STUDY OF RUNOFF AND EROSION IN NARMADA BASIN (PART) USING GIS AND REMOTE SENSING TECHNIQUE

Abstract

Geographic Information System of computer software and hardware designed to allow users to efficiently store, retrieve, manipulate, analyze and display large volumes of spatially referenced data and associated attributes. GIS is designed to accept large volumes of spatial data, derived from various sources like remotely sensed data, digital models of the terrain, or point or aerial data compiled in the form of maps, tables or reports. Erosion is the greatest destroyer of land resources. In addition to losses of soil, many other problems are created by soil erosion like siltation of reservoiers, canals and rivers, deposition of unfertile material on cultivated lands, harmful effects on water supply, fishing and the most important the destruction of fertile agricultural land. Reliable soil loss estimation is a valuable design, extension and planning tool. It''s most immediate advantage is that a well-defined conservation objective can be formulated, namely to reduce soil losses to specified acceptable levels and thereby ensure the maximum safe economic use of each piece of land. Attempts have been made for many years to quantify the erosion effect of cropping practices which will allow erosion to be predicted for given circumstances. The present study demonstrates the use of GIS in assessing yearly soil loss. An area of 52.9 sq.km. of Narmada basin in Patapara sub-basin was selected and integrated land and water information system (ILWIS) has been used for this study. The soil erosion is carried out using well known universal soil loss equation (USLE). In this study land use classification from satllite data was used to determine the land cover (C) factor, the other input variables have been determined. using DEM considering the spatial variability.