Over-exploitation of groundwater and marked changes in climate over the years have imposed immense pressure on the global groundwater resources. As demand of potable water increases across the globe for human consumption, agriculture and industrial uses, the need to evaluate the groundwater potential and productivity of aquifers also increases. In the recent years, geographic information system based studies have gained much prominence in groundwater exploration because it is rapid and will provide first - hand information on the resource for further developments. Therefore, the present study has been undertaken with an objective to delineate the groundwater potential of a small tropical river basin located in the western side of the Western Ghats in India as an example. A combination of geographical information system and analytical hierarchical process techniques (AHP) was used in the present study. A total of 12 thematic layers such as Geology, Geomorphology, Land Use/Land Cover, Lineament density, Drainage density, Rainfall, Soil, Slope, Roughness, Topographic Wetness Index, Topographic Position Index and Curvature were prepared and studied for groundwater potential zone demarcation. Weights assigned to each class in all the thematic maps are based on their characteristics and water potential capacity through AHP method. The accuracy of the output was cross-validated with information on groundwater prospects of the area and the overall accuracy of the method comes to around 85%. The groundwater potential zone map thus obtained was categorized into five classes-very high, high, moderate, low and very low. The study reveals that about 59% of the river basin is covered under moderate groundwater potential zone. The low and high groundwater potential zones are observed in 29% and 11% respectively. Area under very high and very low potential zones are recorded only in very limited areas in the basin.

Prioritization of sub-watersheds in a river basin using morphometric parameters is one of the simplest approaches for development of watersheds for its use and management. In this perspective, a study has been undertaken in the Cauvery river basin in South India, using morphometric analysis of the entire river basin in relation to its 17 sixth order sub-watersheds. In this study, automated extraction of drainage network method was applied using geospatial techniques. Drainage morphometric analysis was performed through linear, aerial and relief aspects. Strahler stream order classification was applied for classifying the stream order. In general, dendritic and sub-dendritic types of drainage patterns are noticed in the Cauvery river basin. The total length of the river and basin area are 800 km and 82283 km², respectively. Hypsometric analysis reveals that about 30% of the study area is covered by steep slope with deeply dissected landscapes and the remaining 70% spreads essentially in the Mysore plateau and Tamil Nadu plains which are generally having gentle slopes with an equilibrium stage of landscape development. Prioritization of sub-watershed was carried out based on compound parameter analysis by adding the values of linear and shape parameters of each sub-watershed. The results of prioritization of sub-watersheds reveal that about 88% of sub-watersheds that spread in the river basin fall under high and moderate priority categories for water resource developments. Only two sub-watersheds fall under the low priority category which in turn are safe in the case of water resource development. The study warrants the need for more focused investigations and corrective measures including construction of appropriate recharge structures for improving the water potential of the river basin.

The water quality study of Salem district, Tamil Nadu has been carried out to assess the water quality for domestic and irrigation purposes. For this purpose, 59 groundwater samples were collected and analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), major anions (HCO₃⁻, CO₃⁻, F⁻, Cl⁻, NO₂⁻ + NO₃⁻, and SO₄²⁻), major cations (Ca²⁺ Mg²⁺, Na⁺, and K⁺), alkalinity (ALK), and hardness (HAR). To assess the water quality, the following chemical parameters were calculated based on the analytical results, such as Piper plot, water quality index (WQI), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), magnesium hazard (MH), Kelly index (KI), and residual sodium carbonate (RSC). Wilcox diagram represents that 23% of the samples are excellent to good, 40% of the samples are good to permissible, 10% of the samples are permissible to doubtful, 24% of the samples are doubtful unsuitable, and only 3% of the samples are unsuitable for irrigation. SAR values shows that 52% of the samples indicate high-to-very high and low-to-medium alkali water. KI values indicate good quality (30%) and not suitable (70%) for irrigation purposes. RSC values indicate that 89% of samples are suitable for irrigation purposes. MH reveals that 17% suitable and 83% samples are not suitable for irrigation purposes and for domestic purposes the excellent (8%), good (48%), and poor (44%). The agricultural waste, fertilizer used, soil leaching, urban runoff, livestock waste, and sewages are the sources of poor water quality. Some samples are not suitable for irrigation purposes due to high salinity, hardness, and magnesium concentration. In general, the groundwater of the Salem district was polluted by agricultural activities, anthropogenic activities, ion exchange, and weathering.

A morphometric analysis of Sarabanga watershed in Salem district has been chosen for the present study. Geospatial tools, such as remote sensing and GIS, are utilized for the extraction of river basin and its drainage networks. The Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM-30 m resolution) data have been used for morphometric analysis and evaluating various morphometric parameters. The morphometric parameters of Sarabanga watershed have been analyzed and evaluated by pioneer methods, such as Horton and Strahler. The dendritic type of drainage pattern is draining the Sarabanga watershed, which indicates that lithology and gentle slope category is controlling the study area. The Sarabanga watershed is covered an area of 1208 km². The slope of the watershed is various from 10 to 40% and which is controlled by lithology of the watershed. The bifurcation ratio ranges from 3 to 4.66 indicating the influence of geological structure and suffered more structural disturbances. The form factor indicates elongated shape of the study area. The total stream length and area of watershed indicate that mean annual rainfall runoff is relatively moderate. The basin relief expressed that watershed has relatively high denudation rates. The drainage density of the watershed is low indicating that infiltration is more dominant. The ruggedness number shows the peak discharges that are likely to be relatively higher. The present study is very useful to plan the watershed management.