An improved FAHP based methodology for groundwater potential zones in Longchuan River basin, Yunnan Province, China

• Published in: Earth science informatics Vol. 13; no. 3; pp. 847 - 857
• Main Authors: Luo, Dayou, Wen, Xingping, Zhang, Haonan, Xu, Junlong, Zhang, Rui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.09.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural management; Agriculture; Agronomy; Analytic hierarchy process; ASTER (radiometer); Drainage density; Drinking water; Drought; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth System Sciences; Elevation; Geographic information systems; Geologic mapping; Geological mapping; Geological surveys; Groundwater; Groundwater availability; Groundwater management; Groundwater potential; Groundwater resources; Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet); Land cover; Land use; Landsat; Landsat satellites; Lithology; Local economy; Local government; Normalized difference vegetative index; Ontology; Rainfall; Remote sensing; Research Article; Resource management; River basins; Rivers; Satellite imagery; Simulation and Modeling; Space Exploration and Astronautics; Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics; Vegetation index; Water resources; China; Yunnan China; GIS; RS; Improved fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP); Groundwater potential zones; Weighted linear combination (WLC); Longchuan River basin
• ISSN: 1865-0473; 1865-0481
• DOI: 10.1007/s12145-020-00469-2

Longchuan River Basin is located in Chuxiong (central Yunnan province, China) that is subject to severe drought. Agriculture is critical to local economy, which can lead to intense agricultural activity. Accordingly, delineating groundwater potential zones and developing usable groundwater resources are required to meet potable and irrigating water demands in the zone. Remote sensing (RS), geographic information system (GIS) and improved fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) were adopted to delineate the groundwater potential zones to assess the groundwater availability in Longchuan River Basin. The surveys of China geological map, Landsat 8 OLI and GDEM Aster satellite images were employed to generate eight thematic layers, i.e., lithology, land use/land cover (LULC), lineaments density, rainfall, slope, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), drainage density and elevation; subsequently, the mentioned layers were converted into raster data in ArcGIS. According to the ability of thematic layer to impact groundwater potential, the mentioned criteria were weighted differently by improved FAHP. Next, a map based on weighted linear combination (WLC) model was generated. Lastly, the groundwater potential zones of study area fell into ‘poor’ zone, ‘moderate’ zone and ‘good’ zone. As revealed from the results of the study, nearly 31.22% of the area exhibited ‘good’ groundwater potential, approximately 36.46% was terrain exhibiting ‘moderate’ groundwater potential, and the residual 32.23% were considered to exhibit ‘poor’ groundwater potential. The results provide more insights, and the groundwater potential zones map can be exploited by local governments for groundwater resources management and exploitation.