Issue Details

THE MEWAT ANALYSIS FOR AGRICULTURAL AND GROUNDWATER FEASIBILITY IN THE STATE OF HARYANA

ABSTRACT

All human activity depends on groundwater, one of the planet’s most precious natural resources. It is essential for a region’s social and economic development in addition to human existence. Additionally, over half of India’s population makes their living from agriculture and related industries. To accomplish sustainable resource development and management, sustainable agriculture will need to provide long-term benefits. Evaluating an area’s groundwater and agricultural potential is essential for effective groundwater and agricultural management. By boosting the likelihood of drawing water from productive structures, this research may help to optimize the location of future drilling and meet the region’s growing water demand, particularly for agricultural purposes. The goal of the current study is to evaluate the areas in Haryana’s southern Mewat district that have promise for agricultural and groundwater. The research region’s land use and land cover, geology, geomorphology, lineament density, slope, drainage density, soil, and other thematic layers are prepared for the mapping of groundwater potential zones in order to meet the objectives. Potential theme layers for agriculture were created, including the Soil Moisture Index (SMI), Land Surface Temperature (LST), Slope, Rainfall, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Digital Elevation Model (DEM). An analytical hierarchy process (AHP) evaluation approach is used to integrate all theme layers. Each topic, along with the categories that go with it, receives a knowledge base weighting between 1 and 5 based on its potential for agriculture and ability to retain groundwater. Using the weighted overlay technique, all of the theme maps are combined to create a composite map showing the research region’s groundwater potential and agricultural potential. Four categories, ranging from very low to outstanding potential zones, were further separated into the maps of groundwater potential and agricultural potential. It has been determined that 20% and 22% of the region have outstanding and agriculture potential, respectively, and that 69% and 60% of the land have moderate to good groundwater potential. Finding suitable locations for water extraction and effective farming techniques will be made easier with the use of this groundwater and agricultural potential information.

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