Estimation of Soil Erosion for Sheonath River Basin by Using RUSLE and GIS

Abstract

Soil erosion is biggest problem throughout the world and its various hazardous impacts on human; it affects the quality of soil as well as quality of water. Its assessment and mapping of erosion prone area are very essential for soil conservation and watershed management. There are various models developed for soil loss estimation. Revised universal soil loss equation is most widely used. In present study, the RUSLE method is used in combination with remote sensing and GIS techniques to estimate annual soil loss due to erosion in Sheonath River basin, Chhattisgarh (India). GIS is most useful software to integrate with other model and gives good result. RUSLE model involves five parameters which are: rainfall erosivity, soil erodibility, length slope value, crop management and support practice factor. These parameters are determined from precipitation data, soil survey data, digital elevation model (DEM) and land use land cover data. Data collected from Chhattisgarh water resource department, Chhattisgarh council of science and technology and Aster DEM is used. Most of the area is covered by agricultural land. After the investigations of present study, it has been found that the average annual soil of the study area is 1.2 t/ha/year, which is not considered as good as it should be as per the guidelines given by international soil science society (ISSS). Results of soil erosion loss prediction can be used for local level soil conservation planning, because RULSE model in integration with remote sensing techniques produces efficient and reliable results.
Keywords: Soil erosion, GIS, DEM, RUSLE model, ISSS