A GIS and Remote Sensing based Evaluation of Groundwater Potential Zones in a Hard Rock Terrain of Vaigai Sub-basin, India
Arabian Journal of Geosciences, Published Online 11 January 2012
Prabu Pothiraj and Baskaran Rajagopalan
“In this paper, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and fieldwork techniques were combined to study the groundwater conditions in Vaigai basin, Tamilnadu. Several digital image processing techniques, including standard color composites, intensity–hue–saturation transformation and decorrelation stretch were applied to map rock types. Remote sensing data were interpreted to produce lithological and lineament maps such as geology, geomorphology, soil hydrological group, land use/land cover and drainage map were prepared and analyzed using GIS Arc Map GIS Raster Calculator module as geomorphology × 12 + drainage × 9 + lineament × 5 + geology × 8 + land use × 2 + relief × 4. The final cumulative map generated by applying the above equation had weight values ranging from 0.315 to 4.515. The overall results demonstrate that the use of remote sensing and GIS provide potentially powerful tools to study groundwater resources and design a suitable exploration plan, the thematic maps for the study area.”
