Kajiado experiences insufficient amount of rainfall and people living in this region face alot of water shortage.The main economic activities include pastoralism, livestock herding, tourism and agriculture which require sustainable water source. The current water sources include a few rivers out of which most are seasonal and there are few boreholes which are distances apart. This study was prompted by the fact that these current sources of water need to be complemented with other reliable and sustainable water sources. Underground water is adequate and available throughout the year and location of it would help in solving this problem. To address the problem of water shortage, GIS and remote sensing techniques were applied in analyzing and locating suitable sites for underground water in Kajiado County. Underground water sourcing requires one to identify the necessary variables and these were identified by assistance from experts and literature review. Current water resources were characterized, a geodatabase created and a model for underground water developed. Land cover, Slope, Lithology, Soil, Lineament and Climate were the six parameters used as the data. GIS technology was integrated with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a tool in Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) which enabled flexibility and accuracy in decision making especially in evaluating the effective factors to locate suitable areas. Identified criteria were combined using weighted overlay method within ArcGIS and the results indicate that 51% of Kajiado County is viable for underground water. Exploitation of this resource would mean sustainable source of water. The suitable locations are well distributed in the county except in Kajiado Central constituency which is generally unsuitable. Remote sensing and GIS are suitable tools for use in locating underground water. Decision makers would adopt this study to make informed decisions on where to sink new boreholes.
