The Hydro-Health Nexus in Himalayan Ecosystems: Mapping Groundwater Security in District Doda, J&K, India

Abstract

Groundwater is one of the essential sources of freshwater for domestic, agricultural, and developmental activities in the mountainous region of the Doda District of Jammu and Kashmir. However, its availability and occurrence are governed by topographic, geological, rainfall, soil, drainage, and land-use characteristics. The current study was carried out to delineate groundwater potential zones using GIS-based weighted overlay analysis for better groundwater management and exploration in the study area. The study was conducted using ArcGIS 10.8 by considering five groundwater-affecting thematic layers, namely, rainfall, slope, drainage density, soil, and land use/land cover (LULC). All the thematic data layers were acquired from secondary resources and were preprocessed to develop a groundwater prospect map. The individual layers were reclassified based on the degree of influence on groundwater potential and were assigned weights and ranks, which were used to perform the weighted overlay analysis to produce the groundwater potential zone map of the study area.
Findings and Values: The groundwater potential of the study area was categorized into very low (0.03%), low (13.06%), moderate (66.20%), high (20.64%), and very high (0.06%) using a GIS-based weighted overlay analysis. The result depicted that most of the study area (1578.820 km²) was under a moderate groundwater potential zone, followed by a high potential zone (492.252 km²). In contrast, a very high groundwater potential zone was restricted to only 1.502 km 2. Further, the areas with high groundwater potential were predicted to occur in Bhaderwah, Bhagwah, Bharat Bagla, Chiralla, and Phagsoo, while the low groundwater potential zone was distributed throughout Marmat, Assar, Chilly Pingal, and Thathri. The findings of the current study will contribute to groundwater management and exploration in the Doda District.