Jerer river catchment is found in the Somali regional state and is one of the major tributaries of the Wabishebebele river basin. The groundwater condition and potential of the area were not done in the previous studies using integrated methods. A comprehensive approach using remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) -based multi-criteria decision analysis is used to identify favorable areas of groundwater potential in the upper reaches of the Jerer Valley in eastern Ethiopia. The thematic layers used to assess the groundwater potential map are lithology, drainage density, lineament density, slope, rainfall, soil texture, and land use and cover. Saaty’sAnalytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) multi-criteria assessment has been used to properly weight each thematic layer. Map removal sensitivity analysis is used to see the impact of removing any thematic layer on the GWP map. Among the factors used in this paper, lithology is more sensitive than the other factors, and it accounts for 36% of the total GWP of the study area. Productive boreholes wells were constructed into the higher and moderate potential zones in the groundwater potential map. The resulting groundwater potential index map has been classified into five groundwater potential zones, namely very good(29.2%), good(30.4%), medium(20%), poor(12.4%), and very poor(7%). Finally, groundwater potential zone map is validated using average groundwater level data from 16 wells scattered over the study area. The result of the current thesis have important implications for designing sustainable groundwater potentail in the area.