Watershed Management for Asifabad and Wankadi Taluks, Adilabad District A Remote Sensing and GIS Approach

The aim of this project was the development of action plans for watershed management. Watershed management is the process of creating and implementing plans, programs, and projects to sustain and enhance watershed functions that affect the plant, animal, and human communities within a watershed boundary. (wikipedia). The recent technologies like Remote Sensing and GIS helps us by giving a quicker and cost effective analysis for various applications with accuracy for Planning. It also gives a better perspective for understanding the problems and therefore helps Planners evolve a better solution for sustainable development.

The study area is Asifabad and Wankadi Taluks, parts of Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh, India lying between longitudes 78^°55' to 80^°0' and latitudes 18^°45' to 19^°35', covered by toposheets no 56M with a scale of 1:2,50,000. From sources like MultiSpectral Imageries (ETM+), RADAR (SRTM) data, GSI Maps and SOI Toposheets; the thematic layers for GIS analysis were prepared by image processing of the raw data. A special emphasis is laid on the development of action plan for land and water resources management mainly based on the land use/land, cover, geomorphology and slope of the area. From the final output of these themes generated; recharge wells, percolation tank and check dams are recommended for the study area, mainly to control sedimentation from the catchments. To increase the groundwater recharge and vegetative cover to control soil erosion, various action plans like construction of recharge structures, afforestation etc have been proposed. This project describes in brief the work carried out for the study area using remote sensing and GIS.