Remote Sensing/GIS Application For groundwater prospecting in Potwar Plateau, Pakistan

Abstract The groundwater potential zone (GWPZ) mapping is fundamental target in urbanization and socio-economic development as well as environmental protection of an area. The delineation of fresh groundwater and saline water boundaries is a very crucial in water scarcity areas. Conventionally, geophysical survey is conducted for this objective, which is expensive and time consuming. Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan – a part of the Potwar Plateau – belongs to water scare area where sustainable supply of fresh water is very challenging. Remote Sensing (RS)/GIS techniques are applied for GWPZ in the study area comprised of 6,000 km2. Geology, land use/ land cover (LULC), slope, lineament density, geomorphology, rainfall, drainage density, soil type thematic maps were prepared using geological information, rainfall data and Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission Digital Elevation Model (SRTM DEM). The analytical hierarchical process (AHP) multi-decision making analysis indicate that the weights of multiple parameters influence the GWPZ vary from 0.36–0.02 with LULC receives maximum weightage and soil type with minimum weightage. Based on these thematic maps GWPZ map was prepared and the whole area under investigation was classified into five groundwater potential zones ranging from very poor to very good. The study reveals about 50% of the entire total surface territory having good to very good potential for groundwater prospecting and around 20% area falls in poor to very poor zone. Due to the distribution of surficial, stream deposits and agricultural area with water penetration capacity, the very good GWPZ are dominating in the south and northwestern areas in the research region.