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An Integration of Spatial Information Technology for Groundwater Potential

and Quality Investigations in Koduvan Ár Sub-Watershed of Meenachil River
Basin, Kerala, India

Article  in  Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing · March 2011

DOI: 10.1007/s12524-010-0050-6

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J Indian Soc Remote Sens (March 2011) 39(1):63–71
DOI 10.1007/s12524-010-0050-6

RESEARCH ARTICLE

An Integration of Spatial Information Technology

for Groundwater Potential and Quality Investigations
in Koduvan Ár Sub-Watershed of Meenachil River Basin,
Kerala, India
V. B. Rekha & A. P. Thomas & M. Suma & H. Vijith

Received: 26 March 2010 / Accepted: 25 June 2010 / Published online: 15 February 2011
# Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2011

Abstract The importance of groundwater is growing lithology, slope and land use/ land cover are generated
based on an increase in need and decrease in the and the interrelationship between these layers were
availability of fresh surface water sources and analyzed to identify and assess the groundwater
adequate rainfall. Remote Sensing and Geographic potentiality of the area. The final result depicts the
Information System (GIS) has become one of the favourable prospective zones in the study area with its
leading tools in the field of hydrogeological science, quality parameters and can be helpful to formulate
which helps in assessing, monitoring and conserving recommendations to reduce the water scarcity and
groundwater resources. This paper describes the quality risks for public health.
results of a groundwater potentiality and quality
assessment conducted in Koduvan Ár sub-watershed Keywords GIS . Groundwater . Koduvan Ár .
of Meenachil river basin, Kottayam district of Kerala Meenachil . Kerala . MEC
state, in the Republic of India. Shallow groundwater
is the main source of drinking water in urban and
rural areas, but reliable spatial data on its potentiality Introduction
and quality are currently insufficient for developing
the water-supply systems with standard designs. The Groundwater is one of the most valuable natural
methodology used in the present study includes an resources, which supports human health, economic
integrated approach of remote sensing and GIS for the development and ecological diversity. Overexploita-
construction of groundwater potentiality map and the tion and unabated pollution of this vital resource is
assessment of water quality of identified wells. threatening our ecosystems and even the life of future
Different spatial data layers such as, geomorphology, generations. Global environmental change induced by
natural variability and human activities influences
V. B. Rekha : A. P. Thomas : M. Suma both water quantity and quality at regional and local
Dr. R. Satheesh Centre for Remote Sensing and GIS, School scales as well as at the global scale. The proper
of Environmental Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University,
Kottayam, Kerala 686 560, India
management of both surface and groundwater resour-
ces through systematic inventory, conservation and
H. Vijith (*) proper planning is essential for economic and social
Centre for Geoinformation Science and Technology, development of any country. The available surface
University of Kerala,
Kariavattom Campus,
water resources are inadequate to meet all the water
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695 581, India requirements for all purposes. Therefore, the demand
e-mail: [email protected] for groundwater has increased over years. Groundwater
64 J Indian Soc Remote Sens (March 2011) 39(1):63–71

