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WATERSHED CHARACTERIZATION
AND
MANAGEMENT PLANNING
IN WULAR
CATCHMENT
CHAPTER - 1
INTRODUCTION
Chapter – 1 Introduction
cherish his desire of comfort and prosperity has been beautifully summed
“Man is both creature and moulder of his environment, which gives him
physical sustenance and affords him the opportunity for intellectual, moral,
social and spiritual growth. In the long and tortuous evolution of the human
race on this planet a stage has been reached when, through the rapid
debated by many scholars. Significant among them was Ehrlich and Holdren,
1974 who propounded that the human impact (I) on the environment is
(T) and emphasized that population size and growth as the most urgent
were the
social, economic, and environmental. The social pillar refers to meeting the
basic needs of society, such as health and education, and protecting human
resources like soil, water, geomorphology and land use are in harmony there
by facilitating adoption of holistic approach to problem solving. Watershed
resources for planning (Akhouri, 1996). The soil, vegetation and water are
the basic resources, which interact and establish in a watershed. Hence, all
way. The Physiography of the land, slope and nature of soil cover, land use
and the hydrological features of the land area determine the productive
2
Chapter – 1 Introduction
are linked, through water flows to downstream land and coastal areas
far from the steep terrains where water flows are generated.
The degradation of land and water resources due to the complex interactions
within a watershed can have far-reaching and unwanted impacts on the environment
beyond the impacts on soil and water resources and the related economic activities.
These impacts on the broader environment may include climate change, global
warming, loss of biodiversity, impaired energy cycles, food crisis etc and may also
have a direct or indirect cost for different sectors of the economy, including tourism
shift. In 1950, only 30% of the world’s population was found in urban areas; however,
the projected five billion urban dwellers will represent 60% of the world’s population
human habitation linked with increased per capita energy and resource consumption
Urbanization affects the structure and function of Earth’s ecosystems through the
affect the ecosystem’s capacity to deliver important services to the human population
3
Chapter – 1 Introduction
processes of a watershed. Alteration of any one of these processes will affect one or
more water quality parameters. Hence changes in water quality indicate a change in
geographically discrete drainage area for the benefit of its residents, with the objective of
protecting or conserving the hydrologic services that the watershed provides and of
land and water resources, the causal link between upstream land and water use and
downstream impacts and externalities, the typical nexus in upland areas of developing
countries between resource depletion and poverty, and the multiplicity of stakeholders.
4
Chapter – 1 Introduction
the 1970’s and 1980’s applied a soil and water planning approach to watersheds that
outcomes. By the end of the 1980’s, the comparative failure of this “engineering-led”
approach was clear, and a major rethinking of watershed management approaches was
undertaken by national and international agencies. The 1990s represented a new departure
appropriate, the emphasis was placed more on farming systems and on participatory and
develop in a pragmatic and iterative fashion, with early setbacks over engineering-
technology packages targeting sustainable changes in land and water use practices that
knowledge of the dynamic behavior of the watershed. Water is the best index of
Watershed management is not so much about managing natural resources, but about
managing human activity as it affects these resources. The drainage area of the river
provides the natural boundary for managing and mitigating human and environmental
evaluating and updating it. Despite the difficulties, the process is valuable because it
promotes a systematic and logical way of thinking and a framework for making
decisions with regard to water and land use. Land use planning and management at
deals with human activities within the watershed that are motivated by multiple and
5
Chapter – 1 Introduction
often conflicting objectives and constraints, such as farm income enhancement, soil
and water resource protection, urban development and drinking water supply (Prato et
al., 1995). In recent years, there has been a growing consensus that an effective way
