Abstract
Soil erosion is becoming a major concern at the watershed scale for the environment, natural resources, and sustainable resource management. Therefore, the estimation of soil loss through this phenomenon and the identification of critical soil erosion-prone areas are considered to be key tasks in the soil conservation programme for the design and implementation of best management practices for specific regions or areas. In the present study, revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) modelling is combined with remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) techniques and used to predict soil erosion and the prioritization of watersheds in Nainital district Uttarakhand, India. For the estimation of soil loss, different factors, namely, rainfall-runoff erosivity (R) factor, soil erodability (K) factor, slope length steepness (LS) factor, cover management (C) factor, and the erosion control practices (P) factor were computed. The data on various other aspects such as land use/land cover (LU/LC), the digital elevation model (DEM), slope, contours, drainage network, soil texture, organic matter, and rainfall were integrated to prepare a database for the RUSLE equation by employing ENVI & QGIS software. The results showed that a major portion (70.26%) of Nainital district is covered with forest, followed by area under fallow and agricultural land. Annual average soil loss ranged between 20 to 80 t ha−1 yr−1 in the study area. Out of 50 watersheds in the study area, 7 watersheds were given top priority for conserving natural resources, while 11 watersheds, mostly in the east-central part of Nainital, were kept under the next priority category. Only 4 watersheds of the total were given lowest priority. Moreover, it was concluded that major portions of Nainital district were in a severely prone category of soil erosion, and therefore required immediate action plans to check soil erosion and evade the possibility of landslides.
Highlights
India supports 16 percent of the world’s population on 2.42 percent of the world’s land area, and global population growth has led us to make effective use of diminishing natural resources, for livelihood needs and agricultural practices
Keeping in view the above concerns, the present study examined the utility of remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) in the prioritization of natural resources in a hilly catchment using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) model inputs related to land use/land cover, soil etc
The prioritization of the watersheds of the Nainital district was carried out using remote sensing and GIS technique by assessing potential soil losses arising due to the rainfall, slope, and soil factors and reduced by land cover and management practices
Summary
India supports 16 percent of the world’s population on 2.42 percent of the world’s land area, and global population growth has led us to make effective use of diminishing natural resources, for livelihood needs and agricultural practices. An estimated 147 million hectares (M ha) of land comprising approximately 45% of India’s total geographical area suffers from soil erosion and land degradation problems [2]. Water and wind alone account for the degradation of 150 M ha of land in the form of active erosion, resulting in losses of approximately 5300 million tons of top soil; in addition, 25 M ha of land has been eroded due to ravines and gullies, shifting crops, salinity/alkalinity, water logging, etc. For the prevention of soil erosion, better practices and prioritization will be necessary for natural resources management
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