Integrated Approach of Morphometric and LULC Parameters for Watershed Prioritization in Pachnoi River Basin, North-East India

Debashree Borah; Ashok Kumar Bora

doi:10.17485/IJST/v16i44.1113

Article

Integrated Approach of Morphometric and LULC Parameters for Watershed Prioritization in Pachnoi River Basin, North-East India

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Indian Journal of Science and Technology

DOI: 10.17485/IJST/v16i44.1113

Year: 2023, Volume: 16, Issue: 44, Pages: 4002-4015

Original Article

Integrated Approach of Morphometric and LULC Parameters for Watershed Prioritization in Pachnoi River Basin, North-East India

Debashree Borah^1*, Ashok Kumar Bora²

¹Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, , Arya Vidyapeeth College, Assam, India
²Professor, Department of Geography, Gauhati University, Assam, India

*Corresponding Author
Email: [email protected]

Received Date:01 October 2023, Accepted Date:09 November 2023, Published Date:21 November 2023

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Objective: This study intends to prioritize the Pachnoi river basin, located in the north eastern part of India, covering an area of 504.54 km2. “Prioritization” indicates the arrangement or sorting of the sub-watersheds within a broad watershed depending upon their risk of environmental problems and accordingly the treatment needed to be executed at high-priority areas. Methods: The research adopted an integrated approach combining morphometry and land use/land cover (LULC) parameters. Each morphometric and LULC parameters has been ranked for individual sub-watershed, and thereafter, the averages were determined to generate compound values. Based on compound values determined from the two approaches, rankings have been assigned to each sub-watershed and accordingly, priorities were set. Findings: The Pachnoi is a sixth-order watershed with a dendritic drainage pattern and elongated morphology. Depending upon morphometric analysis, SW1, SW2, and SW3 were grouped under high-priority zones, while SW7, SW8, SW9 and SW10 were categorised as high-risk regions based on LULC assessment. Integration of both the approaches has offered significant results, with SW4, SW7, SW8 and SW10 covering an area of 300 km2 (59.46%) within high-risk areas. It implies that these micro-watersheds are more prone to environmental risk factors such as illegal logging, soil erosion, bank erosion, drastic land use change and runoff instability that requires urgent attention. Novelty: The novelty lies in adopting an integrated approach using geospatial techniques that would certainly enhance natural resource conservation. The high-risk sub-watersheds facing severe environmental problems necessitates prompt strategy implementation to enhance policymakers and stakeholders in drafting a plan for an integrated watershed management program.

Keywords: Pachnoi, Morphometry, LULC, Management, Subwatershed, Prioritization

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Copyright

© 2023 Borah & Bora. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Published By Indian Society for Education and Environment (iSee)