Sustainability
of Groundwater Resources and its Indicators (Proceedings of symposium S3 held during the
Seventh IAHS Scientific Assembly at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, April 2005). IAHS
Publ. 302, 2006, 98-105.
Regional groundwater drought mapping for
sustainable management
M. KRISHNAVENI, G. RAVIKUMAR & K. KARUNAKARAN
Centre for Water Resources, College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University,Chennai 600 025, India
mveni70@yahoo.in
Abstract Groundwater is one of India’s most important natural resources.
Overexploitation of groundwater takes place during the period of scarcity and
droughts in order to meet the irrigation demand and other requirements. Classifying
the region according to the risk level is the first step in a process to bring groundwater
to a sustainable level of management. The Palar Basin located in Tami Nadu
State, India, is selected as the study area. Thirty years of groundwater level
data from 80 observation wells located within the basin are used for the
analysis. A statistical
method developed by Herbst is used to estimate groundwater drought intensity during dry
periods. The drought risk index was estimated for each well and a groundwater risk area map was generated using GIS. This map will be useful for
decision making in pursuit of sustainable development and management of groundwater.
Key words
drought; GIS; groundwater; risk index; risk mapping