Extracting of prospective groundwater potential zones using remote sensing data, GIS, and multi-criteria decision-making approach in the Sub-Himalayan Dooars region of West Bengal, India

Groundwater is one of the fundamental sources of fresh water. Currently, the unequal distribution of groundwater poses a significant environmental crisis, leading to scarcity in certain regions and affecting the livelihood of living organisms worldwide. The present study introduces the Sub-Himalayan foothills Dooars, a highly populated and agriculturally based area. To delineate the groundwater potentiality eight different effective parameters have been employed such as slope, geomorphology, soil, LULC, lineament, rainfall, hydrogeology, and drainage density. For the process and development of these eight thematic layers, geographic information systems and satellite images (Landsat 8) have been used to give the normalized weight and rank value in each thematic layer and their sub-criteria. MCDA-AHP-based model is used for overlay analysis to delineate groundwater potentiality (GWPZ). After overlay analysis in ArcGIS 10.2.2 final groundwater potentiality map is further grouped into four potentiality zones, i.e., very high, high, moderate, and low potential zones. A very high potential zone encompasses 22.45 sq. km. in the southern portion of the selected study region. The high potential zone encompasses 1613.32 sq. km in the southeastern part, the moderate zone is covered by 1063.84 sq.km, and the 71.03 sq.km (2.56% area of the region) area is covered by the low potential zone. The available well data from CGWB have been utilized to assess the potential of groundwater in the district, ensuring originality and authentic validation. It is found that there is a correlation between the observed potentiality zone and existing well data. With the growing population in the Sub-Himalayan Dooars region, there has been a corresponding rise in the demand for water. Hence, this research would assist the authorities and policymakers in effectively managing the groundwater resources in the district.