Morphometric parameters based prioritization of watersheds for soil erosion risk in Upper Jhelum Sub-catchment, India.

Soil erosion is the inherent and destructive threat affecting agricultural production and livelihood of million mouths. The increased frequency of floods and land use/land cover changes has made Upper Jhelum Sub-catchment susceptible to soil erosion risk. Morphometric based watershed prioritization for soil erosion risk may help in sustainable management of natural resources. Thus, this paper endeavors to prioritize watersheds of Upper Jhelum Sub-catchment in India based on morphometric parameters for soil erosion risk using geospatial techniques. Weights to the morphometric parameters were assigned through a multi-criteria decision method. The watersheds in the Sub-catchment have been categorized into low, medium, high and very high priority classes based on prioritization ranks that were determined by computing the compound value for the soil erosion risk, based on prioritization ranks obtained through compound value for the soil erosion risk. The results revealed 1E1D3 and 1E1D8 watersheds accorded very high priority. The watersheds namely IE1D2 and IEID4 were found under high priority. Medium priority for soil erosion risk was determined in IEID5 and IED7 watersheds while 1E1D1 and IE1D6 watersheds were identified for low priority. The study calls for implementing soil conservation practices in the Sub-catchment. The Sub-catchment can be made less hazardous for the soil erosion risk by implementing contour farming, building check dams, terrace farming, afforestation and limiting large scale overgrazing. The findings of this study may offer valuable insights for stakeholders for conservation of soil resource. The approach utilized in the study may be linked with soil loss estimation for effective conservation of natural resources in further future studies.

Monitoring drought pattern for pre- and post-monsoon seasons in a semi-arid region of western part of India.

Drought has become a regular phenomenon in the western semi-arid regions of India, where severe drought occurs once in 8-9 years. Therefore, two drought indices, namely temperature condition index (TCI) and vegetation condition index (VCI), were prepared from using Landsat datasets to appraise and monitor of drought pattern for the pre- and post-monsoon seasons between 1996 and 2016 in the Latur district, the north-western part of India. Additionally, the average frequency layers (AFL) of all drought and land use indices were prepared to analyse the correlation between them. The results show a substantial increase in the area under high, very high and severe drought classes both pre- and post-monsoon seasons during the study period. The highest increase was noticed from the high drought class from 2532.45 to 4792.49 sq. km and 1559.84 to 3342.32 sq. km for pre- and post-monsoon season, respectively, based on the TCI and 1269.81 to 1787.77 sq. km in very high drought class for the post-monsoon season using the VCI. The correlation analysis showed that there exists a significant relationship between the land use indices and drought indices. However, the spatial pattern of correlation was heterogeneous for both pre- and post-monsoon seasons. The results of this research can help in the drought management and mitigation planning in the study area. In addition, a similar approach may be applied to analyse drought patterns in other places with similar geographic characteristics as both VCI and TCI are cost-effective and less time-consuming methods and produce reliable outcomes.