Mapping areas suitable for artificial recharge structures in the Ropar District of Punjab, India

Groundwater is an important resource in India as it is used extensively for industrial, agricultural and drinking purposes. With the increase in demand due to growth in population, industrialization and improvement of living standards, the groundwater resources in India are depleting. For instance, the long-term trend of groundwater level observed in the Ropar district of Punjab, India for a span of ten years shows a gradual decline. The maximum fall of groundwater level is observed to be 1.05 m/year. In Ropar, the natural recharge process is diminishing because of rapid urbanization, variation in rainfall, and temperature patterns. Therefore the available water is found to be insufficient to fulfil the rise in water demand.To replenish the declining groundwater table and thus maintain the balance between the water supply and demand, artificial recharge techniques are proven to be beneficial in various studies. In this study, areas suitable for artificial recharge have been proposed.Remote Sensing(RS) techniques and the Geographic Information System(GIS) has been used to prepare various thematic maps constituting slope, land use & land cover, soil, geomorphology, the thickness of granular zone (permeable zones), the distance between recharge structure and the Sutlej river, rainfall map, drainage density, and population density. Lithological mapping in and around the Ropar district has been analyzed using borehole logs and reports from Central Ground Water Board, Govt. of India. Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) model have been used to determine the weightage of different parameters to map the suitable areas required for artificial recharge in the Ropar District. Finally, the best type of artificial recharge structure has been chosen based on higher stream order, drainage density and lithology for the present scenario.