REMOTE SENSING AND GIS-MULTICRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS FOR GROUND WATER RESOURCES MAPPING OF THALAVADI BLOCK - ERODE DISTRICT IN TAMIL NADU

Abstract

Water is one of the most vital natural resources for our daily life. This essential resource is obtained mainly from surface water and ground water. Inconsistency and unequal availability of surface water leads to the search for ground water. Ground water is profoundly utilized in irrigation, industries and for domestic purposes. Therefore, the quality of ground water is equally important as its quantity. The present study makes use of geo-spatial technology in mapping the spatial variability [Choudhary, et al.,1996] of ground water quality. Ground water samples were collected in study area. The major water quality parameters such namely pH, Electrical Conductivity[EC], Total Dissolved Solids, Total hardness, Iron, Chloride, Nitrate and Fluoride have been estimated for all the sampling locations. The spatial variation maps of these ground water quality parameters were generated and utilize as thematic layers. The thematic layers were given ranks based on their relative importance. Different classes within each thematic layer were assigned weight ages in numerical rating from 1 to 3 as attribute values in GIS environment. Summation of these attributes [Ganesh and Sashikkumar, et al., 2015] values and the corresponding rank values of the thematic layers were utilize to generate the final ground water quality map. The final map shows the different classes of ground water quality within the district. This can be utilized in giving guideline for the suitability of ground water uses.