Groundwater potential mapping of Tawi River basin of Jammu District, India, using geospatial techniques

The demand for water is increasing around the world due to population growth, urbanization, industrialization, etc., which is making groundwater a vital natural resource for meeting the growing demand for water. According to the central groundwater report, Jammu district has adequate groundwater potential (GWP) and comes under the safe category. However, the GWP has not been fully utilized, thereby leading to a water shortage in the district. Therefore, this study has been designed to examine the GWP zones in the Tawi River basin of Jammu district using geospatial techniques. For this, several GWP conditioning parameters, such as elevation, slope, geology, geomorphology, rainfall, soil, land use/land cover, topographic wetness index (TWI), drainage density, lineament density, roughness, and curvature, were utilized. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique was used to evaluate the weights of the selected criteria after a pair-wise comparison of each criterion with the rest of the criteria. The result showed that the high GWP zone accounts for 21.98% of the area, the moderate zone covers an area of 40.54%, the low GWP area accounts for about 34.91%, and only 2.57% of the area lies under the very low GWP zone. The validation of GWP zones using 25 monitoring wells showed an accuracy of 80% in GWP modeling. The findings of this study may be utilized in meeting the rising demand for water in the region.