Groundwater is one of the valuable natural resources which determines the health of a human being in an area. The present research investigated the hydrogeological determinants to assess the sensitivity of each factor to the infiltration pattern and to map the regional groundwater potential zone for the semi-arid watershed in Karnataka, India using a geographic information system (GIS) and satellite remote sensing. It was one of the driest and water scarcest regions in the country. Groundwater potential zones are demarcated by integrating the highly impacting thematic layers such as land use, soil texture and depth, rainfall, slope, drainage density, lineament and geomorphology. The thematic layers are prepared from the remote sensing satellite images, ground truth data and available secondary data. Cartosat-1 CartoDEM (30m), IRS P6 LISS III (24m) and Landsat 8 (30m), SOI toposheet (57 B/7, 57 B/8, 57 B/11, 57 B/12, 57 B/15 and57 B/16) and high resolution satellite images from Google Earth were used for the preparation of thematic maps. ArcGIS software was utilized to manipulate these data sets. Weight is assigned to each class for each thematic map according to their characteristic and interrelationship with groundwater. All the thematic layers are integrated into a GIS domain, and assigned weight values are added for each polygon in the attribute table. Then each polygon is classified a groundwater zone into five different subclasses according to the gained weight value. Only 15% of the total land area is rich with groundwater resources. More than 70% of the total land area is moderate to poor with groundwater resources

This paper presents a technical and economic feasibility assessment of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) plants in the West Kalimantan Province of Borneo, which is essential for boosting the development of solar PV plants in Indonesia. The assessment was performed based on a previously developed geographical information systems (GIS) package that integrates satellite-derived data of solar irradiation with locally obtained data such as land usage, topography, road lines, and an electrical network. For the evaluation of the technical and economic feasibility, annual energy production and electrical cost were calculated using an analysis tool that was integrated into a GIS package. The results show that more than 93% of the exploitable land that covers the area of 49,859 km² is available for the development of solar PV plants, with an annual energy production higher than 180 GWh/km² and an electricity cost lower than 0.05 USD/kWh, indicating the attractiveness of utility-scale solar PV plant development in West Kalimantan Province. A further detailed assessment of optimal sites shows that the selected sites are technically and economically feasible for the development of utility-scale solar PV plants. The approaches and results of this research should be valuable for energy planners, developers, and policy makers to set the strategies for promoting the development of utility-scale solar PV plants in pro of the sustainable development of Indonesia.

Innovative watershed management is intense to unravelling watershed related problems on a sustainable manner. Planning and managing developmental practices in the watershed on a sustainable basis usually integrate water or land and both in the present in such a way to attain its goal in the future also. The water-related problems in rain-fed agriculture are often related to high intensity and short duration rainfall, with large spatial and temporal variability, rather than to the low cumulative amount of rainfall. For the innovative planning and Management in the watershed, analysing land degradation through the prioritisation watersheds, assessing the surface runoff, evaluating the Spatio-temporal distribution of the hydrological constraints, groundwater potential zone delineations and the suitable sites for the Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) are considered by spatial multi-criteria evaluation from the several thematic layers that are determined from the remote sensing and GIS technologies. These innovative spatial technologies contribute to reducing vulnerability to climate change and help minimise or even reverse land degradation. The sustainable RWH will improve the surface and ground water level, this in turn improve the economy of the watershed. Keywords: Geospatial, Innovations, Watershed, Rain­fed agriculture, Prioritisation, Groundwater