Mapping of groundwater potential zones in Killinochi area, Sri Lanka, using GIS and remote sensing techniques

Groundwater is a vital natural capital for the consistent and economic provision of potable water supply for both rural and urban environments. There is now a strong consensus that climate change poses a fundamental challenge to the well-being of all countries, with potential of being the harshest on countries already suffering from water scarcity. Dry zone of Killinochi basin in Northern Sri Lanka, which was devastated by civil war for last 25 years, is again being revitalized by human settlement and urbanization in last couple of years. However, the decreasing trend in the rainfall regime of the dry zones and the increase in population size (temporary inflow) and, hence, the demand for water for irrigation and other livelihood requirements, calls for a sustainable exploitation of the groundwater resources in the region. The development of a reasonable model for groundwater potential is need for the present time. This work strives to generate groundwater potential zonation map using integrated use of remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) for Killinochi area, Northern Sri Lanka. Five different themes of information, such as geomorphology, geology, soil type (extracted from existing topo sheet); slope [generated from shuttle radar topography mission (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM)]; and land use/land cover (extracted from digital processing of AVNIR satellite data) were integrated with weighted overlay in GIS to generate groundwater potential zonation map of the area. The final map of the area was demarcated by four different zones of groundwater prospects, viz., good (5.32 % of the area), moderate (61.90 % of the area) poor (26.61 % of the area), and very poor (6.17 % of area). The hydrogeomorphological units, such as alluvial plain, low slope area, and land occupied by forest, are prospective zones for groundwater occurrence in the study area.