Soil erosion modeling of a Himalayan watershed using RS and GIS

Abstract

Employing the remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS), an assessment of sediment yield from Dikrong river basin of Arunachal Pradesh (India) has been presented in this paper. For prediction of soil erosion, the Morgan-Morgan and Finney (MMF) model and the universal soil loss equation (USLE) have been utilized at a spatial grid scale of 100 m 9 100 m, an operational unit. The average annual soil loss from the Dikrong river basin is estimated as 75.66 and 57.06 t ha-1 year-1 using MMF and USLE models, respectively. The watershed area falling under the identified very high, severe, and very severe zones of soil erosion need immediate attention for soil conservation. © Springer-Verlag 2009.