Identification of groundwater recharge potential zones using AHP and Fuzzy Logic: A blockwise study of western Purulia district, India

Managing groundwater resources, particularly under data-scarce and dry regions, involves a lot of difficulties and problems which have driven the planners to apply remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) based procedures. In the present study, groundwater recharge potential zones are delineated by integrating the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), GIS, and RS methods in five blocks of Purulia district, India. At first, the adequate thematic layers of factors impacting the groundwater recharge potential, such as drainage density, geomorphology, soil types, land use, geology, rainfall, slope, and lineament density, are extracted from sources like satellite imagery and collateral data. The AHP method is utilized to estimate the weights of different layers for applying the hierarchical fuzzy logic to identify potential zones for groundwater recharge. It is found that about 186.35 km² area has very good groundwater recharge potential (GRP), which is only 12.13% of the total study area. The area with good, average, and low GRP are about 359.08, 455.29, and 415.44 km² respectively. Analyzing the blockwise distribution of potential zones, it is found that Baghmundi block having 21.9% and 27.76% of its area under very good and good GRP zones respectively, is most suitable for blockwise implementation of groundwater recharge sites.