is a valuable dynamic and renewable natural resource in The chemical composition of groundwater is a
present day and limited in extent. Groundwater resource measure of its suitability as a source of water for human
assessment of a region involves a detailed study of the and animal consumption, irrigation, and for industrial
sub-surface water, including geology and hydrogeology, and other purposes. The groundwater resources are
monitoring and record of well data. Exploitation and under great risk due to the drastic increases in
utilization of groundwater requires proper understand- population, modern land use applications (agricultural
ing of its origin, occurrence and movement, are directly and industrial) and demands for water supply, which
or indirectly controlled by terrain characteristics (Khan endanger both water quality and quantity (Babiker et al.
and Moharana 2002). Groundwater occurrence being 2007). The definition of water quality is therefore not
subsurface phenomenon, its identification and location objective, but is socially defined depending on the
is based on indirect analysis of some directly observ- desired use of water. Different uses require different
able terrain features. The interpretation of satellite data standards of water quality. Therefore, assessing and
in conjunction with sufficient ground real information monitoring the quality of groundwater is important to
makes it possible to identify and outline various ensure sustainable and safe use of these resources for
ground features such as geological structures, geomor- the various purposes. Many researches in India and
phic features and their hydraulic characters (Das et al. abroad has assessed the groundwater quality to find out
1997; Srinivas Rao et al. 2000); and these may serve as its suitability for drinking and irrigation purposes
direct or indirect indicators of the presence of (Srivastava et al. 1997; Melian et al. 1999; Hrkal
groundwater (Ravindran and Jeyaram 1997; Sree Devi 2001; Griffith 2002; Lee et al. 2003; Anbazhagan and
et al. 2001; Gopinath and Saralathan 2004). Nair 2004; Rajesh and Murthy 2004; Srinivasa Gowd
The identification and location of groundwater 2005; Babiker et al. 2007; Vijith and Satheesh 2007)
resources using remote sensing data is based on an In the study area, the groundwater forms the principal
indirect analysis of some directly observable terrain source of water for domestic and drinking purpose and
features like geomorphology, geology, slope, land use/ most of the people depend on dug/tube well for their
land cover and hydrologic characteristics. With the daily needs. Even though the study area receives high
capabilities of the remotely sensed data and GIS rainfall, the area experiences severe dry condition in the
techniques, numerous databases can be integrated to summer seasons. At that time, the people in the area
produce conceptual model for delineation and evalua- depends on the rationed water supply of local adminis-
tion of groundwater potential zones of an area (Chaterjee trative bodies. Besides this, rapid urbanization, devel-
and Bhattacharya 1995; Krishnamurthy and Srinivas opmental activities and the increased population have
1995; Srivasthava and Bhattacharya 2000; Taylor and lead to the groundwater pollution and water table
Howard 2000; Sarkar et al. 2001; Prasad, et al. 2008). depletion. Hence, the present study is an attempt to
The geographic information system (GIS) has identify and understand groundwater potential zones
emerged as an effective tool for handling spatial data and general water quality of the Koduvan Ár sub-
and decision making in several areas including engi- watershed of Meenachil river basin, Kottayam district,
neering, geology and environmental fields. Remotely Kerala, India, by an integrated approach of remote
sensed data are one of the main sources for providing sensing, GIS , field and lab techniques.
information on land and water related subjects (Brunner
et al. 2007; Jha et al. 2007). A review of GIS
applications in hydrology and water management has Material and Methods
been presented by several researchers during mid-
nineties and recently such as El-Kadi et al. (1994), Study Area
Kamaraju et al. (1995), Krishnamurthy et al. (1996),
Gogu et al. (2001), Sikdar et al. (2004), Dawoud et al. The proposed study focused to evaluate the overall
(2005), Vittala et al. (2005), Solomon and Quiel groundwater potentiality and quality of the Koduvan
(2006), Leblanc et al. (2007), Münch and Conrad Ár sub-watershed of Meenachil river basin, Kot-
(2007), Vijith (2007), These reviews indicate that GIS tayam, Kerala, India. The area is usually, shallow
applications in hydrology and water management are unconfined aquifers characterized by high water
essentially in a modeling dominated context. holding capacity used mainly for domestic and
J Indian Soc Remote Sens (March 2011) 39(1):63–71 65

