NAJAR, GH NABI2020-08-212024-08-142020-08-212024-08-1420192019NAJAR, GH NABI & Pandey, Puneeta (2019) WATERSHED CHARACTERISATION AND MANAGEMENT PLANNING OF HARIKE WETLAND USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPROACHhttp://10.2.3.109/handle/32116/2750Wetlands are among the world’s most productive ecosystems and offer several beneficial services for man, fish and other wildlife. Despite the numerous valuable services provided by wetlands, they are overexploited throughout the world and particularly in developing countries. Hence their conservation and management has become a serious issue; and to restore them, conservational efforts at watershed level are most appropriate. Watershed planning approach adopted for wetland restoration provides dynamic benefits by restoring ecological processes and conserve water and soil resource integrity. In the present study, an attempt has been made to carry out a comprehensive analysis of Harike wetland and its catchment for various conservational measures and its sustainable management. The whole study area has been divided into 5 watershed basins, which were further subdivided into 25 sub-watersheds using Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data in conjunction with topographical maps of the study area. Morphometric parameters including linear parameters such as Stream number, Stream order (U), Stream Length (LU), Mean stream length (Lsm), Stream length ratio (RL), Bifurcation Ratio (Rb ); relief parameters such as Basin relief (Bh), Relief Ratio (Rh ), Ruggedness Number (Rn), Gradient ratio (Gh), Dissection index (Di); and aerial parameters namely: Drainage density (Dd), Drainage texture (T), Stream iv frequency (Fs), Form factor (Rf), Circulatory ratio (Rc), Elongation ratio (Re), Length of overland flow (Lg) and Constant channel maintenance(C) have been analysed to characterise the study area. The Morphometric analysis results revealed that study area as a whole has 7th stream order drainage basin as per the Strahler method. The sub-watershed ‘SWS11’ and ‘SWS12’ showed the smallest and largest basin area of 68.17 and 328.25 Km2 respectively. Among 25 sub-watersheds, SWS15 exhibit highest mean bifurcation ratio of 6.16. The drainage system of the basin is coarse with permeable subsurface strata and having moderate to good groundwater prospects. Landsat-8 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Linear Imaging Self Scanning Sensor-IV (LISS IV) satellite data of year 1995 and 2016 have been used to investigate the land use/ land cover (LULC) of Harike wetland and its catchment. On the basis of the spectral reflectance, seven major land use/land cover classes have been recognised namely; water, agricultural crop land, current follow land, wetland vegetation, wasteland, forest and built-up land. Agricultural land occupied the largest area in both the years of 1995 and 2016, covering an area of 74.55 and 66.16% respectively; whereas, forest occupied the lowest area of 0.13 and 0.10% respectively during the same time periods. Current fallow land exhibited the highest increase in total area followed by built up land. Different primary and secondary data were used to calculate the several parameters used in Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). Length and Slope-factors (LS-factors) were calculated using data derived from Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in conjunction with topographical maps. Land use/land cover data prepared from LISS-IV satellite image (resolution of 5.8 m) have been used to calculate the Cover management-factor (C-factor). Average annual rainfall of last 15 years from year 2000 to 2015 of the study area have been used to prepare soil erodibility factor. SWS01 and SWS20 showed highest and lowest average annual soil loss of 12.22 and 3.20 t/ha/year respectively; whereas, average soil loss for whole study area was 5.03 t/ha/year. To have insights about groundwater recharge potential in the study area, groundwater potential zonation map was prepared using information from different raster layers including rainfall, slope, lineament density, soil, LULC, drainage density, geological and geomorphological maps. For the whole study area, groundwater potential recharge has been classified into five categories: poor, low, v medium, good and excellent based on infiltration potential. The moderate zone exhibits the highest percentage of 37.9 (1701 Km2 ). The area having excellent groundwater recharge potential is only 7.8% (350.13 km2 ). Further, groundwater recharge potential was analysed for all the 25 sub-watersheds of the study area, where, sub-watershed SWS03 covering large portion of the Harike wetland exhibited the highest area under excellent groundwater prospect zone (32.09%). In the present study an attempt has also been made to prioritise the different subwatersheds for soil and water conservation. Prioritization of sub-watersheds has been done based on soil erosion estimation and morphometric analysis and groundwater recharge prospect zonation. The results revealed that prioritization based on soil erosion estimation method is more appropriate than morphometric based method. Vulnerability of Harike wetland to weed infestation, encroachment and sediment deposition has been carried out based on the general impacts of LULC change, water quality and soil erosion on it. The present study describes the successful use of remote sensing and GIS for monitoring, characterisation and conservation of soil and water resources of the study area, using integrated watershed management approach for sustainable development.en-USWetlandsWatershedGISErosionMorphometryRUSLEGroundwaterThesisT00874