Prioritization of sub-watersheds and subsequent site identification for soil water and conservation practices using the SWAT-AHP integrated model in the Lower Sutlej Sub-basin, India.

Prioritization of watersheds is a crucial step in integrated river basin management. It guides resource allocation, planning, decision-making, stakeholder engagement, targeted interventions, and monitoring and evaluation efforts. By identifying and addressing priority watersheds, comprehensive and sustainable management of water resources can be achieved within a river basin. The aim of the current study is to prioritize watersheds using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and site suitability analysis for the implementation of soil and water conservation structures (SWCS) in the prioritized watersheds by using an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) of the Lower Sutlej Sub-basin, India. The model was calibrated with observed data from 2017 to 2019 with the first 2 years (2015-16) as a warm-up period. Furthermore, validation of the model was done using 2-year data from 2020 to 2021. The model showed successful performance in terms of the R2 range from 0.72 to 0.89, the NSE range from 0.67 to 0.73, the PBIAS range from - 26.70 to 11.30, and the RSR range from 0.51 to 0.57 for stream flow and sediment yield during calibration and validation period. The basin's average annual soil loss ranged from 3.08 to 21.63 t/ha/year, a watershed with the WS2 index seeing the highest rate of soil erosion (21.63 t/ha/year). Hence, WS2 was found to be a top priority. In addition, the site suitability analysis of the prioritized watershed (WS2) reveals that about 1.42% of the area is extremely suitable, 16.14% is highly suitable, and 35.58% is moderately suitable for SWCS. According to the site suitability map validation, both dam locations were found in highly suitable areas, so the developed site suitability map is accurate. This research will help sustainability planners and managers make more informed decisions when building SWCS at suitable sites for better land and water conservation.

Geospatial technology for assessment of soil erosion and prioritization of watersheds using RUSLE model for lower Sutlej sub-basin of Punjab, India.

Erosion of soil by water coupled with human activities is considered as one of the most serious agents of land degradation, posing severe threat to agricultural productivity, soil health, water quality, and ecological setup. The assessment of soil erosion and recognition of problematic watersheds are pre-requisite for management of erosion hazards. In the present study, Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) integrated with remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) has been used to assess the soil erosion in lower Sutlej River basin of Punjab, India, and prioritize the watersheds for implementation of land and water conservation measures. The total basin area was about 8577 km2 which was divided into 14 sub-watersheds with the area ranging from 357.8 to 1354 km2. The data on rainfall (IMD gridded data), soil characteristics (FAO soil map), topography (ALOS PALSAR DEM) and land use (ESRI land use and land cover map) were prepared in the form of raster layers and overlaid together to determine the average annual soil loss. The results revealed that the average annual soil loss varied from 1.26 to 25 t ha-1, whereas total soil loss was estimated to be 2,441,639 tonnes. The spatial distribution map of soil erosion showed that about 94.4% and 4.7% of the total area suffered from very slight erosion (0-5 t ha-1 year-1) and slight erosion (5-10 t ha-1 year-1), respectively, whereas 0.11% (9.38 km2) experienced very severe soil loss (> 25 t ha-1 year-1). Based on estimated average annual soil loss of sub-watersheds, WS8 was assigned the highest priority for implementation of soil and water conservation measures (323.5 t ha-1 year-1), followed by WS9 (303.8 t ha-1 year-1), whereas WS2 was given last priority owing to its lowest value of soil loss (122.02 t ha-1 year-1). The present study urges that conservation strategies should be carried out in accordance with the priority ranking of diverse watersheds. These findings can certainly be used to implement soil conservation plans and management practices in order to diminish soil loss in the river basin.

Underlying the triple burden effects on women educationists due to COVID-19.

COVID-19 causes a pandemic situation that increased the paid or unpaid responsibilities (home and job) on women and brought significant changes in their lifestyle, resulting in psychological and emotional stress. This paper draws attention to the triple burden on the women during this time when certain roles are supposed to be performed by the women regardless she is employed or homemaker. The paper highlights the challenges faced by women educationists in making themselves comfortable with the work-life balance with emerging challenges such as new technology-based innovative teaching methods and various learning software's, apps, platforms, etc.. The paper employs in-depth interviews of teachers belonging to three categories i.e. primary, secondary, and higher education. The findings reported that female teachers agreed that pandemic had affected their daily life schedule. This leaves a deep effect on their mental and psychological health due to multiple attentions they pay towards home management, child & elders extra care, challenges due to work from home pattern of organizations, increased attention to students due to online teaching, etc. The paper presents the implications for the society and government to understand the women's pressure so that a happy and satisfied life is there for all with no gender discrimination.