WATERSHED PRIORITIZATION -A CASE STUDY

Abstract

All land based productive activities are dependent on terrain, soil, biomass and water. Therefore, these components call for an integrated management approach, which can be better evolved within a natural domain such as watershed. Thus, it enables planners and managers to consider all inputs, processes and outputs systematically, which something essential for a holistic development approach. But in most of the cases projects have been predetermined and priorities have not been laid out properly. Looking to the massive investment in watershed development program, it is not possible to treat the complete watershed. Due to financial constrain, watershed is further divided in small sub-watersheds which has to be prioritized so that work in the most sensitive sub-watershed can be taken up. Hence prioritization facilitates in addressing the problem areas to arrive at suitable solutions and protective measures can be better planned and implemented. The most common parameter that is widely recommended is sediment yield index. But this parameter is more suitable for river valley projects and for the watersheds where there is major problem is due to sediment yield. For other cases some other factors have to consider for the prioritization. From the different factors, indicators and prioritization methods which were studied in this dissertation and an effort was made to prioritize the watershed taking consideration into factors that affect the prioritization process such as; slope of the watershed, drainage density, stream order, aspect, land use and land cover, soil, socioeconomic factor and water availability.