agricultural purposes. They are also located in densely landscape. The underlying lithology, slope and the
populated areas and therefore subject to many type of existing drainage pattern influences the
contamination sources. genesis and processes of different geomorphic units.
Koduvan Ár sub-watershed is located on the south- The significant geomorphic units identified based on
western part of Meenachil river basin, Kottayam, their image characteristics include residual hill com-
Kerala, India (Fig. 1), enclosed by 9028'30"to plex, residual hill, residual mound, pediment, valley
9035'15"N latitudes and 76025' 0" to 760 40' 45" E fills, valley flat, flood plain and alluvial plain (NRSA
longitudes, covering an area of 226.44 km2. The area 2000; Soman 2002). The eastern part of the study area
comprises of midlands, lowlands and parts of wet- (29.67 km2) covered by residual hill complex where
lands. Geologically, the area contains Quarternary as residual hill spread over the central and eastern part
sedimentary formations to hard crystalline rocks of of the study area. Residual hills are the end products
Precambrian in origin. The climate of the area is of the process of pediplanation, which reduces the
tropical humid. The mean annual precipitation and original mountain masses in to a series of scattered
temperature are 2541 mm and 270C respectively. The knolls standing on the pediplains (Thornbury 1990).
area is mainly agricultural based (more than 73% of The residual hills are identified in the imageries grey
the total area), so the vegetation is diverse in nature. tone and coarse texture in black and which images
In this rubber plantations cover 43% of agricultural and dark reddish colour in standard false colour
land, mixed crops and paddy cover 13% and 17% of composite with radial drainage pattern. Groundwater
agricultural land respectively. potentiality is found to be poor in the areas. The
isolated relief projections, residual mounds are scat-
Geomorphology tered in western and central part of the study area. In
between the hills, a significant area is covered by
Geomorphological mapping involves the identifica- pediments. Being subjected to stream actions, the land
tion and characterization of the fundamental units of forms are interspersed with well defined narrow and

Fig. 1 Study area location map

66 J Indian Soc Remote Sens (March 2011) 39(1):63–71

flat valleys by the deposition of unconsolidated field data. The various land use/ land cover classes
sediments (valley fills and valley flat). The central delineated by employing the standard methods of
part of the area covered by valley flat. The flat land visual interpretation and the identified features
surface, flood plain by lateral erosion, characterized includes, paddy field, abandoned paddy field,
by thin cover of alluvium composed mostly of sand reclaimed paddy field, mixed crop, rubber plantation,
and silt and is exposed at western and central part of urban area, industrial estate and water body. In this,
the study area. The alluvial plains occur mostly in the majority of the area was used for rubber plantation
western part of the area comprise of alluvium. followed by paddy fields. In some areas, paddy fields
are reclaimed and are used for other mixed crop
Geology cultivation.

Geologically, the study area has been divided in to Methodology

two classes; Precambrian formations and recent
formations. Even though majority of the study area In the present study, Survey of India (SoI) toposheets
covered by Precambrian formation (Charnockite), the (58C/10, 58C/11 and58C/6) of scale 1:50,000; geo-
western part of the area under recent formation coded IRS P6 LISS III images (P100/R67) acquired
(Sandy silty alluvium). There are 11 rock types on 19th February 2004; geological map (1:2,50,000
identified in the area and are, sandy silty alluvium, scale), published by Geological Survey of India and
coastal sand, brown sand, laterite, lignite gritty field data were used for the preparation of desired
sandstone, dolerite, pegmatite and quartzveins, garnet themes. The thematic layers prepared includes geo-
biotite gneiss, cordierite gneiss, charnockite and morphology, lithology, slope and land use/ land cover
quartzite. The predominant rock types, charnockite of the area (described earlier). Geographic Informa-
(120.60 km2) and sandy silty alluvium (50.52 km2) tion System (ArcGIS 8.3) was used for the prepara-
are found in the central and western part of the study tion of thematic layers. The weightages of individual
area. The lineaments and fractures present in the area themes and feature score were fixed and added to
shows a general trends of NNW-NNE. each layers depending on their suitability to hold
groundwater (Table 1). This process involves raster
Slope overlay analysis and is known as multi criteria
evaluation techniques (MCE). Of several methods
For the generation of slope, the digital elevation available for determining interclass/ inter-map depen-
modelling (DEM) has done by the interpolation of dency, a probability weighted approach has been
contours, which in turn digitized from SoI toposheets adopted that allows a linear combination of probabil-
using ArcGIS. DEM is a digital representation of ity weights of each thematic map and different
continuous variation of topographic surface with the categories of derived thematic maps have been
elevation or ground height above any geodetic datum. assigned scores, by assessing the importance of it in
The generated DEM is used for generation of slope groundwater occurrence. The maximum value is
using ‘3D analyst’ an extension tool of ArcGIS. This given to the feature with highest groundwater poten-
helps for appreciating, the terrain and a supporting tiality and the minimum being to the lowest potential
factor for the slope analysis. The slope analysis has feature. The procedure of weighted linear combina-
been carried out in the sub watershed level and are tion dominates in raster based GIS software systems.
divided into five classes according to groundwater After assigning the weightages and scores to the
holding capacity. themes and features, all the themes were converted to
raster format using ‘Spatial analyst’, extension of
Land use/Land cover ArcInfo ArcGIS software. While converting to raster,
the scores assigned to the individual features were
Realizing the importance of land use/ land cover in taken in the value field. Then, the individual themes
groundwater potentiality, land use/ land cover map were normalized by dividing theme weightages by
was prepared using geocoded IRS P6 LISS III (P100/ 100. The ‘Raster Calculator’ option of spatial analyst
R67) images acquired on 19th February 2004 and was used to prepare the integrated final groundwater
J Indian Soc Remote Sens (March 2011) 39(1):63–71 67

