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IDENTIFICATION OF PROBABLE ZONES OF GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL FOR A

PART OF MEHADRIGEDDA RESERVOIR CATCHMENT, VISAKHAPATNAM, INDIA -

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH OF REMOTE SENSING AND GIS

T. VENKATESWARA RAO, D. RAM PRASAD NAIK & V. VENKATESWARA RAO

Department of Geo-Engineering, A.U. College of Engineering (A), Andhra University, Visakhapatnam,

Andhra Pradesh, India

ABSTRACT

Groundwater, being a limited renewable resource, could not able to be sustain to the urban requirements and the

over exploitation of it falls into the mining stage. The study discussed the need to have the knowledge of existing

groundwater scenario for its proper management. The use of high resolution satellite imagery, in preparing land use/cover

and hydrogeomorphology maps, has played an important role in groundwater prospecting. The characteristics of different

units in the thematic maps were analyzed in the context of groundwater availability. The integration of thematic maps was

carried out in a GIS environment with high degree of spatial accuracy. The result revealed the probable zones of

groundwater potential, from very good to poor, useful for designing the sustainable developmental plans.

KEYWORDS: Remote Sensing, GIS, Land Use/Cover, Hydrogeomorphology, Slope, Soil and Groundwater

INTRODUCTION

As part of the water cycle, some precipitation in filtrates the ground and percolates down until it reaches a depth

where all the fractures and pore spaces are saturated with water. In this saturated zone – called an aquifer – the water is

called groundwater. The urban areas in most parts of India, the population engaged in residential, industrial, agricultural,

transport and service activities is placing increasing pressure on water resources.

Overuse of groundwater can cause temporary or permanent declines in the quantity of available groundwater.

During 1970s and 80s groundwater was explored through 5 to 10 m deep open wells in the plain topography where the

elevation is less than 20 m. Presently the groundwater is being drawn from 50 to 80 m deep bore wells in the same area,

showing the decline in the water table from shallow to deeper aquifer zone (Rao B.S.P and Venkateswara Rao, 1991). Most

of such bore wells are also dried up during the drought year 2002, which is a severe threat to the groundwater resource in

the urban areas. Hence an attempt is made in this study to map the probable zones of groundwater potential, by integrating

the land use/cover, hydrogeomorphology, slope and soil parameters.

STUDY AREA

The study area lies between 170 46' 00'' N to 17

0 49' 00'' N latitudes and 83

0 11' 30'' E to 83

0 14' 45'' E longitudes

covering an aerial extent of 17.15 km2. It is a part of Survey of India (SOI) toposheet – 65 O/1 SE of 1:25,000 scale and is

within the administrative boundaries of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh

(Figure 1). The area falls under semi-arid type of climate and the average annual rainfall is 1184 mm and there is high

variation with minimum annual rainfall of 585 mm recorded during year 2002 to a maximum of 1680 mm recorded during

the year 2006.

International Journal of Civil, Structural,

Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering

Research and Development (IJCSEIERD)

ISSN 2249-6866

Vol. 3, Issue 2, June 2013, 175-184

© TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

176 T. Venkateswara Rao, D. Ram Prasad Naik & V. Venkateswara Rao

Figure 1: Location Map of the Study Area

METHODOLOGY

Thematic Mapping

The term “Remote Sensing” usually refers to the gathering and processing of information about the earth’s

environment particularly its natural and cultural resources through the use of sensing systems and related data acquired

from space through aircraft or satellite platforms (Ralph, 1978; Suits, 1983; Jensen, 1986; Lillisand et al., 1987;). The

science of remote sensing provides the instruments and theory to understand how objects and phenomena can be detected.

Hence, remote sensing became a powerful tool to solve some of the problems of management of natural resources which

are important for any country’s economy. Various thematic maps used in the present study are created in GIS environment

which includes –land use / cover, hydrogeomorphology, slope and soils.

Land Use / Cover

The term land use relates to the human activity associated with a specific piece of land and the term land cover

relates to the type of feature present on the earth surface, say buildings, agricultural lands, etc. Since the land use more or

less, reflects the human adjustments to the physical conditions, mapping of the existing land use / cover forms an important

aspect in understanding the nature and resource potential of any region.

