Abstract
Meghadrigedda, a non-perennial drainage system is one of the major water resources of Vishakhapatnam city located in the northern coastal region of Andhra Pradesh, India. It traverses through the hilly terrain of Eastern GhatMobile Belt (EGMB) characterized by khondalitic rock formations. Excessive siltation scenario aggravated due to soil erosion in its catchment is threatening the very existence of Meghadrigedda reservoir. In order to assess the intensity of soil erosion as well as silt deposition in the reservoir, an integrated study has been undertaken which takes into consideration various topographic, morphological, soil, and land use/land cover characteristics of the basin. The study aims at identification and mapping of erosion prone zones with respect to silt deposition using remote sensing and GIS techniques.Alteration in human induced land use practices in its catchment due to rapid growth in population, urbanization and industrialization are found to be of prime reasons for various forms of erosion. The study has noticed that various forms of erosion like sheet, gully and stream erosion are responsible for the siltation at large scale which is causing reduction of its designed storage capacity by 40%. Various sub-watersheds of the basin have been prioritized on the basis of erosion intensity for suggesting various mitigation measures like check-dam construction, afforestation etc. to protect the reservoir from the silting problem.
Highlights
Soil erosion is a major environmental problem which threatens the sustainability and productivity of agricultural and other hydrological systems [1]
About 75 billion tons of soil is eroded from the land due to human induced land use practices, a rate that is about 13 - 40 times faster than the natural rate of erosion
These weightage factors helps reclassification of eleven resultant classes indicating different degrees of soil erosion intensity into seven prioritized classes and further down to four classes ranging from “very severe” to “low” erosion areas which are prone to different degrees of erosion Figure 6 and Figure 7
Summary
Soil erosion is a major environmental problem which threatens the sustainability and productivity of agricultural and other hydrological systems [1]. Over exploitation of land and water resource for various means of developmental activities by rapidly growing population has been inflicting severe damage to soil environment. Soil erosion is considered as one of the major problems that the Indian agriculture sector is coping with and its negative effects are seen in other spheres as well. Every year India losses millions of tons of soil and its nutrients to the agents of its degradation which adversely affects our national productivity. The catchment has been witnessing rapid urbanization and undergoing large scale topographic transformation which is leading to vegetation loss and soil erosion resulting in silt deposition in the reservoir. The storage capacity of the reservoir is rapidly dwindling due to the excessive siltation and the problem is posing a major risk to the very existence of the reservoir
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