GIS-based Technologies For Watershed Management: A. K. Gosain and Sandhya Rao
GIS-based Technologies For Watershed Management: A. K. Gosain and Sandhya Rao
GIS-based Technologies For Watershed Management: A. K. Gosain and Sandhya Rao
is an infinite resource, through development of ground- major advantage of the model is that unlike the other con-
water abstraction and water harvesting techniques1. ventional conceptual simulation models, it does not require
IWM does not merely imply the amalgamation of dif- much calibration and therefore can be used on ungauged
ferent activities to be undertaken within a hydrological watersheds.
unit. It also requires the collation of relevant information The model can be used for the assessment of existing
so as to evaluate the cause and effect of all the proposed and anticipated water uses and water shortages. The model
actions. The watershed is the smallest unit where the eva- provides a complete accounting of the quantity of water
luation of human-induced impacts upon natural resources that is supplied to the land by precipitation; enters the
becomes possible. Therefore, although the ‘Panchayat’ streams as surface run-off; is used and returned to the
remains the preferred implementation unit, the watershed atmosphere by natural vegetation, agricultural crops and
should be the evaluation unit used in assessing impacts. evaporation, and that percolates through the root zone and a
As the impacts resulting from actions taken at the Pan- part returns as groundwater contribution.
chayat/watershed level will be experienced at a higher For modelling purposes, a watershed is partitioned into
level within the drainage basin, the assessment of these a number of subwatersheds. The use of subwatersheds in
impacts will require the availability of a framework which a simulation is particularly beneficial when different areas
enables the mapping of such units and their entities, and of the watershed are dominated by land uses or soils dif-
the interconnections at the Panchayat level and at the ferent enough in properties to impact hydrology. Input
higher catchment level. Such a framework will need regular information for each subwatershed is grouped with res-
maintenance and updating to reflect fully the most accu- pect to unique areas of land cover and soil, which are known
rate ground-truth data or the infrastructure requirements as hydrologic response units or HRUs. These HRUs behave
for planning and management of natural resources col- in a hydrologically similar manner to the inputs of pre-
lected by the relevant departments. This framework, once cipitation.
available, could be used by all the line departments and Model outputs include all water-balance components
updated by the relevant departments, which have designa- (surface run-off, evapotranspiration, lateral flow, recharge,
ted areas of jurisdiction over the data entry. The format percolation, sediment yield, etc.) at the level of each sub-
should be made consistent with local to State and national watershed and at daily, monthly or annual intervals.
level structures as well as the corresponding watershed, These technologies have been integrated and promoted
sub-basin and basin-level structures. through an UNDP (United Nations Development Pro-
All the information which is required for integrated gramme) sponsored project titled ‘GIS based technolo-
planning and management is not readily available at the gies for local level development planning’, handled by
desired scale of a watershed. This is true with respect to the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi.
the quantity of water, both surface and ground. Although The components of the technologies presented here through
the information on local water availability as well as its the case study were formulated by the authors during the
variability in time is essential for proper planning and course of the UNDP project.
management, measurement of these quantities in terms of
flows is not financially viable at such scales. Hydrologi-
Case study
cal simulation modelling is an effective tool to take care
of this essential requirement of IWM. In the present study
A demonstration case has been developed on the Dodda-
one such model has been deployed to simulate the quan-
halla watershed, wherein micro-watershed prioritization
tity of water and sediment erosion in the sub watersheds
has been carried out using criteria cutting across hydro-
of the study area. A short description of the model has
logical, demographic and socio-economic parameters3. Col-
been presented in the following section.
lation of scientific information generated through modell-
ing with other required information such as demographic,
SWAT hydrological model socio-economic, etc. is required for taking local-level
decisions.
The SWAT (soil and water assessment tool) model, deve-
loped by the USDA Agricultural Research Service2, simu-
Description of the study area
lates the land phase of the hydrologic cycle in daily time
steps. Routines are also included for simulating the det- The Doddahalla watershed in Bijapur district, northern
achment of sediments from the watersheds and their trans- Karnataka, with an area of about 61,000 ha has been
port through the drainage systems. The SWAT model is modelled using SWAT. This is a chronically drought-prone
designed to route water and sediments from individual district with a large agrarian population predominantly
watersheds, through the river systems. It can incorporate depending on rainfed agriculture.
