Sub watershed characterization and prioritization using geoinformatics for natural resources management

Abstract

The development of new advanced techniques in Spatial Information such as remote sensing and GIS are effectively used for the extraction of information about spatial features. DEM (Digital Elevation Model) is one of the important sources in extraction of drainage network and is useful for determining the quantitative description of catchment geometry i.e. morphometric analysis. Morphometric analysis has been commonly applied to prioritization of watersheds. In this study, the morphometric analysis and prioritization of seventeen Sub-watersheds of Maniari watershed, situated in Lormi block of Mungeli District Chhattisgarh State, India, was carried out. For prioritization of sub-watersheds, morphometric analysis was performed using the Linear parameters such as stream order, stream length, stream length ratio, basin length, bifurcation ratio, mean bifurcation ratio, drainage density, stream frequency, texture ratio, length of overland flow and shape parameters such as form factor, shape factor, circulatory ratio, elongation ratio, and compactness constant. The different prioritization ranks are assigned after evaluation of the compound factor. Based on the various physical characteristics of the basin, multi-criteria evaluation technique has been used to determine the most suitable water harvesting structure sites. For this purpose hydrologic soil group, slope and stream order data derived. This study confirms about 93 locations classified under the category of highly suitable sites. This mapping helps in selecting potential site for water harvesting structure.