Prioritization of sub-watersheds for soil conservation management using morphometric characteristics

Abstract

Water crisis is major drawback for this generation and every drop of water should be utilized wisely. To overcome this situation, various methods available to replenish the water should be looked into. One such resource is maintaining the storage capacities of dam structures by decreasing the sediment load which indirectly effects the productivity of soil. The main objective of this paper is to prioritize the sub-watersheds of Manjira river basin, a tributary of Godavari basin near Nizamsagar reservoir which is highly affected in terms of storage capacity using Morphometric Characteristics in ArcGIS software and Compound Factor method to identify the Sub-Watersheds which are susceptible to soil erosion. The inputs required are Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and a pour point. ALOS PALSAR 12.5m resolution DEM was used to extract the watershed and stream order. The results of prioritization of sub-watersheds betokened that using Compound Factor method, sub-watershed (SW) 7 located around Akkannapet, region, Medak District, Telangana was critical with respect to erodibility.