Site Selection for Rainwater Harvesting Structures Using GIS for the Augmentation of Groundwater

Abstract

Groundwater is a precious resource and need to be carefully protected since withdrawal rates exceed recharge rates at many places in the world. In order to augment the groundwaterresource, rainwater harvesting is to be adopted. Geographic Information System (GIS) is the tool currently available to handle large volume of spatial data along with attributes. The study area selected is Coimbatore corporation (old) in Tamil Nadu, India. Maps like soil distribution, slope, geology, geomorphology and lineament were classified using Arcview GIS. The Model Builder in the Arc View GIS was used to give Weightage for various layers and select site suitable for recharge structures. Suitable locations for rain water harvesting to augment groundwater were selected for Coimbatore city