Prioritization of Erosion Prone Micro-Watersheds Using Morphometric Analysis coupled with Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Abstract

Soil erosion is a serious environmental threat amongst the prevailing major natural hazards which affects the livelihood of millions of people around the world. The deterioration of nutrient-rich topsoil can affect the sustainability of agriculture and various ecosystems by decreasing soil productivity. Conservation measures should be implemented in those regions which are critical to soil erosion. The identification of areas susceptible to soil erosion through prioritization of watershed can help in proper planning and implementation of suitable conservational measures. Therefore, in this study, the prioritization of 23 micro-watersheds present in the Dnyanganga watershed of Tapti River basin is carried out based on morphometric parameters and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). TanDEM-X 90m openly accessible DEM generated from SAR interferometry, obtained through DLR, is used for determining the morphometric parameters. These parameters are grouped into linear, areal and relief aspects. Initially, the relative weights of various morphometric parameters used in TOPSIS were determined using Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Thereafter, the MCDM package in R software was utilized to implement TOPSIS. The micro-watersheds were classified into very high (0.459-0.357), high (0.326-0.240), moderate (0.213-0.098), and low (0.096-0.088) prioritization levels based on the TOPSIS highest closeness (Ci + ) to ideal solution. It is evident from the results that microwatersheds (MW10, MW18, MW19, MW2, MW11, and MW17) are highly susceptible to soil erosion and thus, conservation measures can be carried out in these micro-watersheds with the priority to ensure the sustainability of future agriculture by preventing excessive soil loss through erosion.

Erosion hotspot mapping using integrated morphometric parameters and Land use/land cover of Jigjiga Watershed, Ethiopia

“…Accordingly, the red colours reflect the sub-watersheds affected by erosion risk, and green is low erosion, which describes high erosion control management and minimum erosion control management. Assessment of soil erosion based on the MPs has been applied throughout the world using a compound parameter ( Farhan et al., 2017 ; Hembram and Saha, 2018 ; Nitheshnirmal et al., 2019 ).

Figure 5 Morphometric Parameters of JSW; all red colors were represented by the highest value and the green in these panels represented the minimum value of the selected parameters as sub-watershed level.

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Natural And Human-Induced Land Degradation And Its Impact Using Geospatial Approach In The Kallar Watershed Of Tamil Nadu, India

“…Such potential losses are due to various forms of soil erosion by different agents, along with chemical and physical deterioration. It involves two physical processes: soil erosivity (tending to cause erosion by the erosive agents such as wind and water) and soil erodability (susceptible to erosion) (Morgan 1983;Rahaman et al 2015;Nitheshnirmal et al 2019). Soil degradation is not only the interaction between physiochemical and biological factors but also includes soil properties, climatic factors and topography (Taguas et al 2015;Brevik et al 2015;Bhattacharyya 2015).…”