Site Suitability for RBF Using Geospatial Technology in Tungabhadra Sub-basin, India

• Published in: Journal of the Geological Society of India 2020-08, Vol.96 (2), p.180-188
• Main Authors: Patil, Nagraj S., Dodawad, Madhu, Vijaykumar, H., Nataraja, M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access; Drinking water; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Filtration; Geographical information systems; Geology; Groundwater; Households; Hydrogeology; Hydrology; International organizations; Land cover; Land use; Parameters; River banks; Riverbanks; Rivers; Rural areas; Site selection; Technology; Technology utilization; Villages; Water pollution; Water purification; Water quality; Water shortages; Water supply
• ISSN: 0016-7622; 0974-6889
• DOI: 10.1007/s12594-020-1526-9

As per the 2017 global reports, 63 million Indians are living in rural areas without access to the safe drinking source of water. Access to the safe drinking water was declared as a human right by the United Nations but remains a challenge for India. Due to increase in demand of water, 30% of urban and 90% of rural households completely depend on untreated surface or groundwater, which causes serious health issues. It is estimated that 21% of communicable diseases in India are water related. These problems have raised concern on alternative, sustainable treatment solutions to manage pollution of source of water and to continue the supply of safe drinking water to the community. Many organizations and universities in India have been working to tackle the access to safe water problems with the novel approaches. In this context, a natural filtration technique, river bank filtration (RBF) is one of the alternatives which is proved to be cost-efficient technology for providing safe drinking water The crucial step in the development of River Bank Filtration project is site selection. However, site selection for RBF using conventional methods are costly, time consuming and restricted to small area. This study highlights the use of geospatial technology to develop the site suitability for river bank filtration locations based on a case study in Tungabhadra river stretch between Mudenur and Halavagalu villages. Though several researches have carried out investigation on site selection for RBF, this is the first attempt to use geospatial technology in particular. The crucial parameters which influence site suitability for RBF are hydrology, hydrogeology, water supply, water quality, land use/land cover etc. The spatial maps were prepared using these parameters and weighted overlay analysis was done after assigning weights to the spatial maps in the GIS environment. The developed site suitability map shows the villages namely Halavagalu, Nitturu, Konnatambigi, Somlapur, Nitturubasapuram, Yellapur, Hirebidri and some parts of Udgatti, Airani, Tavaragundi areas were found to be suitable for implementing the RBF.