摘要：While water supply is a crucial issue, there is an evidence to suggest that the quality of groundwater suppliesis also under threat in recent years. This is the result of salinisation and increasing trend of groundwaterexploitation and heterogeneous terrain condition of hard rock area posing major problem in groundwaterexploration. Groundwater exploitation has been on the rise in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka. Competingdemands have grown in face of perennial water shortages, a situation which has been exaggerated bydrought condition in the past decade. Integrated and environmentally sustainable development strategieshave become inevitable for micro-level planning these days. Geographic Information System (GIS) wasused for spatial analysis and integration. Geomedia Professional 5.1 GIS software was adopted in thisprocess. The ranked maps were spatially integrated and the district area was divided into very good, good,moderate and low groundwater potential zones. Aquifer thickness map was generated by intersection of wellinventory, sub-surface geological, geophysical and groundwater potential data. Based on aquifer thickness,aquifer was categorized into deep aquifer, shallow aquifer and moderately deep aquifer. By combininggroundwater potential zone and aquifer thickness, the watershed area was reclassified into eleven priorityzones, recommended for different agricultural practices, groundwater development and management ofaquifer recharge.
