OPTIMAL PLANNING FOR SUSTAINED DEVELOPMENT OF LAND AND WATER RESOURCES UNDER WATERSHED CONCEPT
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Date
2017-06-30
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UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES, RAICHUR
Abstract
In case of the semi arid agro climatic conditions, there is need to enhance the land and water productivity sustaining spatially and temporally distributed rainfall quantity and its erosive effects. The primary objective of the work was to develop a spatial decision support system for optimal hydrological planning of land and water resources relating the variable characteristics of land use, soil and rainfall. The conceptual decision and flow logic was formulated to link this information through MMF model and transformed into computer model using python programming language. The QSCOT was developed with PyQt graphical user interface (GUI) capability and integrated with QGIS which is open source software and available for all users across the world as “QGIS plugin” repository. It provided the user with an effective interactive environment to select or enter the input variables and to get output data on runoff and soil loss rate at any stream node. Moreover, SDSS-QSCOT contains many features including “suggesting suitable soil conservation and water harvesting measures for arable and non arable lands”, “estimating excess runoff”, “displaying conservation measures spatially with set of icons as a vector layer”, which would enhance its efficacy in effective-interactive communication method for better comprehension. The total runoff measured at the watershed scale (at outlet) was 108.15 mm whereas predicted runoff by SDSS-QSCOT for the study area was 94.07 mm. The observed data for annual soil loss at the outlet was 1.8 t ha-1 y-1 whereas predicted weighted average soil loss rate by SDSS-QSCOT for the study area at the outlet was 1.5 t ha-1 y-1. The MMF model estimates annual runoff and soil loss rate to acceptable limits. The similarities between the annual measured and model simulated values at outlet were with 85 - 89 per cent accuracy. QSCOT helps to visualize estimated runoff volume and soil loss rate in compatible and user friendly formats keeping with the best for user convenience.
Key words: SDSS, semi arid regions, runoff, soil loss, MMF model, QGIS and QSCOT
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