Documentation of Surface Soil Characteristics as Indicator of Soil Erosion: A Case of East Khasi Hills in and around Shillong, Meghalaya

Abstract

Soil characteristics are the result of the interaction of pedogenic elements and processes in a specific location. The hilly and mountainous regions are equipped with a diverse set of environmental elements that impact soil spatial variability. This research work is mainly focused on documentation of surface soil characteristics of East Khasi Hills. So many factors are responsible for soil erosion here and dominantly the anthropogenic activities. With the increase of population, changing land use patterns with unscientific manners is one of the ecological phenomena in Meghalayan landscapes. This causes heavy soil erosion especially their agricultural activity such as slash and burn process that makes the land very infertile. Data on surface soil characteristics or surface soil status has been collected from primary field surveys. Base maps were prepared related to this research work with the help of Q-GIS (version 3.6) software and statistical analysis was done using MS Excel 2013 on the basis of both primary and secondary database. Rain induced soil erosion associated with supersaturated soil matrix failure is the major attestation of soil erosion here. Authors mainly have tried to make some inferences towards the correlation of surface soil characteristics and erodibility of the soil.