Morphometric Analysis for Prioritization of Sub-Watersheds of Jamuna River Watershed, Assam, India Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technique

Abstract

Watershed prioritization has gained immense importance in the context of conservation and management of land and water resources for sustainable development. Morphometric analysis helps to decipher watershed and sub-watersheds characteristics such as topography, slope, soil condition, drainage, surface runoff, rainfall and water potential. Therefore, morphometric analysis is commonly applied for prioritizing watersheds and sub-watersheds. The present study makes an attempt to prioritize sub-watersheds based on analysis of morphometric parameters using remote sensing and GIS technique in Jamuna river watershed, Assam. Linear, relief and shape aspects of morphometric parameters have been determined in all the sub-watershed of Jamuna river. The prioritization of sub-watersheds is done by assigning ranks to the individual indicators of each parameters and a Compound value (Cp) is calculated. Watersheds with highest Cp value are determined as having a low priority while those with lowest Cp value have high priority. Based on the morphometric analysis, the sub-watersheds have been categorized into high, medium and low priority zones for conservation and management of land and water resources. Thus, SW1, SW9, SW10, SW13, and SW14 fall in high priority zone, SW3, SW4, SW6 and SW11 under medium priority and SW2, SW5, SW7, SW8 and SW12 in low priority zone.