Multi-criteria-based sub-basin prioritization and its risk assessment of erosion susceptibility in Kansai–Kumari catchment area, India

Abstract

Environmental processes are interrupted by the water action like soil erosion, mass movement as well as siltation on the dam in the undulating catchment area. Soil erosion is one of them and degraded the basin potentiality. This paper demonstrates that erosion susceptibility status in the 13 sub-basins of Kansai-Kumari catchment area has been determined depending upon its morphometric, lithology, geomorphic, land use/land cover (LULC), slope and soil characteristics used by integrated micro-watershed prioritization rank which is based on susceptible capacity under geographical information system platform. Risk assessment of soil erosion was measured by hypsometric characteristic (Hi) and denudation rate (tu) to assess the geological stage of landform and risk status for conservative practices. The result shows that SB13, 2 have a high risk (tu > 90 t/km 2 /year) due to the presence of low priority rank of morphometric, geomorphic, slope, soil and high priority rank of lithological set-up and LULC but reached under the late mature geological stage (Hi > 0.35). SB3, 4, 10 have a low risk (tu < 83 t/km 2 /year) due to the presence of high priority rank of morphometric, geology, geomorphic, slope and soil types under the mature stage of geological setting (Hi > 0.5). But SB7, 8, 9 have the medium risk (tu < 85 t/km 2 /year) due to the presence of erosion-prone LULC patterns like cropland and laterite cover but having low final priority rank and old geological stage (Hi < 0.35). Therefore, erosion susceptibility does not depend on morphometric aspects but also depends on other determinant themes at the sub-basin level.

Sub-basin prioritization for assessment of soil erosion susceptibility in Kangsabati, a plateau basin: A comparison between MCDM and SWAT models

“…Characteristic of climate in this basin, is characterized by southwest tropical monsoon climate, where mean rainfall ranges from 300 mm (drought prone) to 1650 mm (humid or very high rainfall zone). Drainage pattern in this study area is mainly dendritic to sub dendritic nature, where 1st order (5321), 2nd order (1254), 3rd order (298), 4th order (68), 5th order 22 demonstrated that there has significant correlation with drainage, geology, soil, geomorphic landscape and land cover in order to ES (Bhattacharya et al, 2019b). Weaken soil profile, low vegetable cover and prominent rill gullies formation makes high ES in upper basin, whereas dominant laterite tract, steep slope, and agricultural practices creates mild susceptibility in undulating intermediate basin, but dense vegetation, presence of conservation practices resisted ES in the lower basin (Bhattacharya et al, 2020b).…”

“…Morphometric parameters are not considered as only key factors for the determination of ES, but other dominant geo-environmental parameters such as LULC, soil erodibility, slope length-steepness, lithology, geomorphic set-up, etc. are also important (Chauhan et al,2016;Bhattacharya et al, 2019b). In comparison between MCDM methods and SWAT model, effective MCDM methods are helpful to identify the significant role of morphometric parameters on ES; furthermore, linear and aerial aspects are positively correlated with ES (Nooka et al, 2005;Bhattacharya et al, 2019b), but shape aspects are inversely correlated with ES (Patel et al, 2012(Patel et al, , 2013.…”

“…are also important (Chauhan et al,2016;Bhattacharya et al, 2019b). In comparison between MCDM methods and SWAT model, effective MCDM methods are helpful to identify the significant role of morphometric parameters on ES; furthermore, linear and aerial aspects are positively correlated with ES (Nooka et al, 2005;Bhattacharya et al, 2019b), but shape aspects are inversely correlated with ES (Patel et al, 2012(Patel et al, , 2013. In contrary, when preparing sediment yield distribution map from seven considerable factors: LULC, slope, soil, ground water depth, run off volume, precipitation lapse rate and channel hydro-morphogenetic properties (Markhi et al, 2019;Himanshu et al, 2019), SWAT model also helps to assess ES in each sub basin.…”

“…(20). Sub-basin priority has been assigned as descending manner, that means, lowest CF given as first rank for high ES, and highest CF given as last rank for low ES in Table 4 (Patel et al, 2012;Altaf et al, 2014;Bhattacharya et al, 2019b).…”

“…Indeed, ES at regional and global level, ended with several types of environmental and economic consequences throughout the world (Gayen et al, 2019); where such direct measurement techniques like erosion pins, silt fences, and rainfall simulation are applied to determine the critical erosion sites (Nasre et al, 2013;Ameri et al, 2018). In this context, analysis of drainage basin or watershed become more relevant, and its several geo-environmental elements like lithologic, geomorphic, morphometric, land use land cover (LULC), and soil play significant role in sustainable watershed management (Chauhan et al, 2016;Balasubramanian et al, 2017;Bhattacharya et al, 2019b). Moreover, drainage basin play dominant role to determine the ES, surface runoff, and sedimentation in channel, all of which are caused by various erosional agents of water and wind, and thus are expressed various landscape processes that signifies the effective morphometric characterization (Patel et al, 2012(Patel et al, , 2013Ameri et al, 2018;Hembram and Saha, 2018).…”