PRIORITIZATION OF SUB-WATERSHEDS OF SHIPRA BASIN BASED ON LINER AND SHAPE PARAMETER USING ArcGIS

Abstract

The quantitative analysis of morphometric parameters is found to be of immense utility in watershed prioritization for soil and water conservation and natural resources management at micro level. The present work is an attempt to carry out a detailed study of linear and shape morphometric parameters in twenty-five sub-watersheds of Shipra Basin and their prioritization for soil and water resource management. Shipra watershed has an area of 1075 km2 and lies between latitudes 22°27ˈ29ˈˈ to 23°56ˈ40ˈˈN and longitudes 75°25ˈ04ˈˈ to 76°13ˈ19ˈˈE. Quantitative description of basin geometry i.e. morphometric analysis was done to find out the drainage characteristics of Shipra River basin located in Madhya Pradesh of Central India using SRTM imageries and GIS techniques. Following Strahler’s stream ordering scheme, it has been found that in Shipra Catchment the total number of streams is 7069 belonging to different stream orders with the highest order of 6. The prioritization was carried out by assigning ranks to the individual indicators and a compound value (Cp) was calculated. Watersheds with highest Cp were of low priority while those with lowest Cp were of high priority. Thus an index of high, medium and low priority was produced. The highest priority zone consists of seven watersheds, medium of eleven and low of seven watersheds. High priority indicates that these watersheds are susceptible to greater degree of erosion and application of soil conservation measures becomes inevitable to preserve the land from further erosion and to alleviate natural hazards.