Groundwater Potential Mapping Using Geospatial ...

The objective of this paper is to exploit the potential application of weighted index overlay analysis for assessing groundwater potential mapping at Dhungeta-Ramis sub-basin, WabiShebele basin, Ethiopia using remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) tech-nique. For this purpose, seven groundwater occurrences and movement controlling factors,including, lithology, slope, land use land cover (LULC), rainfall, lineaments, soil, and drainage density were mapped. Then, weight was assigned to thematic maps, and the ground water prospective of the sub-basin is qualitatively classified into five classes, namely, very good,good, moderate, poor, and very poor which account for 2.22%, 26.93%, 56.74%, 13.84%, and0.26% landscape, respectively. The cross-validation of the resultant model was carefully carried out using spring, hand-dug, and deep well data. The result reveals that 89% of springs were overlaying good and/or very good groundwater potential zones and 58% of deep well shows the same scenario, whereas 42% of deep well overlays moderate zone. As a result, the map generated using this platform could be used as a preliminary reference in selecting suitable sites for groundwater resource exploitation.