Spatial prioritization of groundwater resources in mountain region of Nepal: a GIS and AHP integrated framework

Abstract

ABSTRACT Climate change and anthropogenic activities pose major challenges to water resource management in water-scarce mountain regions. Managing and monitoring groundwater effectively is crucial in mitigating these challenges. Understanding groundwater resources and their distribution is necessary for effective management. The present study covers Doramba rural municipality of Nepal. It employed the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tool integrated with remote sensing (RS) data and geospatial techniques to identify groundwater potential zones (GPZs). The parameters for analysis include drainage density, slope, rainfall, lineament density, land use/land cover (LULC), soil, geology, curvature, roughness, topographic wetness index, and topographic position index. These 11 thematic layers of the study area were prioritized using Satty's AHP method for the delineation of GPZs. The results classified the study area into very high, high, moderate, low, and very low groundwater potential classes, covering 26.71, 27.98, 46.61, 34.71, and 4.89 km2, respectively. The delineated map accuracy was confirmed with a 70.7% prediction rate based on the spatial distribution of 56 springs in the study area. The study's results can be applied to the sustainable management of groundwater resources in the study region and other areas with similar hydrogeological conditions.