Geospatial technology for assessment of soil erosion and prioritization of watersheds using RUSLE model for lower Sutlej sub-basin of Punjab, India

Erosion of soil by water coupled with human activities is considered as one of the most serious agents of land degradation, posing severe threat to agricultural productivity, soil health, water quality, and ecological setup. The assessment of soil erosion and recognition of problematic watersheds are pre-requisite for management of erosion hazards. In the present study, Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) integrated with remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) has been used to assess the soil erosion in lower Sutlej River basin of Punjab, India, and prioritize the watersheds for implementation of land and water conservation measures. The total basin area was about 8577 km(2) which was divided into 14 sub-watersheds with the area ranging from 357.8 to 1354 km(2). The data on rainfall (IMD gridded data), soil characteristics (FAO soil map), topography (ALOS PALSAR DEM) and land use (ESRI land use and land cover map) were prepared in the form of raster layers and overlaid together to determine the average annual soil loss. The results revealed that the average annual soil loss varied from 1.26 to 25 t ha(-1), whereas total soil loss was estimated to be 2,441,639 tonnes. The spatial distribution map of soil erosion showed that about 94.4% and 4.7% of the total area suffered from very slight erosion (0-5 t ha(-1) year(-1)) and slight erosion (5-10 t ha(-1) year(-1)), respectively, whereas 0.11% (9.38 km(2)) experienced very severe soil loss (> 25 t ha(-1) year(-1)). Based on estimated average annual soil loss of sub-watersheds, WS8 was assigned the highest priority for implementation of soil and water conservation measures (323.5 t ha(-1) year(-1)), followed by WS9 (303.8 t ha(-1) year(-1)), whereas WS2 was given last priority owing to its lowest value of soil loss (122.02 t ha(-1) year(-1)). The present study urges that conservation strategies should be carried out in accordance with the priority ranking of diverse watersheds. These findings can certainly be used to implement soil conservation plans and management practices in order to diminish soil loss in the river basin.