An Integrated Approach for the Prioritization of Subwatersheds in the Urmodi River Catchment (India) for Soil Conservation using Morphometric and Land Use Land Cover (LULC) factors

The present investigation intends to prioritize the sub-watersheds of the Urmodi River watershed (Maharashtra State, India) for Soil Conservation, which is based on the integrated approach consisting of geomorphometric and Land Use Land Cover (LULC) factors. Prioritization based on Geographic Information Science (GIS) platform, allows us to take informed decisions for managing and safeguarding resources from degradation. Quantitative morphometric analysis of three aspects, namely linearity, shape and relief, were carried out for sub-watersheds encompassing the entire study area. In addition, Remote Sensing (RS) based on high-resolution multispectral data with 10 m spatial resolution captured by Sentinel 2 satellite was analysed to infer the land cover condition. In water-induced soil erosion, morphometric parameters have crucial role in understanding the geo-environmental characteristics of the terrain. Moreover, rainfall effects depend on the pattern of LULC change and each land cover responds differently to the raindrop energy it receives. Therefore, it requires integration of the geomorphological and hydrological characteristics of the sub-watersheds derived from their morphometric parameters with the LULC to generate compounded ranking-based prioritization of the sub-watersheds. During the prioritization analysis, the lower compound value is considered with higher priority for appropriate soil conservation measures. It was found that the integration of morphometric and LULC factors changed the prioritization ranking considerably. Incidentally, Sub-watershed 4 which was having moderate raking based on morphomertic analysis, got highest rank and compound value of 2.38 due to integrated approach. It was evident that the use of an integrated prioritization approach helps us to arrive at better decision-making related to soil conservation.