Remote sensing and GIS-based watershed prioritization for land and water conservation planning and management

Identifying the most critical sub-watershed or dam/reservoir catchment in relation to water distribution, erosion pattern, and groundwater recharge in a basin can be highly useful for land and water conservation. Thus, a study was undertaken to review the different parameters used for morphometric analysis and watershed prioritization. The smaller values of form factor (F-f < 0.78), elongation ratio (R-e < 0.80), and circularity ratio (R-c < 0.50) indicate higher soil erosion due to their inverse relationship with erodibility. Furthermore, higher values of F-f (>0.78), R-e (>0.80), and R-c (>0.50) indicate a circular basin with a high peak for a shorter duration. The higher values of drainage density (D-d > 0.60), drainage texture (D-t > 0.6), and stream frequency (F-s > 10) indicate higher erosion due to their direct relationship with erodibility in relation to low infiltration rate, high runoff conditions, low potential for groundwater recharge, and presence of a higher number of first-order streams. The morphometric analysis-based watershed prioritization is time-consuming and, hence, can be replaced by modern techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA) using suitable software such as R, SPSS, and XLSTAT. Overall, remote sensing and GIS-based watershed prioritization (based on morphometric analysis or PCA or LULC) can be useful in land and water conservation planning and management.

Automated summary

Identifying the most critical sub-watershed or dam/reservoir catchment in relation to water distribution, erosion pattern, and groundwater recharge in a basin can be highly useful for land and water conservation. Different morphometric parameters such as form factor, elongation ratio, circularity ratio, drainage density, drainage texture, and stream frequency can indicate soil erosion and the potential for groundwater recharge. Remote sensing and GIS-based techniques, such as principal component analysis, can be used for watershed prioritization and management.