Water has become a scarce resource all over the world and so special attention must be paid to ground water resource management. Only two main sources of fresh water in the world are available which are surface water and groundwater. The amount of water in these sources is very little and is required for future storing by groundwater recharge which is very important. Groundwater is the main source of water mainly for agriculture and domestic purposes. Artificial Groundwater Recharge (AGR) method is best Availability of non-committed runoff, hydro-geologically favourable area for recharges and site-specific design of recharge structures are the major requirements. The aim of this study is to investigate the suitable areas for AGR structures in upper Bhima River basin in the semi-arid zone of Pune district, Maharashtra, India. In this study, knowledge based weightage values are assigned for each thematic layer and these thematic maps were integrated to fuzzy tool to determine membership values. Membership values were derived respective thematic map’s each class, then fuzzy overlay analysis was carried out. The entire area has been classified as very suitable, suitable, moderate and unsuitable for AGR. Artificial recharge structure, like Check dam, nallabund, gully plugging, percolation ponds etc. are suggested to increase groundwater level. The conventional practice in water harvesting takes into consideration the availability of land, suitability of a particular artificial recharge techniques based on local conditions, and the area benefited. Hence, decisions regarding to the location and type of recharge structure for water conservation can be made only after extensive geological and hydrogeological studies on a local scale....
Authors: Prasenjit Bhowmick , Sivakumar V.