Effectiveness of Groundwater Recharge in Hard Rock Terrain: A Cohesive Study of Virtual Recharge and Sustainability Using Remote Sensing Techniques

Remote Sensing and GIS techniques employed in artificial groundwater recharge proved to be an effective and economic tool among the scientific community. Studies revealed that thematic layers with simple mathematical logics and weighted indexing techniques are used in the delineation of groundwater potential zone on several horizon conditions. In this study, the weighted modelling on hard rock terrain for groundwater recharge in Quetta valley is evaluated for its effectiveness due to its varying geological structure, considering parameters that include lithology, lineament density, slope, drainage density, and land cover. Imageries data of 30m resolution obtained from Landsat 8 and ASTER. Moreover, ground data of observation wells obtained from WAPDA, Pakistan. Our analysis identified the artificial replenishment sites for groundwater recharge which are correlated with ground data from water wells using Pearson’s correlation. Pearson’s value found 0.574 shows a positive correlation. Furthermore, categorizes the suitability of sites for groundwater recharge into four classes: most suitable, moderate, less, and not suitable. The output is evaluated against the structural density layer, hence, found the effectiveness of weighted modelling in groundwater recharge analysis in hard rock terrain for Quetta valley.