Table 1 Theme weightages

and feature class score Theme Weightage (%) Feature class Score
assigned by multi criteria
evaluation (MCE) technique Geomorphology 45 Residual hill complex 8
Residual hill 5
Residual mound 1
Pediment 10
Valley fill 17
Valley flat 20
Floodplain 23
Water bodies 25
Alluvial plain 25
Lithology 35 Sandy silty alluvium 25
Coastal sand 23
Brown sand 22
Laterite 6
Lignite-gritty sandstone 20
Dolerite 1
Pegmatite and quarts veins 1
Garnet biotite gneiss 4
Cordierite gneiss 2
Charnockite 4
Quartzite 1
Slope 15 0–7 25
8–15 18
16–25 10
26–35 04
>35 01
Landuse/Land cover 5 Paddy field 25
Abandoned paddy field 23
Mixed crop 11
Rubber plantation 6
Reclaimed paddy field 15
Urban area 2
Industrial estate 2
Water body 25

potential map (GPM) of the area. The map algebra study area. A total of 12 wells were selected
(ESRI 2007), used in the raster calculator is (Eq. 1), uniformly from the study area, at each location, the
depth to water table from the ground level was
GPM ¼ ðGeomorphologyÞ  0:45 recorded in meters and water samples were collected
þ ðLithologyÞ  0:35 þ ðSlopeÞ for the analysis. The locations of selected wells were
marked on the map using Global Positioning System
 0:15 þ ðLand use=Land coverÞ (GPS—GARMIN MAP76). The collected samples
were analysed for various chemical parameters as
 0:05 ð1Þ
described by the American Public Health Association.
The well inventory was conducted during the study These parameters include pH, dissolved oxygen
time for assessing the general water quality of the (DO), total hardness (TH), chloride (Cl) and acidity.
68 J Indian Soc Remote Sens (March 2011) 39(1):63–71

The pH was measured by potentiometric method and areas covered and well inventory details of each zone
the dissolved oxygen (DO) by the Winkler’s method. are given in Table 2. The integrated potential zone
The total hardness (TH) was calculated by the EDTA map indicate that, alluvial plain, flood plain, with
titrimetric method and the chloride (Cl) by the sandy silty alluvium, coastal sand and brown sand
argentometry method. Volumetric method was used with gentle slope (0–70) having excellent potentiality
to find acidity. The location of each wells were taken and it covers 22.98% of the total area. Valley flat,
in to the GIS environment and the results of each valley fills with lignite gritty sandstone, sandy silty
parameters analysed were added to the concerned wells. alluvium with a slope (8–150) are coming under very
good potential zones (7.32%). The other areas come
under good, moderate and poor has covered with
Result and Discussion residual hill complex, residual hill and residual
mound etc. The good potential zone covers 26.53%
The integration of different themes through the map of the total area and 36.78% of the area by moderate
algebra used in the raster calculator has generated a potential zones. Only 1.44% of the area comes under
final GPM with score varying from 2–25. The final poor potential zones. Thus, the generated present
score map was reclassified to generate the output, groundwater potential map serves as a base line data
showing five classes of groundwater potential zones for the future exploration.
(Fig. 2). The potential zones are excellent, very good, The results of chemical and statistical parameters
good, moderate and poor. Different potential zones, of groundwater quality analysed are given in Table 3.

