Quantitative Determination of Soil Erosion and Prioritization of Micro-Watersheds Using Remote Sensing and GIS
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Quantitative Determination of Soil Erosion and Prioritization of Micro-Watersheds Using Remote Sensing and GIS Vipul Shinde & Arabinda Sharma & Kamlesh N. Tiwari & Manjushree Singh
Received: 27 October 2009 / Accepted: 6 April 2010 / Published online: 12 February 2011 # Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2011
Abstract Soil erosion which occurs at spatially varying rate is a widespread threat to sustainable resource management at watershed scale. Thus estimation of soil loss and identification of critical area for implementation of best management practice is central to success of soil conservation programme. The present study focuses application of most widely used Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) to determine soil erosion and prioritization of micro-watersheds of Upper Damodar Valley Catchment (UDVC) of India. Annual average soil loss for the entire basin is 23.17 t/ha/yr; for microwatersheds. High soil loss is observed in 345 microwatersheds, medium in 159 micro-watersheds and low soil loss is observed in 201 micro-watersheds. It is found that, out of 705 micro-watersheds of UDVC, 453 microwatersheds are in agreement with AISLUS suggested priority which is based on observed sediment yield, 116 micro-watersheds under predict and 136 microwatersheds over predict the priority. Geographic Information System (GIS) is applied to prepare various layers V. Shinde : K. N. Tiwari : M. Singh Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India V. Shinde e-mail: [email protected] A. Sharma (*) Civil Engineering Department, M. M. University, Mullana-133 207, Ambala, Haryana, India e-mail: [email protected]
of USLE parameters which interactively estimate soil erosion at micro-watershed level. The main advantage of the GIS methodology is in providing quick information on the estimated value of soil loss for any part of the investigated area. Keywords Remote sensing . Soil erosion . GIS . USLE . Priority
Introduction Soil erosion is directly related to the volume of soil disturbed and the roughness of the surface. Spatial patterns of soil erosion play an important role in studying erosion sources, sinks, and soil and water conservation. Intensive agricultural practices change soil properties greatly, generally a substantial soil loss especially in steep-slope area (Quine and Zhang 2002). Soil erosion is a gradual process that occurs when the impact of water detaches and removes soil particles, causing the soil to deteriorate (Ni et al. 2004). Soil erosion in catchment areas and the subsequent deposition in rivers, lakes and reservoirs are of great concern for two reasons. Firstly, rich fertile soil is eroded from the catchment areas. Secondly, there is a reduction in reservoir capacity as well as degradation of downstream water quality (European Environment Agency 1995). Estimation of sediment deposition in a reservoir using conventional techniques like hydrographic survey is a cumbersome
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procedure. It involves huge time, manpower and even it is not cost e
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