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<p>Groundwater in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand, located in the fragile Kumaon Lesser Himalaya, plays a vital role in sustaining agriculture, domestic water needs, and the region’s ecological balance. However, population growth, over-extraction, and climatic variability have made sustainable water management a critical challenge. Notably, systematic evaluation of groundwater potential zones (GWPZs) in the mountainous region remains limited, leaving a significant research gap in its hydrogeological assessment. Therefore, given the region’s ecological sensitivity and growing water stress, identifying groundwater potential zones is essential for informed planning. This study aims to delineate GWPZ using an integrated geospatial approach combining Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS), and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Nine hydro-geologically relevant thematic layers of attributes: drainage density (DD), slope (SL), lineament density (LD), geology (GL), geomorphology (GM), land use/land cover (LULC), rainfall (RF), elevation (EL), and curvature (CV), were selected. These parameters were ranked and weighted by AHP, with a Consistency Index (CI) of 0.08 ensuring reliability, and the metric-derived Consistency Ratio (CR) value from the assigned values of the pairwise comparison matrix (PCM) is 5.7%, which is less than 10% as well as inside permissible boundaries, signifying that the PCM is consistent. The results indicated that 11.55% (845.90 km<sup>2</sup>) of the study area contains very high potential, 40.20% (2944.57 km<sup>2</sup>) contains high, 39.87% (2920.09 km<sup>2</sup>) contains medium, 7.55% (552.76 km<sup>2</sup>) contains low, and 0.83% (61.19 km<sup>2</sup>) contains very low potential ranks. Spatially, the central and northern parts exhibit higher groundwater potential, while the southern region shows reduced potential due to steep terrain and limited recharge ability. As the first comprehensive groundwater potential mapping in the Pithoragarh district, the present study highlights the applicability and effectiveness of GIS-based Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) for data-scarce complex Himalayan terrains. The findings offer a robust scientific basis for groundwater conservation, artificial recharge site identification, and policy formulation aimed at sustainable water resource management in the ecologically sensitive and water-scare mountain terrain of the study region.</p>

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Geospatial Multi-criteria Decision Analysis for Groundwater Potential Mapping in Mountainous Terrain: A Case Study of Pithoragarh District, Uttarakhand (India)

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月15日

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  • Deepak Pant,
  • Kalpana Gururani,
  • Rajeev Upadhyay,
  • Ram Autar Singh

摘要

Groundwater in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand, located in the fragile Kumaon Lesser Himalaya, plays a vital role in sustaining agriculture, domestic water needs, and the region’s ecological balance. However, population growth, over-extraction, and climatic variability have made sustainable water management a critical challenge. Notably, systematic evaluation of groundwater potential zones (GWPZs) in the mountainous region remains limited, leaving a significant research gap in its hydrogeological assessment. Therefore, given the region’s ecological sensitivity and growing water stress, identifying groundwater potential zones is essential for informed planning. This study aims to delineate GWPZ using an integrated geospatial approach combining Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS), and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Nine hydro-geologically relevant thematic layers of attributes: drainage density (DD), slope (SL), lineament density (LD), geology (GL), geomorphology (GM), land use/land cover (LULC), rainfall (RF), elevation (EL), and curvature (CV), were selected. These parameters were ranked and weighted by AHP, with a Consistency Index (CI) of 0.08 ensuring reliability, and the metric-derived Consistency Ratio (CR) value from the assigned values of the pairwise comparison matrix (PCM) is 5.7%, which is less than 10% as well as inside permissible boundaries, signifying that the PCM is consistent. The results indicated that 11.55% (845.90 km2) of the study area contains very high potential, 40.20% (2944.57 km2) contains high, 39.87% (2920.09 km2) contains medium, 7.55% (552.76 km2) contains low, and 0.83% (61.19 km2) contains very low potential ranks. Spatially, the central and northern parts exhibit higher groundwater potential, while the southern region shows reduced potential due to steep terrain and limited recharge ability. As the first comprehensive groundwater potential mapping in the Pithoragarh district, the present study highlights the applicability and effectiveness of GIS-based Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) for data-scarce complex Himalayan terrains. The findings offer a robust scientific basis for groundwater conservation, artificial recharge site identification, and policy formulation aimed at sustainable water resource management in the ecologically sensitive and water-scare mountain terrain of the study region.