Detection of groundwater conditioning factors in a hilly environment

Abstract Champhai, the rice bowl of Mizoram, is known for wet rice practices. Rapid urbanization and global climate change increased the demand for groundwater. Champhai city, being a hilly township in northeast India, is very difficult to identify the potential groundwater water availability. The present study aimed at groundwater potentiality zonation in Champhai town. For these purposes ten (10) factors from topographic, climatic, hydrological and other conditions were assigned weightage based on the AHP (analytical hierarchy process) technique. The aspect was given maximum weightage as the aspect working as the controlling factors of precipitation intensity, vegetation and soil type, while LULC (land use land cover) was assigned minimum weightage that unscientific human activities reduced infiltration rate. Subsequently, an addition of ten weighted rasters was performed for groundwater potentiality zonation. As a result, it was seen that the maximum part of the study area covered low potentiality zones (31.88%), whereas high and very high potential zone covered 14.73% and 5.08, respectively. A scientific validation technique, namely AUC (area under curve) value of 0.737, denoted a good classified groundwater water potentiality zone. Further, the single-layer sensitivity analysis highlighted that elevation, slope, aspect, infiltration number, distance to streams and rainfall had the maximum effective factors based on their effective weightage. The map removal sensitivity analysis highlighted that TWI (Topographic Wetness Index) and aspect had the maximum influence on the model. However, in a hilly environment like Champhai, the output of the current study will work as a blueprint for planning and decision making.