Evaluation of sediment yield by using remote sensing and GIS: A case study from the Phulang Vagu watershed, Nizamabad District (AP), India

Abstract

The primary objective of this paper is to identify soil erosion zones and to suggest appropriate measures for control of soil erosion using remote sensing, GIS and conventional technique in the Phulang Vagu watershed in the Sriramsagar catchment area of Andhra Pradesh. The digital imagery data of the study area is obtained from the IRS-IC (LISS-III) satellite whereas the toposheets and rainfall data of the study area were obtained from the Survey of India. Satellite images were interpreted to prepare land use/land cover maps by using ERDAS image processing system. Out of 725.983 km 2 of the study area, about 301.435 km 2 is wasteland which is identified as susceptible for soil erosion. Toposheets of the study area were used to prepare drainage and slope maps. Drainage pattern is mainly dendritic with a density of 1.26 km -1 and the stream slope is 0.00614. The arithmetric average method is used to find average annual rainfall. The above parameters were used to calculate the amount of soil erosion from the catchment area. It was found that 882.389 m 3 km -2 year -1 of soil is being eroded from the catchment area which is more than the value adopted in the design of Sriramsagar reservoir. Therefore soil conservation measures such as vegetative cover in the waste land are needed and 12 check dam sites have been proposed by superimposing drainage map and slope map in conjunction with land use/land cover map. With these soil conservation measures, the soil erosion could be kept within the design value of Sriramsagar reservoir.