Konkan region is bestowed with unique biodiversity and is situated on the western side of Maharashtra State having hilly topography accompanied with heavy rainfall concentrated in very small span of 90 to 100 days. The problem of soil erosion is further aggravated due to practice of growing hill millets on steep slopes of this region. Keeping this point in view various bio-engineering measures like vegetative barriers of Citronella, Lemon, Vetiver and Geranimum grassand contourbund, graded bund and graded bund with vegetative single row live hedge of 0.40 m2 cross section as mechanical soil conservation measures were tried to assess their effectiveness in reducing the soil erosion and supplementing residual moisture. Popular hill millet like ragi (Elucine caracana) grown in this area was selected as representative crop to assess the erosion. The vertical interval of 1.5 m was maintained in case of different soil conservation measures while the area of 0.1 ha was maintained under each treatment.
The data on average runoff and soil loss during the year 2002 to 2004 on weekly as well as on annual basis revealed that runoff (mm) was maximum through control treatment (206.20) followed by geranium grass (121.58), citronella grass (102.65), lemon grass (91.8), contour bund (85.8), graded bund (73.89) and graded bund with vegetative hedge (71.26), while the soil loss (t.ha−1) showed a different trend in all these treatments. Maximum soil loss was observed in control treatment (8.63), followed by graded bund (3.20), citronella grass (3.75), geranium grass (3.54), lemon grass (2.69), contour bund (1.74) and graded bund with vegetative hedge (1.56). The graded bund with vegetative .hedge showed the superiority in reducing runoff loss as well as preventing soil erosion hence it was recommended as best soil conservation practice in this region.
