Decision support system for contour trenching

Trenching is the most efficient practice for restoration of degraded non-arable lands. Government and various agencies put tremendous efforts and spend lot of money in the rehabilitation of degraded lands by carrying out trenching. Design and layout of trenches under different rainfall conditions involve lot of computation based on watershed information to derive maximum benefit of the technology. However, in the absence of clear guidelines for computation of trench specifications (spacing, cross section and density), desirable results are not achieved from this intervention. Under field conditions wide fluctuations in trench specifications are observed in different regions of the country, due to highly diverse land forms and climatic conditions. A Decision Support System is designed to bridge the knowledge gap between experts and actual field level implementers by helping the user to make decisions for the design and layout of Continuous Contour Trenches (CCT) and Staggered Contour Trenches (SCT) under varied land forms and climatic conditions. The DSS will be of immense importance and of practical use for persons working in State government agencies, NGOs and Forest Departments implementing watershed development programmes.