Though much attention has recently been given to the development of more advanced classification algorithms,

including neural network, contextual, object-oriented, and knowledge-based classification approaches (Thomas et al.,

1993; Stuckens et al., 2000; Zhang and Foody, 2001; Zhang and Wang, 2003), urban land-use/cover classification is still a

challenge with medium or coarse spatial resolution remotely sensed data due to the large number of mixed pixels and the

spectral confusions among different land use / land cover types (Cracknell, 1998 and Fisher, 1997). In the present study

Identification of Probable Zones of Groundwater Potential for a Part of Mehadrigedda Reservoir 177

Catchment, Visakhapatnam, India – An Integrated Approach of Remote Sensing and GIS

land use / cover has been delineated by visual interpretation of high resolution QUICKBIRD satellite imagery and shown

in Figure 2. During visual interpretation tonal variation (spectral / tone / texture) and geometric boundaries in the study

area along with field observations are considered. The identified land use / land cover features are agriculture lands, built-

up area, hills, uplands with / without scrub, shrubs, Plantation, fallow land and water bodies.

Hydrogeomorphology

Geomorphology, as the Greek roots of the word indicate, is the science of landforms. Its object is the study of the

appearance and behavior of the lithosphere, the earth's solid crust (Tricart, 1972). In a more restrictive sense,

geomorphology is the science of those surface features whose shape is determined by the action of exogenetic processes

i.e. of processes which originate outside the solid earth (Scheidegger, 1961). Hydrogeomorphology on the other hand, is

the study of landforms in the context of groundwater investigations. As landforms serve as indicators of the possible

existence or otherwise of ground water, mapping of what are termed as hydrogeomorphological features, facilitates

demarcation of ground water potential zones.

For the preparation of this map, high resolution QUICKBIRD satellite imagery is used. Interpretation of satellite

imagery has revealed geomorphic features such as denudational hills, pediment zones and buried pediplain with shallow

and moderate thicknesses and shown in Figure 3.

Soils

Soil is the naturally occurring, unconsolidated or loose material covering on the earth's surface, made up of broken

rock particles. Soil is different from its parent rock(s) source(s), altered by interactions between the lithosphere,

hydrosphere, atmosphere, and the biosphere (Chesworth and Edited by Ward, 2008). It is a mixture of minerals and organic

constituents that are in solid, gaseous and aqueous states (Voroney, 2006). Soil content is particularly influential on soil

behavior due to a high retention capacity for nutrients and water (Brown, 2003). The identified soil types, shown in Figure

4, are Rocky / gravelly soil, Red loamy sands, Silty sand and Silty clay.

Slope

The basic constituents of any landscape are slopes. The term slope may refer to a mountain side to a river bed or

to a cliff on a coast line (Scheidegger, 1961). Generally slopes can be categorized as steep, moderate and gentle types.

Depending upon the nature of study, these slope categories may further be sub-divided. Components of gravitational

acceleration and slope of watershed plays an important role in identifying the potential ground water zones (Scheidegger,

1961).

A general slope map may be prepared using 1:50,000 scale topographical maps of Survey of India with a contour

internal of 20 m, gives a vertical drop in 20 m or its multiples, i.e., 40 m, 60 m, 80 m, etc. The vertical drop from the

contour intervals and the horizontal distance in between contours can be measured from the maps by multiplying the map

difference with the scale factor. Closely spaced contours on the map indicate higher percentage of slopes as compared to

fewer contours in the same space. Slope classification and the limits of contour spacing according to National Remote

Sensing Centre (NRSC) are divided into seven categories. The classes of slopes and the corresponding contour spacing on

1:50,000 scale toposheets are shown in Figure 5. Using the ArcGIS – 3D Analyst module, slope map with the above

categories have been generated. Almost 20% of the study area is exhibiting strong to very steep slopes reflecting the high

relief conditions. Nearly 70% of the area is nearly level to very gently sloping, which is a favorable condition to increase

the water holding capacity of the terrain.


Analysis

Thematic maps of Land use / land cover, hydrogeomorphology, slope and soils are assigned suitable weightage

factors for each unit in the maps, related to groundwater recharge conditions, which are discussed below and shown in

Table 1.

