Geo-spatial technology application for prioritization of land resources in Udham Singh Nagar District of Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

A loss of soil resources by prolific watersheds is a frequent problem confronting hydrologists and watershed managers. Soil erosion is a major factor in losses of soil. Different models are used for prediction of the amount of soil loss by erosion. In the present study, modelling using Revised Universal Soil Loss equation (RUSLE) is integrated with Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) techniques and employed to estimate soil erosion and prioritization of watersheds of Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand, India. The results showed that Udham Singh Nagar district’s major portion (38.66%) is covered with agriculture land and only 17.57% area is covered with forest. Water-bodies have occupied 2.18% area of US Nagar district. A large variation has been noticed in case of built-up land which has been recorded as 5.71%. US Nagar has more agricultural land. Udham Singh Nagar is having plane topography hence the range of soil erosion is from 0 to 40 ton/ha/year. However, most region of Udham Singh Nagar district falls under the category of 0-2 ton/ha/year soil erosion. The value of soil losses in most of cases is less than 1 t/ha/yr except in case of 11 watersheds,where it is slightly higher than 1 t/ha/yr. Moreover, it has been concluded that major portion of Udham Singh Nagar districtwere slight prone category of soil erosion, and therefore, no major plan/activity is required for reducing soil losses. Only checking large amount of runoff and enhancing organic matter build up in the soil will suffice the purpose.