Abstract
Clustering of groundwater pump features in the groundwater development area is to enable a proper assessment of the potential environmental impact of pumping activities on groundwater sustainability. The present work concerns the application of fuzzy c-means approach to cluster the similarities of irrigation pumps features operating in the groundwater development area. The algorithm employs fuzzy partitioning system such that a given data point can belong to one or more cluster with the degree of belongingness specified by membership degree. The methodology is illustrated through the case study of groundwater pump system located in Madiun Regency, East Java-Indonesia. The results indicate that fuzzy c-means clustering applied in the operation characteristics of groundwater pumps seems to have reached encouraging results for the groundwater system under examination. The final result comprises of four groups; one group with low utilization and one group with high utilization of groundwater pumps for irrigation, whereas the remainder belonged to a less moderate utilization group and a moderate utilization group. Region I was dominated by shallow groundwater pumps with low discharge. Region II and III were dominated by medium to deep groundwater pumps. Another feature of the pumps operate in these regions was their usage below design potential. Meanwhile, pumps operating in Region IV was dominated by deep well pump and exploited more intensively than those in the other groups. The dependence on its groundwater sources and lack of a fixed irrigation system in Region IV were likely reason for its sharp increase in groundwater withdrawal, ignoring the adverse future impact on the environment. A further study is needed to map the spatial distribution of groundwater bodies considering the geology of the area, precipitation distribution, land use, and the density of pump wells. Results of the map of the groundwater potential zones can be used in combination with this finding result to decide the potential or possible locations of future groundwater development programs.
