Pithampur IDA about 45 km from Indore has industries ranging from automobiles, pharmaceutical to textiles. The watersheds of two rivers namely Gambhir and Chambal, constitute the two study areas. The Gambhir and Chambal river have sub-parallel to dendritic drainage pattern. Thin quaternary alluvium consisting of clay, silt, fine to coarse sand, kankar and gravel is restricted to narrow patches along the course of rivers. Deccan trap basaltic rocks of Malwa group of Cretaceous to paleogene age (68-62 m.y) cover the entire area of the district. The region is characterized by lava flows of "pahoehoe" and "Aa" type. Mega-porphyritic flows sit at the top of the formations. The rocks belong to upper-cretaceous to paleogene age. The rocks have only secondary porosity in the form of fractures and joints. The aquifer type is mostly unconfined and semi-confined. The topsoil cover is predominantly clay.

Gambhir river watershed covers an area of 90 sq km and industries located in this are mostly from automobile and chemical sector. Chambal river watershed has industries mostly from the automobile, chemical, textiles and pharmaceutical sector and covers approximately 210 sq.km. Apart from the existing industries, the area is going to witness further industrialization with a new Special Economic Zone (SEZ) coming up in the region. Integrated geohydrological, Remote sensing geophysical investigations carried out during last 2 years has helped generation of geohydrologic the database. Groundwater flow and mass transport modeling has been carried out to characterize the size of contaminant plumes, if any for present scenario.