STUDY OF THE GROUND WATER POTENTIAL OF ALAPPUZHA AND IDUKKI DISTRICTS

Funding Agency: Formulation Mission for Royal Netherlands Embassy

One of the most significant environmental problems and a threat to public health in India today, is the inadequate access to clean water. Proper management of any water resource requires valid local specific information. The objective of the study was to prepare a ground water resource model for the districts which will help to identify the ground water potential of different areas of the districts, prepare thematic maps showing administrative boundaries, land use, structural geology, drainage, soil, relief and slope etc., of the districts, collect and collate secondary data related to water sources and related aspects from various department and agencies, analyse the maps and to prepare a report on the Ground water Potential of the district.

Thematic maps on Land use, Drainage, Soil, Relief and Slopes, Lithology, Saline intrusion areas, Rainfall, Ponds and Streams, Geology etc., were prepared using Remote Sensing Data, Toposheets, CGWB Reports etc. Secondary data related to water resources, agro-ecological zones, land use and vegetation, climatic data etc., were collected from various agencies. Multiple parameters referring different hydrological features having both positive and negative effect on the fresh ground water potential were added to the model after considering their qualitative and quantitative effect on the system. The sharpness and the focus of lythology, level of ground water table, salt water intrusion etc were given higher values, so that, other parameters are not strong enough to mask the effects of the former parameters. The role of each subsystem was fixed and the zones were allotted with proportional weightages. These subsystems were fused over to a main system, which represented the nature of water potentiality. The resultant spatial information was projected as Block level ground water potential zones.