to control sediment deposition, non-point source pollution and enhance the long-term
programs may bring local, regional and global benefits. However, there may be
tradeoffs. For example, planting trees may be a global good, but trees may change the
watershed level would ideally address the complex system dynamics in watersheds
towards identifying the resource issues and concerns of the watershed, as well as
develop and implement watershed plan with solutions that are environmentally,
the watershed scale, and the ecosystem and society should be treated as integrated
system theory should be used (Boulanger and Brechet, 2005). It is necessary for
6
Chapter – 1 Introduction
resources. The advent of computer and spatial data in digital form has powered the
elevation models (DEMs) and digital maps of soils, vegetation, rivers, roads, as well as
other information for much of the developed world and of land cover with a variety of
remote sensing devices that operate across the electromagnetic spectrum (Jensen,
The integration of information derived from remotely sensed data into GIS and
their analysis can be considered as the primary tool for efficient acquisition of input
The integration of Remote Sensing, GIS and Modeling has led to the continuous
People rarely intend to create environmental problems. The result was the sum of a
over exploitation, and wastage of water resources resulting in higher risks to human
health, economic and social development as well as to the functioning of ecosystems and
the preservation of the environment. The deterioration and dwindling of lake ecosystems
has been increasing at an alarming rate, due to various ecological stresses caused largely
by the activities of man. The rapid development within watersheds due to anthropogenic
and functions. For lake aquatic ecosystems, human activities in the watershed can lead to
loss of important species and functional groups, high nutrient turnover, low resistance,
high porosity of nutrients and sediments and the loss of productivity. Thus, it is necessary
7
Chapter – 1 Introduction
non-renewable resources from environment are closeted. A watershed is used as a unit for
planning and management of land, water and other resources, and the inter-related factors
watershed basis is, therefore, very important to arrest rapid siltation in rivers, lakes and
estuaries. Integrated watershed management has been accepted as the most rational
optimize the use of available land and to meet the multiple demands of food, fodder,
fuel wood etc, a proper planning and management of land and water resources is a
The Wular Lake is important both from ecological and economic point of view.
Wular Lake has become polluted and is shrinking in size due to siltation, caused by
sediment yield transported by different rivers into the lake. Its sustainable
development and management can help to restore it as the largest fresh water
interests leading to land degradation hence sediment and nutrient loading into the
aquatic systems in the catchment, mainly from non-point source pollution. The
sediments from the catchment are conveyed to the lake via the rivers and streams,
8
Chapter – 1 Introduction
while the atmospheric pollutants are adsorbed and deposited on the lake surface in
dry form (gases and particles) and in wet form carried by rain. Activities causing
water resources management is presented for Wular Catchment using remote sensing
and GIS techniques with a view to develop natural resources on sustainable basis.
1.5. Objectives
/ To characterize the watersheds on the basis of the Geophysical, Socio-
economic and Land use/ Land cover dynamics in Wular Catchment.
9
Chapter – 1 Introduction
Singh and Sarangi, 2008 studied the hypsometry of two drainage basins, viz,
Sainj and Tirthan with their sub basins in the Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh and
concluded that the Sainj watershed and ten of its sub basins are more prone to
erosion in comparison to Tirthan and its five sub basins. Singh, Sarangi, and Sharma,
2008 validated their earlier results with recorded sediment yield data of 24 years
(1981– 2004) corroborated that the average annual sediment yield during this period
for Sainj watershed (0.53 Mt) was more than that of the Tirthan watershed (0.3 Mt)
suggested watershed prioritization to conserve soil and water systems. Singh, 2008,
studied the hypsometry of actively deforming Mohand anticline ridge in the frontal
part of NW Himalaya. Sivakumar, Biju, and Deshmukh, 2011 while analyzing the
hypsometry of Varattaru river basin, both suggested suitable locations for controlling
