor (39.37%) and very poor (2.24%) GWPZ. Finally, the results have been validated with randomly scattered existing groundwater table and yield data (open dug well, Bore well, rig well and tube well).