Soil Loss Assessment In Kesinga Watershed Using USLE

Abstract

Land system change i.e. degradation of land is one of the nine principles of earth system which is often used to check the amount of destruction that has caused to nature. The term sixth mass extinction heard nowadays is also related to these principles. In the recent UNCCD (United Nations Convention To Combat Desertification) summit the Indian government announced to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land. The major factor that contributes to land degradation is soil erosion. In this work, the southern part of the Tel river sub-basin was taken for analyzing the amount of soil getting eroded. The area of the catchment was 11400 sq.km. Soil loss assessment was performed using USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation), an empirical equation wherein various maps of factors were prepared and overlay operation was performed using Geographic Information System (GIS). The output was compared with actual sediment yield from the Annual Sediment Report of CWC (Central Water Commission). The soil loss estimated using USLE was 0.801 MT whereas the observed data is 0.961 MT (million tonnes).