Sorensen, Zinko, and Seibert, 2005 obtained the topographic wetness index
for two separate boreal forest sites in northern Sweden. Grabs, Seibert, Bishop and
spatial distribution of wetlands significantly better than the TWI. Ruhoff, Castro and
Risso, 2011 by using distribution functions and their statistics and cell by cell
algorithms. Lanni, McDonnell and Rigon, 2011 developed new dynamic topographic
index based on Boussine sq equation (BEq) solver to show correlations of TWI and
the patterns of soil water storage around the world; found it more accurate than the
previous one and able to capture both the upslope and down slope controls on water
10
Chapter – 1 Introduction
The works of Mather and Doornkamp, 1970, Gregory, 1978, and Gardiner, 1978
employed for characterizing watersheds (Nag, 1998; Vittala, Govindaiah and Gowda,
2004; Vijith and Satheesh, 2006; Rudraiah, Govindaiah, and Vittala, 2008; Al Saud,
2009; Rao, Latha, Kumar and Krishna, 2010; Bagyaraj and Gurugnanam, 2011; Arpita
and Kumar, 2009; Magesh and Chandrasekar, 2010), for the prioritization of
watersheds (Nooka Ratnam et al., 2005; Thakkar and Dhiman, 2007; Mishra and
Nagarajan 2010; Londhe, Nathawat and Subudhi, 2010; Kanth and Hassan, 2012), for
2003; Javed et al., 2009; Thomas, Joseph and Thrivikramaji, 2010), for flood
Li, Peterson, Liu and Qian, 2001; Helmschrot and Flugel, 2002; Xiuwan, 2002;
Vasconcelos, Mussa, Araujo and Diniz, 2002; Nash et al., 2003; Zeng, Sui and Ben,
2005; Mengistu and Salami, 2007, Fan, Weng and Wang, 2007 and Kanth and Hassan,
2010 have used GIS and remote sensing techniques to assess the changing land
use/land cover. Karia, Porwal, Roy and Sandhya, 2001; Rao and Pant, 2001 have
adopted remote sensing and GIS techniques in change detection analysis and
resource appraisal. Similar works have been done by Singh and Mahavir, 2003; Singh
et al., 2005; Mahajan and Panwar, 2005; Shetty, Nandagiri, Thokchom and Rajesh,
2005; Solanke et al., 2005; Chakraborty, Dutta and Chandrasekharan 2001; Joshi,
Rawat, Padaliya and Roy, 2005; Chauhan and Nayak, 2005; Narumalani, Mishra and
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is the best known and most widely
used soil erosion model. The USLE has been used for natural resource management
planning. Zhang et al., 2010 in their work identified the soil conservation priority
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Chapter – 1 Introduction
regions based on the soil erosion risk assessment. The USLE has been used in
simulations on basins with varying drainage area (Fistikoglu and Harmancioglu,
2002; Onyando, Kisoyan and Chemelil, 2005; Erdogan, Erpul and Bayramin, 2007;
Dabral, Baithuri and Pandey, 2008), so that researchers can compare simulated
soil loss with acceptable values for the same kinds of soil. In Kashmir Valley
USLE has been used by Kanth and Bhat, 1991, who found that nearly one third of
the Kashmir Valley is under the threat of moderate to severe erosion problem;
Soil erosion intensity zones were delineated for Liddar basin by Ahmad and
Kanth, 2007; Sheikh, Palria, and Alam, 2011 integrated USLE and GIS for a micro
watershed of Liddar Catchment integrating USLE with RS and GIS. They found
-1 -1
that average soil loss was highest (26 t ha year ) in agriculture area and lowest
-1 -1
soil loss rate was found in forest area (0.99 t ha year ).
Randhir, Connor, Penner and Goodwin, 2001 have developed a watershed level
prioritization model for a wide variety of land protection and land use decisions.
potential roles of landscape and reviewing historical role of ecology in planning Leitao
and Adhern, 2002 and Said et al., 2006 were also of the same opinion. Wicham and
Wade, 2002 found land cover composition a principal factor in controlling the amount
and Bidoglio, 2005 studying the potential impact of land management scenarios
applied the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model find out irrigated crop
2006 describes the shift in the water management policy from mere technocratic
spatial planning and land use decisions. Kanth and Hassan, 2010 carried out
Catchment.
ha, Madan and Chawdary, 2007 Teixeira et al., 2008 gave the management
plans for groundwater sustainability using RS and GIS, while as Raghu and Reddy,
12
Chapter – 1 Introduction
2011 and Saxena and Prasad, 2008, revealed site specific recommendation on ground
water prospects to develop irrigation facilities in the area, Babu, Prasad and Rajeev,
1999 have suggested a Catchment Treatment Plan in Neyyar wild life sanctuary,
land use/land cover, drainage, relative relief and soil using Remote Sensing and GIS.
