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An assessment to prioritise the critical erosion-prone sub-watersheds for soil conservation in the Gumti basin of Tripura, North-East India

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Abstract

Erosion-induced land degradation problem has emerged as a serious environmental issue across the world. Assessment of this problem through modelling can generate valuable quantitative information for the planners to identify priority areas for proper soil conservation measures. The Gumti River basin of Tripura falls under humid tropical climate and experiences soil erosion for a prolonged period which has turned into a major environmental issue. Increased sediment supply through top soil erosion is one of the major reasons for reduced navigability of this river. Thus, the present study is an attempt to prioritize the sub-watersheds of the Gumti basin by estimating soil loss through the USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation) model. For that purpose, five parameters of the USLE model were processed, computed and overlaid in a GIS environment. The result shows that potential mean annual soil loss of the Gumti basin ranges between 0.03 and 114.08 t ha−1 year−1. The resultant values of soil loss were classified into five categories considering the minimum and maximum values. It has been identified that low, moderate, high, very high and severe soil loss categories occupy 68.71, 8.94, 5.86, 5.02 and 11.47% of the basin respectively. Moreover, it has been recognised that sub-watersheds like SW7, SW8, SW12, SW21, SW24 and SW29 fall under very high priority class for which mitigation measures are essential. Therefore, the present study recommends mitigation measures through terrace cultivation, as an alternative of shifting cultivation in the hilly areas and through construction of check dams at the appropriate sites of the erosion prone sub-watersheds. Moreover, proper afforestation programmes that have been implemented successfully in other parts of Tripura through the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Joint Forest Management, and National Afforestation Programme should be initiated in the highly erosion-prone areas of the Gumti River basin.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are highly grateful to USGS for providing free Satellite Imagery and the Department of Agriculture, Govt. of Tripura, for providing rainfall data. The authors are also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments for the improvement of this research paper.

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  1. Department of Geography and Disaster Management, Tripura University, Agartala, Tripura, India

    Istak Ahmed, Nibedita Das (Pan), Jatan Debnath & Moujuri Bhowmik

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  1. Istak Ahmed
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Ahmed, I., Das (Pan), N., Debnath, J. et al. An assessment to prioritise the critical erosion-prone sub-watersheds for soil conservation in the Gumti basin of Tripura, North-East India. Environ Monit Assess 189, 600 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-6315-6

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