the tanks and the reservoirs/check dams off-stream as Upstream watershed (head water area of the main drai-
well as on-stream. The agricultural areas can also be inte- nage system) with an area of 31,000 ha is being treated
grated with respect to its management practices. The and the remaining 30,000 ha area belonging to the down-
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 87, NO. 7, 10 OCTOBER 2004 949
SPECIAL SECTION: APPLICATION OF S&T TO RURAL AREAS
stream watershed (the lower area on the main stream) has resources, integrated development of natural as well as
been used for detailed analysis in the present study. This social resources, in situ moisture conservation, sustainable
part of the watershed covers 30 villages of Indi and farming system, adoption of ridge-to-valley approach,
Bijapur taluks. livelihood support for landless families, democratic
decentralization in decision making, equity for resource-
poor families and empowerment of women, etc. Though
Modelling Doddahalla watershed with SWAT the priority given to these elements varies from State to
State, NWDPRA (National Watershed Development Pro-
GIS (Geographical Information Systems) is used as a pre- ject for Rainfed Areas) guidelines have been invariably
processor to the SWAT model. Digital elevation model accepted. These guidelines recommend combining physical
(DEM) was generated using the digitized contours. DEM and socio-economic criteria. Under the physical criteria,
along with the digitized drainage was used to automati- the priority-wise entities that should be followed include:
cally delineate (using GIS-based terrain analysis algorithm) head-water watersheds with erodability, land degradation,
the subwatersheds. The subwatershed layer was overlaid water scarcity problem, rainfall less than 750 mm, net
with the landuse and soil layer to derive the HRUs. Model cultivated area not more than 20%, irrigated area not ex-
inputs, including soil, weather, groundwater and manage- ceeding the State average or 30%, and with no long-
ment required for each HRU were automatically derived duration crop or water-intensive crops. Since the finan-
using the GIS interface. The entire area, including the cial allocation is done with respect to the administrative
upstream watershed was divided into 50 subwatersheds boundaries (village in the present case), one of the criteria
and 175 HRUs. The upstream watersheds have also been is to take watersheds that cover majority area of the
modelled for assessment of water and sediment genera- villages.
tion to be used in conjunction with the downstream water- With respect to socio-economic criteria, priority is given
sheds of the study area. The daily weather data (1969– to villages/watersheds having large economically weaker
1990) for Bijapur station were used for rainfall and population, SC/ST population, uniform land holdings and
temperature. many others depending on local priorities.
The outputs of the model, namely the water availability Each element of the prioritization criteria (physical and
(mm/yr) and sediment yield (t/ha) have been depicted in socio-economic) was created as GIS layers taking a sub-
Figure 1 for each subwatershed of the study area. These watershed (with alphanumeric nomenclature for ease of
are two of the many elements required for the watershed depiction) or village as the mapping unit. Figure 2 depicts
prioritization, but seldom available. these subwatersheds along with the village boundaries.
The watershed management involves a large number The overlay analysis has been performed to satisfy the
of guiding principles such as conservation of natural laid-down criteria in the sequence of priority. The first
level of physical criteria of extent of average annual rain- Strategies for watershed development
fall, head-water watersheds and watersheds with maximum
soil erosion and minimum water availability, were imple- Having identified the priority watersheds, the next action
mented on the study area. This analysis resulted in identi- was to generate detailed information commensurate with
fying a cluster of seven subwatersheds for further analy- the implementation of new technologies and subsequent
sis. It may be mentioned here that without the availability control and operation of generated resources. A detailed
of the two crucial elements of water availability and survey was conducted over these subwatersheds to gene-
sediment yield at the subwatershed level, which has been rate the detailed terrain information. Figure 3 shows the
made possible through hydrological modelling, such deli- overlay of contours generated from the survey on the
neation would not have been possible. digitized village revenue plot from the cadastral map.
In order to implement the next criterion of taking up The detailed survey was essential to generate a reason-
watersheds which are covered by maximum part of the ably accurate DEM for making use of the latest technolo-
village(s), the overlay of the selected seven subwater- gies of GIS to help in handling the water resources deve-
sheds with the village boundaries was performed. Four lopment at the local level. This DEM has been used to
(4D5A6C2B, 4D5A6C2C, 4D5A6C2D and 4D5A6C2E, generate the local drainage (Figure 4), which in turn is used
inside the circle in Figure 2) of the seven subwatersheds to identify the possible locations of the water-harvesting
were found to cover majority area of the two villages, structures.
Ainapur (63%) and Burnapur (50%). The other analysis Selection of a suitable site is important in planning and
pertaining to the socio-economic aspects such as number construction of harvesting structure. Demonstration has
of people below the poverty line, SC/ST population, size been made through interface on ArcView with Spatial
of the land holding, etc. was also performed in a similar Analyst extension for site selection of water-resources
manner. The four subwatersheds, namely 4D5A6C2B, structure (ArcView extension by www.esri.com). Profiles
4D5A6C2C, 4D5A6C2D and 4D5A6C2E qualified all drawn on the DEM would give the hydraulic characteri-
these criteria as well. Thus this contiguous set of sub- stics of the terrain such as spread area and volume of
watersheds was recommended to be taken as the priority storage, with respect to the crest level of the barrier crea-
area for further analysis and treatment. ted across the drainage. This, when superimposed on the
plot/village maps, provides the inundated area. This kind of 9.0 ha m and a spread area of 6.93 ha with respect to
of application can rapidly provide the first-level feasible crest height of 4.0 m.
sites which can then be field-tested for implementation. The above example is a demonstration of latest tools to
Figure 5 shows one such depiction with two alternate sites derive the appropriate information through analysis and
with different design parameters and resultant computa- modelling to help in the local-level planning for IWM. This
tions made by the application. Site1 produces a volume also has the strength of making these decisions highly
of 0.8 ha m and a spread area of 3.02 ha with respect to understandable to all the stakeholders and thereby enhance
crest height of 2.0 m, whereas Site2 produces a volume the local-level participation.
Figure 4. Digital elevation model with local drainage overlaid with micro watershed and plot
boundaries.
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