13
CONCLUSION AND
SUGGESTIONS
Chapter – 8 Conclusion and Suggestions
8.1. Conclusion
water body (-23.92%) and wetland (-23.87%). The significant increase in built-up,
agricultural land and wasteland and the decrease in wetlands and forests indicate
the increasing human needs and environmental degradation. The population growth
in the Wular Catchment is high and has shown a fourfold increase from 1961 (93486)
to 2011 (389741) registering a growth of +316.9%. The watersheds which have high
physiological density in 2011 are 1EM2c (14449.06) and 1EE2c (3051.43). The density
resource potentiality and economic growth. The majority of people in the Wular
Catchment is of productive age group (57.4%) employed mostly in the primary sector
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Chapter – 8 Conclusion and Suggestions
(57.5%) leading to the problem of resource degradation. The workers are mostly
engaged in farm sector and its allied activities which provide limited employment
opportunities. The potential work force is 57.76% in the Wular Catchment while as the
actual workers constitute only 28.4% of the total population. This clearly shows a low
work participation and high unemployment. The daily consumption of fuel wood in the
Wular Catchment is 4886 quintals which is quite high indicating the high dependence
on forests and less use of alternate sources of energy like kerosene oil, biogas, solar
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978) has
been used with combination of remote sensing and GIS technique to calculate soil
loss for mapping and assessment of erosion risk for natural resources management
more sustainably in the long-term. The Wular Catchment constitutes 10.95% under
very high soil loss zone, while as the watersheds having highest proportion under this
category are 1EM2b (25.78%), 1EE2a (25.10%) and 1EM1a (23.26%). The high values of
soil loss are the result of the combination of steep slopes with high LS factor, sparse
vegetation and barren surfaces due to human activities, such as forest clearance for
the habitation. This region is also characterized by high rainfall erosivity, low soil
erodibility and absence of the erosion control practice. The high, moderate and slight
soil loss covers 23.13%, 20.16% and 38.92% of the Wular Catchment respectively. The
advantage of the GIS-USLE approach is its ability to predict soil loss over large areas
constraint of limited field data on soil loss factor controls at meso- and macro-scale,
lineaments, permeable rock masses, good vegetation cover, low drainage density and
high rainfall. This zone with the highest potential of aquifer recharge covers an area of
74.94 (6.24%). The watersheds constituting the highest proportion in the very high
infiltration zone are 1EW2b, 1EOb2 and 1EOa1 respectively. 1EOb2 is mostly covered
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Chapter – 8 Conclusion and Suggestions
density. Both the watersheds have a considerable area under piedmont zone with low
drainage density. 1EOb2 is mostly covered by gentle slopes while as 1EOa1 has also a
significant area under gentle to moderately steep slopes. The Wular Catchment has an
2
area of 275.54 km under the high zone of aquifer recharge constituting 22.95% of the
total area. The highest proportion of area under this zone is in 1EE1a (46.30%), 1EOb2
(42.64%), 1EOb1 (36.78%) and 1EOa2 (28.70%) respectively.
8.2. Suggestions
The present study has employed integrated approach to identify and assess
the critical areas on the watershed level which need immediate attention to arrest the
unsuitable processes which are responsible for rampant degradation of the Wular
Catchment. The study has helped in devising the following strategies for controlling
base and the general environment of Wular Catchment under tremendous stress.
Thus there is an urgent need to arrest the fast growth of human population as the
intense not only in densely populated areas, where arithmetic population densities
are higher but equally intense on sparsely populated areas because of the
because of their population size, but deserve greater attention due to their
secondary or tertiary sectors and consequently will reduce the burden from
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Chapter – 8 Conclusion and Suggestions
forests into the sparse forests. The main reasons for this change are
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Chapter – 8 Conclusion and Suggestions
agronomical practices when the latter alone are not adequately effective.
plugs. Gully plugs protect the gully beds by reducing the speed of runoff
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Chapter – 8 Conclusion and Suggestions
planks, brush woods or loose rock, are built across gullies to trap sediments
and thereby reduce channel depth and slope and are used in association with
agronomic treatment of surrounding land where grasses, trees and shrubs are
planted.
• This includes identification, protection and enhancement of significant natural
ground and surface water (both quality and quantity) for all users.
water resources. The various structures and the criteria for the selection of
their locations are given below: weathered zone / loose material / fractures.
suitable data base for developing a ground water based drinking water
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