Fig. 2 Groundwater potential zones with well locations

J Indian Soc Remote Sens (March 2011) 39(1):63–71 69

Table 2 Reclassified groundwater potentiality zones with other details

SI. No Groundwater Score Area Area Geomorphology Aquifer material Water DWT/ Type of wells
potential Range (sq.km) (%) quality TDa (m) suggested
zones

1 Excellent 21–25 63.35 27.98 Alluvial plain, Alluvium Goodb 0.80/2.60 Dug well
flood plain
2 Very good 16–20 16.59 7.33 Valley flat Loose unconsolidated Goodb 1.20/2.50 Dug well
materials
3 Good 11–15 60.10 26.54 Valley fill Loose unconsolidated Goodb 2.00/3.60 Dug well
materials
4 Moderate 6–10 83.13 36.71 Pediment, residual Weathered charnockite Goodb 4.40/6.40 Dug cum
hill complex and other hard rocks bore well
5 Poor 2–5 3.27 1.44 Residual hill, Charnockite, and other Goodb 9.20/9.60 Dug cum
residual mound hard rocks bore well
a
DWT depth to water table, TD total depth
b
pH only below the desirable limit of drinking water standards

The statistical parameters include minimum, maxi- mainly acidic in nature. The DO values range from
mum, mean, median and standard deviation. Under- 1.62 to 9.73 mg/l. Total hardness (TH) ranged
standing the quality of groundwater is as important between 8–64 mg/l. The chloride ion is the most
because it is the main factor determining its suitability predominant natural form of the element chlorine and
for drinking, domestic, agricultural and industrial is extremely stable in water. Here the chloride (Cl)
purposes. The pH values of groundwater range from values range from 8.5–18.43 mg/l and the value of
5.06 to 6.58 with an average value of 5.71. This acidity also varying 2–16 mg/l during the sampling
shows that the groundwater of the study area is period. The analytical results of physical and chem-

Table 3 Result of chemical

analysis and statistical PH DO (mg/l) Total hardness (mg/l) Chloride (mg/l) Acidity (mg/l)
parameters of groundwater
samples with Indian stand- IS 10500:1983 6.5–8.5 6.5–9mg/l 300mg/l 250mg/l 200mg/l
ards for drinking water Desirable limit
Well No. 5.58 1.62 32.00 17.016 2.00
W1
W2 5.06 5.27 32.00 15.6 4.00
W3 5.32 5.27 40.00 16.307 2.00
W4 5.66 9.73 40.00 16.307 6.00
W5 6.37 6.08 24.00 17.016 8.00
W6 5.76 6.08 56.00 18.434 2.00
W7 6.58 4.86 8.00 8.508 2.00
W8 5.33 6.08 16.00 16.307 8.00
W9 5.41 5.27 16.00 17.725 8.00
W10 5.79 2.84 32.00 14.889 16.00
W11 5.51 6.08 64.00 8.508 4.00
W12 6.2 3.65 40.00 11.344 4.00
Min 5.06 1.62 8.00 8.50 2.00
Max 6.58 9.73 64.00 18.43 16.00
Mean 5.71 5.23 33.33 14.83 5.50
Median 5.62 5.27 32.00 16.30 4.00
SD 0.45 2.01 16.30 3.43 4.10
70 J Indian Soc Remote Sens (March 2011) 39(1):63–71

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