Assessment of Groundwater Prospective Zone in Adigrat Town and Its Surrounding Area Using Geospatial Technology

This study has been conducted in Adigrat Town and its surrounding area, Ethiopia, to identify suitable groundwater potential zones and methods of proper groundwater management and find suitable groundwater potential zones using recent scientific approaches to remote sensing and GIS techniques. To identify the groundwater potential of the study area, the parameters of geology, slope, drainage, geomorphic units, lineament density, and land use/land cover were generated and integrated with an inverse distance weighted (IDW) model based on GIS data. For each of these parameters, appropriate weightage factors were assigned. Weightage factors were assigned to the various geomorphic units based on their ability to store groundwater. This procedure was repeated for each of the remaining layers, and the resulting layers were reclassified. After that, the reclassified layers were integrated to demarcate zones as very good, good, moderate, low, and poor. The analysis identified groundwater potential zones with very good, good, moderate, low, and poor prospects covering 7.19 km2, 55.13 km2, 28.03 km2, 29 km2, and 28.45 km2, respectively. This groundwater potential data could be used to effectively identify suitable locations for potable water extraction for rural populations.