IDENTIFICATION OF GROUNDWATER PROSPECTS FOR PALLERU SUB BASIN USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS

Fresh water being one of the basic necessities for sustenance of life, the human race through the ages has striven to locate and develop it. Over ninety percent of liquid fresh water available at given moment on the earth lies beneath the land surface. Groundwater, unlike surface water, is available in some quantity almost everywhere that man can settle in. Even in areas where normally there are abundant surface water supplies through major, medium and minor irrigation projects, groundwater is playing an increasingly vital role in supplementing surface water. The increasing demand placed on it has stimulated investigations oriented towards quantification of the resource, which is basic to formulation of plans for its exploration, management and conservation. The primary objective of this paper is to identify groundwater prospects in Palleru sub basin using Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System techniques. The sub basin partly covers three districts namely Warangal, Nalgonda and Khammam of Andhra Pradesh. The study area covers 15 mandals from these districts. Warangal district covers seven mandals namely Ghanpur, Raghunathpalli, Palakurthy, Torrur, Kodakandla, Marripeda, Narasimhulapeta. Six mandals are covered under Nalgonda district. They are Tirumala, Tungaturthy, Jagireddigudem, Noothankal, Mothey and Atmakur. Kusumanchi and Tirumalayapalem are the two mandals that are covered under Khammam district. The present work involves creating a database both spatial and non-spatial with the help of Survey of India toposheets and Remote Sensing imageries. Various thematic maps like drainage map, contour map, slope map, soil map, hydro-geomorphology map and lineament maps are prepared by using Survey of India topo sheets. After integrating all thematic maps using weighted overlay analysis tool, groundwater prospects map is generated for the study area.