Prioritization of Kamlang River Watershed Through Morphometric and Land Use/Cover Parameters using Quantitative Analysis

Considering the relationship and importance of water and how watershed plays a dominant role in transporting water and landforms development, it is very significant to study a watershed as it is an ideal unit for management of natural resources like land and water for mitigation of the impact of human activities and natural disaster for achieving sustainable development. Remote sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques help planners in decision making and hence became a popular tools for such kinds of studies. Morphometric parameters (linear and shape) with land use land cover parameters were used for assigning ranks based on which prioritization and ranking were made for all the sub-watersheds of Kamlang River Watershed. Different categories of priority from high to low rank were assigned depending on the parameters and lastly, the compound value (Cp) of all the sub-watershed was calculated. Higher Cp was of low priority, lower Cp was of higher priority. The study demonstrates the presence of high priority in the sub-watershed of SW64 and SW65 on the bases of morphometric studies. Whereas based on land use land cover more numbers of sub-watersheds are in the high priority range for example SW1, SW6, SW8, SW12, etc. The combined result of morphometric and land use/cover analysis, however, gives a different result i.e. only SW65 is in the high priority zone. This means the sub-watershed of SW65 is more prone to erosion due to its morphometry and land use land cover type. Therefore the implementation of soil and water conservation measures for this sub-watershed is necessary.