Use of Remote Sensing and GIS for Soil Loss and Runoff Prediction from the Watershed

The study on extraction of some parameters through Remote Sensing for watershed management was carried out at Kalidevi watershed (74° 50′ to 74° 55′ E and 22° 30′ to 22° 35′ N) district Dhar (M.P.) having total geographical area 3019.26 ha. In this study, Resourcesat 1 (LISS III and Pan) data were used to identify the land use pattern of the watershed. Thematic maps for soil type, drainage pattern, forest boundary, slope and contour have been generated through digitizing the maps for the watershed obtained from SAC, Ahmedabad and SOI toposheet (46J/14) at 1 : 50,000 scale with the help of ERDAS software. The total runoff from the watershed (measured at three different locations) was 988096.25 m³ (from 5th Aug. to 23rd August, 2004 and from 17th September to 1st October, 2004), which is the 42.52% of the rainfall. The total sediment loss 111153 kg (36.81 kg ha⁻¹) was calculated on the basis of the analysis of runoff samples collected from the specified points. The parameters of modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) were estimated for calculating the annual soil loss from the watershed for which the modified LS factor map was generated from the slope aspect map derived from the DEM. The K factor map was prepared from the soil map. Maps covering each parameter (R, K, LS, C and P) were integrated to generate a composite map of erosion intensity based on the advanced GIS functionality. This intensity map was classified into different priority classes.