Dam Site Suitability using Remote sensing and GIS techniques

Abstract

Increasing the amount of surface water is the efficient way to tackle the water crisis which directly and indirectly supports the water requirement for humans and increasing the groundwater table in the surrounding area respectively. Rainfall is one of the major source of surface water in most of the areas on land. Huge amount of rainwater is carried by rivers which mixes into ocean at the end which is of no use for human society. Dams are the suitable structures to store this runoff water and make it available for public demand during water scarcity. Development of Remote sensing and GIS paves a way for determining the location of reservoir where trillions of cubic metre of water can be stored at a lesser cross sectional area. Many environmental and socio- economic factors were studied in previous studies such as geology, lineament, soil type, slope and population. In addition to these factors, ground water potential (GWP) areas, an indirect parameter is also considered to divert the stored surface water from the dam to those GWP zones in the view of directly replenishing the groundwater levels. Implementing these factors in decision making techniques like traditional AHP will provide the information of dam site suitability across a river.