Prioritization of watershed through surface runoff in pambar river basin using SCS-CN method in the pambar river basin, India

A watershed is an area that drains water and other substances to a common outlet as concentrated drainage. Nowadays watershed management plays a vital role in water resources management. Watershed based on water resources management is necessary to plan and conserve the available resources. Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques can be effectively used to manage spatial and non spatial database that represent the hydrologic characteristics of the watershed use as realistically as possible. The present study has been conducted on Pambar River is one of the major river drains the eastern slopes of Western Ghats covering Anamalai-Cardamom hill ranges. The Pambar watershed basin receives the average annual rainfall of 43.7 inches mainly during June to September monsoon season (1961–2005). Sandy clay loam, Clay loam, silty clay loam, sandy clay, silty clay, or clay are the main soil group confined in this basin. Such a soil group obviously allows less water to infiltrate into it. The result runoff will be more. Due to high runoff potential and poor infiltration, drought like situation prevails in this area from December to June almost every year. So the conservation of watershed is very much essential to protect the environment. The watershed conservation priority number for the each watershed will be assigned according to the value generated from the runoff.