A MULTI- DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE IN EVALUATION OF SPATIALLY DISTRIBUTED ACCUMULATED SEDIMENT YIELD USING GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM(GIS) BASED HYDROLOGICAL INTERFACES OF ‘OpenNSPECT’ AND ‘N-SPECT’ MODELS WITH DIFFERENT GIS SOFTWARE PACKAGES

Abstract

One of the major concern in landscape management and conservation planning is the reduction of the risk of soil erosion, which requires a perfect assessment of the potential transport capabilities of runoff generated by erosive storms. In this context, the use of new technologies and science developments such as Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS), database developments have made possible to approach the study of soil erosion and corresponding sediment yield. The revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) is an easily and widely used computer programme that estimates rates of soil erosion caused by rainfall and associated overland flow. This paper enabled to estimate accumulated sediment load by water in the area of Karha basin situated in Pune Dist. of Maharashtra state. The erosion process in the area highly depends on the nature of parent materials, soils topography, climate, cover management and support practice. These erosive factors estimated in the form of Rainfall Erosivity factor (R), Soil erodability factors, spatial distribution of slope factors (LS) in terms of their erosion status, computation of cover management factor (C), and supporting practice factor (P). This paper investigate a comparison study of accumulated sediment yield for karha basin using ‘Non-Point Source Pollution and Erosion Comparison Tool’ named as OpenNSPECT and N-SPECT with two different GIS softwares of Map Window GIS and Arc Map. The input maps prepared from spatial data in the form of Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Land Use-Land Cover map from satellite image, Hydrological Soil Group Map from soil data and R-factor map from rainfall data for evaluation of accumulated sediment yield. The results indicate that the sediment yield obtained from N-SPECT model is higher to OpenNSPECT model. The quantitative value of sediment load obtained 91609 (kg), and 86253 (kg) from N-SPECT and OpenNSPECT models respectively.