Groundwater Modeling of Banas River Basin

Groundwater is an important source of water for the agricultural, domestic, and industrial sectors. For proper planning and management of groundwater development in a judicious and socioeconomically equitable manner, quantification of groundwater resources is one of the most important prerequisites. In the present study Visual MODFLOW has been applied to get a better understanding of the groundwater flow system of Banas River basin in Rajasthan state in India. The model attributes like recharge rate, water level in observation wells, extraction values, river stage and flow rates, hydraulic conductivity, and ground surface elevations were available. In the upper (hilly) reaches basin boundaries have assumed no flow boundaries. The grid cell size of 500 m by 500 m was been used in the model. The model output (after validation and calibration) in terms of head, drawdown, flow direction, etc., has resulted in insight into groundwater scenarios in the study area that may be useful for judicious and planned exploitation of the groundwater resources and also for the evaluation of climate change impacts.