sustainability Article Assessing Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Models for Predicting Groundwater Quality in a River Basin of South India M. Annie Jenifer 1, Madan Kumar Jha 2,* and Amina Khatun 2 1 VIT School of Agricultural Innovations and Advanced Learning (VAIAL), Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore 632014, India;
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[email protected] Abstract: India is the largest consumer of groundwater in the world, and it suffers from a groundwa- ter crisis due to the overexploitation of groundwater and the deterioration of its quality at an alarming rate. Rapid urbanization, a growing population, and mismanagement are major driving forces be- hind these groundwater issues. Thus, increasing problems of water scarcity and water-quality deterioration threaten the sustainability of the water supply. This necessitates the development of novel approaches to assess prevailing groundwater quality scenarios at a large scale, which can help protect this vital freshwater resource from contamination. In this study, for the first time, the effectiveness of three Geographical Information System (GIS)-based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) models (i.e., ‘Unit Weight’, ‘Rank Sum’, and ‘Analytic Hierarchy Process’) was explored for predicting groundwater quality in a river basin of Southern India. The seasonal concentrations of − − − + 2+ 2+ + 2− groundwater quality parameters, viz., Cl , TDS, TH, F , NO3 -N, Na , Mg , Ca ,K , and SO4 , Citation: Jenifer, M.A.; Jha, M.K.; were considered for generating their thematic layers. Each thematic layer was classified into suitable Khatun, A. Assessing Multi-Criteria feature classes based on the WHO guidelines for drinking water.