ANNOUNCEMENTS
In this study, an important tributary of Mahanadi River named Tel River and its basin was examined using the applications of remote sensing and GIS for planning of watershed management. Tel river is the largest tributary of Mahanadi River and its surrounding basin is challenged by low socio-economic conditions combined with geological problems like rapidly eroding floodplains and lack of proper river embankments.
In an environment where resources are scarce, it becomes vital to prioritize the conservation of critical watersheds that are in more need of conservation than other relatively stable subbasins. This synoptic approach was initially utilized for the geographic protection of wetlands and works as an ecological tool for planning and aiding restoration efforts. The main aim of this study was to employ this synoptic approach for identifying important sub-basins of the river and identifying and classifying the critical watershed while taking into account the area’s socio economic and biophysical factors.
Various parameters including socio-economic conditions, morphometric parameters, slope, soil, agricultural area and data on agricultural laborers, sediment yield and runoff were used to generate thematic maps which were assigned adequate weightage according to the priority. On the basis of this weightage, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to group the sub-watershed into 5 categories namely extreme, high, moderate, less and very less critical. This was carried out by employing Saaty’s 9-point scale and the Eigenvector method was later used for normalizing the obtained weights. The sediment yield and runoff were calculated using the SWAT model and the calibration was done giving R2 and NSE of 69%.
Finally, it was observed that two sub-basins come under extremely critical condition, four under highly critical, two under moderate condition, three under less critical and two under least critical condition having an effective influence of socio-economic factors with the biophysical factors.
KEY WORDS: Morphometry, Socioeconomic, Watershed Management, SWAT, AHP, Sediment Yield.
