Abstract

Ground water is considered as the preferred source of water for meeting domestic, industrial and agricultural requirements, due to its longer residence time in the ground, low level of contamination, wide distribution, and availability within the reach of the consumer. About 90% of rural and nearly 30% of the urban population depend on ground water for drinking and accounts for nearly 60% of the total irrigation potential in the country. The dependency on ground water is expected to increase in future due to the increase in population. In this connection, Jilledubanda Eru watershed in Anantapur District is selected to study the distribution, potential, quality, and movement of ground water with respect to certain natural resources information derived through remote sensing and GIS techniques. The watershed is mostly covered in parts of seven mandals in Anantapur District. The total geographical area of the watershed is 496 sq. km. covered in the Survey of India toposheet Nos: 57 F/15, 57 F/16, 57 J/3, and 57 J/4 on 1:50,000 scale. The watershed lies between North longitudes 770 48' 25'' to 780 02' 45'' and East latitudes 140 05' 55'' to 140 26' 48''. The integrated remote sensing based information on natural resources include hydrogeomorphology, land use/land cover, rainfall and slope. The average annual rainfall of the watershed is 528mm. The study area is mostly occupied by grey/pink granite, hornblende biotite gneiss, granodiorite and lamprophyre. The granitic rocks are traversed by ENE-WSW trending dolerite dykes. The major direction of the lineaments is in NNE-SSW and NW-SE, based on the origin, the landforms are broadly divided into fluvial and denudational. Major land use/ land cover classes comprise built-up land, agricultural land, Forest land, waste land and other categories. About 45% of the watershed area is included under 1 and 2 slope categories. Ground water prospects and well density in the watershed is compared with thematic information on lithology, geomorphology, structure, and land use/ land cover and the relationship with each theme is discussed.

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