Evaluation of bamboo based conservation measures for rehabilitation of degraded Yamuna ravines

This vast tract of existing ravine lands in northwestern part of India poses potential threat to nearby productive lands due to over exploitation and mismanagement. There is an urgent need to manage these problematic lands and protect both the arable and non-arable land from further degradation. Keeping this in view, an experiment was undertaken to evaluate bamboo (Dendrocalamus strictus) based resource conservation techniques in the Yamuna ravines at Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute, Research Centre at Agra (U.P). Four small micro watersheds were selected and four treatments. viz, plantation of rows of bamboo in the upstream and downstream side of small earthen gully plugs (T₁), plantation of bamboo in staggered manner in the gully bed with trenches (T₂), two rows of bamboo planted in staggered manner as vegetative barrier (T₃) and control catchment having no intervention (T₄) were imposed in 2009 and gauging structures were constructed in all four watersheds. Among the four treatments, T-2 recorded highest growth in terms of average culm height (126.20 cm), average culm diameter (7.56 mm) and crown size (72.86 cm) were recorded in T₂ followed by T₁ than others. The soil physical and chemical properties werealso considerably influenced by bamboo plants under treatment imposed lands. The soils under bamboo improved in terms of decreased pH and enhanced soil organic carbon. No soil loss and run off were observed in T₁ and T₂ after imposition of treatments as compared to average runoff (6.04 and 35.83 mm), average soil loss (0.66 and 4.40 t ha⁻¹) and average silt deposition (0.348 and 0.410 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) recorded in T₃ and control, respectively. In ravine lands, Bamboo acts as good soil binder owing to its dry hardy nature, peculiar dense clump formation and extensive interlocking fibrous root system, natural capacity to regenerate through its rhizomes which play important role in preventing erosion, water holding capacity and nutrient cycling under gully beds.