Assessment of Groundwater Potential Zones Utilizing Geographic Information System-Based Analytical Hierarchy Process, Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje, and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution Methods: A Case Study in Mersin, Türkiye

The indiscriminate use of surface water has heightened the demand for groundwater supplies. Therefore, it is critical to locate potential groundwater sources to develop alternative water resources. Groundwater detection is tremendously valuable, as is sustainable groundwater management. Mersin, in southern Türkiye, is expected to confront drought shortly due to increased population, industry, and global climate change. The groundwater potential zones of Mersin were determined in this study by GIS-based AHP, VIKOR, and TOPSIS methods. Fifteen parameters were used for this goal. The study area was separated into five categories. The results show that the study area can be divided into “Very High” zones (4.98%, 5.94%, 7.96%), followed by “High” zones (10.89%, 10.32%, 16.50%), “Moderate” zones (60.68%, 52.41%, 51.56%), “Low” zones (21.28%, 28.53%, 20.90%), and “Very Low” zones (2.18%, 2.80%, 3.07%) in turn. Data from 60 wells were used to validate potential groundwater resources. The ROC-AUC technique was utilized for this. It was seen that the performance of the VIKOR model is better than that of the AHP and TOPSIS (76.5%). The findings demonstrated that the methods and parameters used are reliable for sustainable groundwater management. We believe that the study will also help decision makers for this purpose.