A STUDY ON GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE KRISHNA WESTERN DELTA USING GIS AND REMOTE SENSING TECHNIQUES

Abstract

Water is a prime natural resource, basic human need and a precious national asset. Though water is considered as a renewable resource it is not unlimited, and as such, can no longer be taken for granted and has to be treated as a valuable resource. Since water is a critical resource for development of other resources, the assessment of water resources available and demand of water for various purposes is of utmost importance without which it is difficult to prepare any developmental plan. Rainfall is the main source of water which is unevenly distributed spatially and temporally. The ever increasing demand of water due to high industrialization, enormous population growth, agricultural expansion and urbanization has already created serious problems. As water demand increases, issues on water availability and demand become critical. This makes the management of water resources, such as assessing, managing and planning of water resources for sustainable use, a complex task. Remote Sensing with its advantages of spatial, spectral and temporal availability of data covering large and inaccessible areas with in short time has become a very handy tool in assessing, monitoring and conserving land use/ land cover classification around the world. Remote Sensing integrated with Geographical Information System has been efficiently used in generating input parameters of hydrological models. The GIS and RS technology have opened new paths in water resources studies. In the present investigation, an attempt has been made to delineate the Krishna Western Delta In Andhra Pradesh, India for the assessment of spatial distribution of runoff. The GIS layers namely, Topomap, contours and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) were prepared including watershed boundary. The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the study area was generated in ArcGIS using Contours and Stream layers. The Georeferenced soil map has been clipped to the boundary of the Krishna Western Delta and the areas corresponding to each variety of soil is calculated in ArcGIS.