Groundwater Situation at Southwest Coast of India –A Field Study, Overview, Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract Most of the coastal regions are experiencing water related problems such as acute shortage of water, decline trend in water level and saltwater intrusion. Groundwater resource is becoming scarce, as is evidenced by the increasing demand on water, improper planning, poor agricultural practices, inefficient utilization, groundwater mining, peculiar soil characteristics, and steep slopes. Hence, there is a need to study the overall status of groundwater level fluctuations (gwlf) in a micro watershed located at 13° 0′ 00″ to 13° 2′ 30″ North Latitude and 74° 47′ 00″ to 74° 50′ 00″ East Longitude south west coast of India. The current study aims to present and evaluates the periodical behavior of gwlf by statistical properties and also, we investigate the effect of meteorological parameters which includes temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, evaporation, land use/cover, stream flow, and soil type on groundwater level fluctuations. Therefore, in order to understand the periodical behavior of groundwat er level fluctuations for forty two open wells, weekly and seasonal analysis has been carried out using historical groundwater level data for a period of seven years (2004-2011). It is noticed that groundwater level is peak during the monsoon and declines in summer season for the past seven years. It is also observed that there is increase in water level from 2004 to 2007 and 2008 to 2011and decline tend in the 2008 and 2011 year respectively. Rainfall, temperature, stream flow, soil type are the major infl uence factors for groundwater level fluctuations in the present study. The results obtained from the current study provide insights on the relevance of taking into account for good agricultural practices, conjunctive use, proper planning and development of groundwater resources in a sustainable manner.