Groundwater Potential Investigation Using Geospatial Tool and Analytic Hierarchy Process in the Gubalafto Wereda, North Wollo, Ethiopia

Groundwater is a precious resource of limited extent. For the good use of it, proper investigation, management and assessment is required. This research main objective is investigation of the groundwater potential sites by using geospatial tool and analytic hierarchy process in the Gubalafto Wereda, North Wollo, and Ethiopia. The research work performed through integration of geographical information system, and Analytical hierarchy process techniques. The integration of different groundwater contributing thematic layers such as slope map, TWI map, land-cover map, fault map, drainage density map, lithological map, geomorphological map, soil type map and rainfall map were prepared and used for groundwater potential map development. Analytical hierarchy process was used to drive the weight of each influential factor, and weighted sum overlay analysis tool was used to aggregate factors together. The groundwater potential zone map generated through this model was verified using borehole, hand dug well, spring data and resulted Pearson correlation coefficient 0.82 which indicates good correlation between groundwater inventory data and mapped groundwater potential. The groundwater potential zones of the study area categorized into four classes of Very good, Good, Moderate and poor zones. The result showed that study area groundwater potential zone categorized in to very high, high, moderate and low covers area (8.87%), (22.94%), (36.61%) and (31.57%) of study area respectively. The estimated groundwater potential map of study area demonstrates that the very high and high groundwater potential zone highly concentrated in eastern central and most eastern part were the distribution of plains landforms, alluvial sediment, gentle slope, good rainfall, crop lands and fault concentration are dominating which are very significant for groundwater occurrence. This finding will be serving as a worked document for Gubalafto Woreda Irrigation and Lowlands Bureau and Water and Energy Management Bureau in the identification and delineation of groundwater potential zones for planning development of groundwater drilling in suitable manner