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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Informatics and Remote Sensing
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1421918
This article is part of the Research Topic Emerging Trends and Advancements of Geoinformatics Applications in Earth and Environmental Systems View all 6 articles

Geospatial and AHP based Identification of Potential Zones for Groundwater Recharge in Haridwar District of India

Provisionally accepted
RIZWAN AHMAD RIZWAN AHMAD 1*Abdul Samad Abdul Samad 1L N Thakural L N Thakural 2Haris Hasan Khan Haris Hasan Khan 1Muhammad Zaid Qamar Muhammad Zaid Qamar 1
  • 1 Interdisciplinary Department of Remote Sensing and GIS Applications, Faculty of Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
  • 2 National Institute of Hydrology (Roorkee), Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Demarcation of the groundwater recharge prospective zones can be the foremost step in facilitating groundwater recharge in any terrain, as most nations have a major concern about unreasonable use of groundwater and declining the water table. To identify groundwater recharge zones in Haridwar district of Uttarakhand state in India, this study employs the integration of remote sensing data along with the Geographical Information System (GIS) and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique by incorporating remote sensing data acquired from different sources. Soil texture, slope, drainage density, land use/land cover (LULC), lithology, geomorphology, lineament density, topographic wetness index (TWI), and rainfall were analysed, and weights were assigned using the AHP technique to assess their impact on groundwater recharge. The study region has been divided into five possible groundwater recharge zones by using weighted overlay analysis: very high (0.82%), high (37.03%), moderate (40.22%), low (17.91%), and very low (4.02%). The verified groundwater recharge potential map for the study region has been validated with 30 existing bore wells. The efficacy of the method was confirmed by an Area Under Curve (AUC) calculated to be 71.08% with the evidence obtained, and the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve is plotted. The findings facilitate the sustainable management of groundwater and the application of artificial recharge techniques in Haridwar.

    Keywords: geospatial, Groundwater recharge, Artificial recharge, AHP, AUC, ROC, Haridwar

    Received: 23 Apr 2024; Accepted: 13 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 AHMAD, Samad, Thakural, Hasan Khan and Zaid Qamar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: RIZWAN AHMAD, Interdisciplinary Department of Remote Sensing and GIS Applications, Faculty of Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, India

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.