Land Use / Cover

As the settlements increases, the land cover gradually changes to a concrete cover, making the land surface

impermeable. The areas which are endowed with good amount of surface / ground water irrigation facilities are only

suitable for paddy cultivation, which was occupied by major portion of the agricultural lands. Generally the hill ranges

being on the steeper slopes, the ground water prospects are less. Even though the hill slopes are green with scrub jungle

and cashew plantation, it is due to the moisture content held in the colluvium material deposited over the slopes and minor

fractures / cracks present in the rock present below.

Hydrogeomorphology

Because of the continuous denudation, some of the structural hills have been Worn-down, giving rise to

pediments / pediplains which are dotted with isolated outcrops known as denudational hills, whose ground water prospects

are poor and similar to that of the structural hills. If the external agents are weak, the eroded material will be deposited in

the pediment zones and these regions are now called buried pediplains. Based on the thickness of the soil depositions, these

areas are further sub-divided into shallow, medium and deep plains, which exhibits moderate to very good groundwater

condition.

Slope

Lands with gentle slopes are capable of holding rainwater for more time and allows it into the subsoil and further

into aquifer zones. Because of gravitational flow steeper slopes favour the downward movement of water. In the study

area, 70% of lands are situated on gently sloping to nearly level areas, irrigated paddy fields are located in the nearly level

segment. In the irrigated areas, groundwater recharge takes place not only with the rainwater but also with the applied

irrigation and is more with applied source due to its long and continuous stagnation in the fields.

Soils

Gravelly / rocky soils soils are highly permeable because of large pore spaces and allow more water to recharge

the subsurface zones. Loamy sands consist of maximum percentage of sand and fewer percentages of silt and clay. As

such, they resemble sands and the permeability capacity may vary between moderate to good.

Silty Sand is granular like sandy soil but it has more nutrients than sandy soil and it also offers better drainage and

can hold more moisture content. Silt is the major constituent in silty clay. Clay consists of very fine grained material with

very low air spaces, which holds a thin film of water around its grains that in turn reduces the permeability and less

favourable to recharge the underlying aquifer system.

Integration

Each unit in thematic maps is assigned a suitable weightage factor, with reference to ground water recharge

conditions, and integrated in GIS environment using overlay operations in ArcGIS software. Each unit (polygon) thus

formed in the final map consists of the weightage factors of the polygons from which it was formed. These weightages are



added up and the result (4 to 14) has been classified into four categories namely very good (4-7), good (8), moderate (9)

and poor zones (10-14) with respect to the groundwater potential and shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Probable Zones of Groundwater Potential Map of the Study Area

RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS

In groundwater exploration remote sensing plays a vital role both at regional and at local levels. When used in the

preliminary stages of the survey, the techniques helps in delineating potential areas of water bearing capacity where further

exploration work could be taken up, thus drastically reducing the cost and time involved in water exploration.

The map showing the probable zones of groundwater potential thus generated yields a very good potential zone

between Gollavillivanipalem, Chintala agraharm, Lakshmipuram and Chimalapalli villages where paddy cultivation is

prevailing. These zones are followed by good to moderate potential zones. Poor zones are located over the hill slopes and

also adjacent to the very good potential zone because of the silty clay cover and good potential zones are also located near

the foothill regions because of baseflow of stream through the fractures in the subsurface layers.

Table 1: Weightage Factors for Different Units in the Thematic Maps

Class Weightage

Factor

Groundwater

Recharge Condition

Land Use / Cover

Agriculture 1 Very Good

Water body / Streams 1 Very Good

Fallow Land 2 Good

Plantation 2 Good Built-Up Area 3 Moderate

Upland with / without Scrub, shrubs 3 Moderate

Hilly Area 4 Poor

Hydrogeomorphology

Denudational Hills 4 Poor


Table 1: Contd.,

Pediment Zone 3 Moderate

Buried Pediplain – Shallow 2 Good

Buried Pediplain – Moderate 1 Very Good

Slope

Nearly Level 1 Very Good

Very Gently Sloping 1 Very Good

Gently Sloping 2 Good

Moderately Sloping Moderate

Strongly Sloping 3 Moderate

Moderately Steep 4 Poor

Very Steep 4 Poor

Soils

Gravelly Soil 1 Very Good

Red Loamy Sand 2 Good

Silty Sand 3 Moderate

Silty Clay 4 Poor

Figure 2: Land Use / Cover Map of the Study Area



Figure 3: Hydrogeomorphology Map of the Study Area

Figure 4: Soil Map of the Study Area


Figure 5: Slope Map of the Study Area

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