Prioritization of Milli Watershed of Kodar River Catchment Based on Integrated Approach of Morphometric and Land Use Land Cover Analysis

Abstract

Watershed prioritisation is now important for effective natural resource planning and management in sustainable development, however, their implementation necessitates a careful examination of the morphometric and hydrological characteristics existing in the watershed. In the present study an attempts has been made to prioritize the Kantori nala milli watersheds of the Kodar river catchment using integrated approach of morphometric features and land use/landcover. Study area watershed was automatically delineated and divided into eleven micro watersheds Micro Watershed-1 to Micro Watershed-11 (MWS-1 to MWS-11) on the basis of topography from the Depression less DEM) prepared by Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) interpolation technique. Morphometric analysis was done using DEM and each parameter has been assigned their ranks according to their value. Thereafter, an average value of the rank score for each of the micro watershed is calculated. The micro watershed with the lowest compound factor (Cp) was given the highest prioritized rank out of the group of micro watersheds, and vice versa. Land Use Land Cover (LULC) analysis was also done using sentinel 2 satellite data. The result from the priority ranking of morphometric analysis shows that MWS 7 is having high priority ranking while MWS 8 is having low priority ranking, while the results of the LULC analysis-based prioritizing showed that the micro watersheds MWS 10 and MWS 5 micro watersheds are of are of highest and lowest priority respectively. It is observed that upon integration of morphometric and land use/ land cover compound factor values information, MWS 3 and MWS 10 found to receive common priority falls under the highest priority, though MWS 6 and MWS 8 falls under the lowest priority ranking. The results of the study can be employed for identifying the sub-watersheds that require immediate restoration and ultimately help in managing watershed resources for sustainable development.