Integrated framework for soil and water conservation in Kosi River Basin

Abstract

Soil loss through erosion and its subsequent deposition is considered as an important challenge for watersheds. In this paper, attempt has been made to integrate the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation, rainfall climatology from merged IMD gauge-TRMM (1998–2015) and soil hydraulic parameters to delineate the highly susceptible zones of the Kosi River Basin (KRB), Bihar, India for soil erosion assessment and watershed prioritization. The soil hydraulic parameters are calculated by using the ROSETTA model. Afterwards, the analytical hierarchy process based on multi-criteria evaluation method (AHP-MCE) was employed to assign the weighting to each factor (Soil erosion, Compound Factor, Field Capacity) depending on their erosion potential. Weighted overlay analysis is then performed to generate the watershed prioritization map for soil and water conservation. The overall findings suggest that the sub-watersheds 5, 8 and 7 required utmost attention and conservative measures because of their high erodibility characteristics.