ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I sincerely express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. V. NEHRU KUMAR M.E, Ph.D.,

Professor and Head, Department of Civil Engineering, Annamalai University for his kind
permission to work on the thesis.

I owes my sincere thanks to my guide Dr. K. EZHISAIVALLABI, M.E, Ph.D.,

Associate Professor Department of Civil Engineering, Annamalai University for her
valuable guidance and constant encouragement throughout the thesis work.

I wish to express my thanks to all other teaching and supporting staff members of
Library and Computer Laboratory in our department.

I thank my seniors and my M.E classmates in Department of Civil Engineering,

Annamalai University for valuable support in carrying out the work part.

I also want to express my sincere thanks to State Ground And Surface Water
Resources Data Centre, Tharamani, Chennai for providing the data.

I have to thank my friends and family for their moral support and guidance throughout
the studies.

PRASANYA J

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 ABSTRACT

This integrated world faces many problems due to the water scarcity by the climatic changes.
Groundwater is the most required and needy thing for the both human and nature and it is a
most valuable resource which supplies many of the hydrologic needs of habitats globally.
Rain is a main element of the water cycle and is responsible for giving the most of the fresh
water to the Earth. The change in frequency, intensity and patterns in rainfall, as well as
change in temperature has implication for replenishment of groundwater storage. The
important source of water makes use for irrigation, drinking and industries. A very well-
known truth is the ground water resource is limited and its accessible element depends on the
extent to which it is replenished. The Chengalpattu district has a tropical climate and winter
has much less rainfall than summer. This paper deals with understanding the major impact of
the rainfall changes on the groundwater fluctuations and forecasting the level of groundwater
in Chengalpattu district, Tamilnadu by involving the Time series Analysis. To predict the
groundwater level ARIMA model has been used in the package of XLSTAT. Rainfall
Variability was used yearly rainfall data and ground water level in the selected 8 blocks in
Chengalpattu district. And also we have to take every possible steps to return the water into
aquifer and conserve rainwater to improve the groundwater level.

Keywords : Rainfall, Groundwater fluctuation, Forecasting, ARIMA and XLSTAT.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER TITLE PAGE No.
No.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i
ABSTRACT ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iii
LIST OF TABLES v
LIST OF FIGURES vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 General 1
1.2 Impact of rainfall on groundwater fluctuations 1
1.3 Forecasting 2
1.4 ARIMA Model 2
1.5 Scope of the study 3
1.6 Objectives of the study 3
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 General 4
2.2 Rainfall variability 4
2.3 Forecasting of groundwater 5
2.4 Approaches for forecasting groundwater table depths 7
2.5 Summary of literature review 7
3 STUDY AREA
3.1 General 8
3.2 Geography 9
3.3 Soil 12
3.4 Drainage pattern 13
3.5 Geology 14
3.6 Agriculture 15
3.7 Blocks in Chengalpattu 16
3.8 Climate and rainfall 16

TITLE PAGE No.

CHAPTER

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 No.
4 METHODOLOGY
4.1 General 18
4.1.1 Flowchart 18
4.2 Database 19
4.2.1 Rainfall database 19
4.2.2 Groundwater database 21
4.3 Methods and Materials 24
4.3.1 XLSTAT 24
4.3.1.1 Essential features of XLSTAT 24
4.3.2 ARIMA model 25
Setting up the fitting of an ARIMA
4.3.2.1 25
model to a time series
5 RESULTS AND DISUSSION 28

5.1 Statistical properties of Rainfall 28

Thiessen polygon map of the mean areal rainfall
5.1.1 31
in Chengalpattu district
5.2 Groundwater level fluctuations 33
5.3 Impact of rainfall on groundwater fluctuations 36
5.4 Groundwater level 39
Interpreting the results of an ARIMA model
5.4.1 42
fitting to a time series
Results of ARIMA modeling of the Groundwater
5.4.2 42
level series
5.4.2.1 Results of search for the best model 42
Results after optimization
5.4.2.2 42
(Groundwater level)
5.4.3 Histogram 50
5.4.3.1 Summary statistics 50
6 CONCLUSION 51
7 SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 52
REFERENCES 53
LIST OF TABLES

TABLE No. TITLE PAGE No.

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 3.1 Administrative setup 9

3.2 Geography 9

3.3 Water Resources 10

3.4 Blocks in Chengalpattu district 16

4.1 Locations of the Rainfall station 19

4.2 Locations of wells 21

Rainfall Statistical Properties of chengalpattu District
5.1 29
(2000-2020)
5.2 Area influenced by rainfall stations 32

5.3 Groundwater level Fluctuations 34

Impact of rainfall variations in groundwater level
5.4 37
fluctuations
5.5 Groundwater level (1990 - 2020) 40

5.6 Summary statistics 42

5.7 Goodness of fit statistics 42

5.8 Model parameters 43

5.9 Predictions and residuals 44

5.10 Descriptive analysis (Groundwater level) 46

5.11 Descriptive analysis (Residuals) 48

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE No. TITLE PAGE No.

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1.1 Location map of study area 1
3.1 Chengalpattu district map 8

3.2 Hydrology map of Chengalpattu District 11

3.3 Soil map 13

3.4 River map 14

4.1 Flowchart of Methodology 18

4.2 Rainfall stations 20

4.3 Location of wells 23

5.1 Yearly Rainfall of stations 30

5.2 Fluctuations of yearly rainfall (2000-2020) 30

5.3 Thiessen polygon map for rainfall 31

Area influenced by rainfall stations and % of
5.4 32
occupation
Relation between rainfall variations and water level
5.5 38
fluctuations (2000-2020)
5.6 Groundwater Level (1990 - 2020) 41

5.7 Forecasting of Groundwater level in ARIMA model 45

5.8 Residuals 45
Auto correlogram Groundwater level
5.9 46

5.10 Partial autocorrelogram Groundwater level 46

Autocorrelogram Residuals
5.11 47
Partial autocorrelogram Residuals
5.12 49
Histogram (Groundwater level)
5.13 50

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

vi
GWL - Groundwater Level

IMD - India Meteorological Department

PZ - Piezometric

PWD - Public Work Department

Sq.Kms - Square Kilometers

ARIMA - Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average

DF - Degrees Of Freedom

SSE - Sum Of The Squared Residuals

MSE -  Mean Squared Error

RMSE - Root Mean Square Error

WN - White Noise

MAPE - Mean Absolute Percentage Error

FPE - Final Prediction Error

AIC - Akaike's Information Criterion

AICC - Corrected Akaike's Information Criterion

SBC - Schwarz Bayesian Criterion

SMA - Seasonal Moving Average

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