f Large Scale Mapping Of Groundwater Resources In India With Results From Test Sites In Different Geological Terrain

As the most part of the world, India is also getting more and more dependency on groundwater resources and hence mapping and cautious management become imperative. Ministry of Water Resources of the Government of India has launched a flagship project to tackle this problem. AQUIM stands for pilot project on aquifer mapping and it is a great challenge, not merely because includes the acquisition, in less than one year, of 13,800 line-km of helicopter-borne transient electromagnetic (HTEM) data over six different areas across India (Figure 1), but also because its ultimate aim is to develop a cost-effective tool to locate, characterize, and, eventually, manage water resources. An accurate picture of groundwater through aquifer mapping allows water management plans at the appropriate scale to be effective for the protection of this invaluable resource, while it is becoming physically and economically scarcer and scarcer. This is a necessary prerequisite to achieve drinking water security, improve irrigation strategies and develop sustainability, especially in a country, like India, characterized by an impetuous economic and population growth. Depending on the outcomes, AQUIM is planned to be scaled across the entire country within the next decade. The original scientific plan of AQUIM starts with compiling of the existing database in the area and conceptualize the hydrogeological set up followed by SkyTEM survey, ground truthing and validation of the derived model by ground based data, joint inversion and data integration, deriving 2/3D hydrogeological model at 1:50,000 scale and demarcating the aquifer disposition precisely usable to village level up to 200 m in hard rock and 300 m depth in alluvial. CGWB will use the above information to carry out aquifer modeling for effective management and development of groundwater resources. CSIR - National Geophysical Research Institute and the HydroGeophysics Group (HGG) at Aarhus University signed an agreement concerning the acquisition, processing and inversion of the HTEM data from the six areas of the AQUIM project.