Geographical Information System (GIS) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) based groundwater Potential Zones delineation in Chennai River Basin (CRB), India Sajil Kumar PJ (
[email protected] ) Freie Universität Berlin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9050-1807 Elnago L Anna University Chennai Michael Schneider Freie Universitat Berlin Research Article Keywords: Groundwater Potential, AHP, Thematic Layers, GIS, Chennai River Basin Posted Date: August 6th, 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-730560/v1 License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Read Full License Loading [MathJax]/jax/output/CommonHTML/jax.js Page 1/33 Abstract Groundwater depletion is one of the most important concerns for users and policy makers. Information on the locations where groundwater potential is high, or low is the key factor that helps them to do proper planning. Application of new technologies and methods are essential in this situation. This study has used the possibilities of Geographical Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing and, of course, eld data to delineate the groundwater potential zones in the Chennai River Basin (CRB). To provide accurate results, 11 controlling factors- geology, water level, drainage, soil, lineament, rainfall, land use, slope, aspect, geomorphology, and depth to bed rock-- were brought into a digital GIS environment and appropriate weightage given to each layer depending on their effect on potential. The weightage is given based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM), namely Analytical Hierarchal Process (AHP). Groundwater potential zones in the CRB were mapped as very poor, poor, moderate, good, very good using weighted overlay analysis. The results were compared with actual specic capacity from the borehole data.