Bhardwaj, AnilSushanth, Kallem2018-07-152018-07-152018http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810060211Landuse change significantly alters the hydrologic characteristics of the land surface within a watershed. In the present study, the impact of landuse change (2006 - 2016) on runoff and sediment yield has been assessed in Patiala-Ki-Rao watershed located in Shivalik foot-hills, using RS, GIS and WEPP watershed model. Landuse maps were generated in GIS environment using LANDSAT imageries for the years 2006 and 2016 with overall classification accuracy and Kappa statistic both above 0.9. The watershed was classified into seven major landuse classes namely agriculture, built-up, fallow land, forest, grass land, streams and water bodies. The analysis of landuse maps indicated that the area under all the landuses decreased except built-up that increased by 372.27 ha (112.04%) in a period of 10 years. Change detection matrix was prepared to determine land encroachment by different landuse categories. Forest is the most affected landuse among all watershed landuses that shrinked by 194.90 ha followed by agriculture (64.57 ha), grass land (50.81 ha), streams (30.42 ha), fallow land (21.86 ha) and water bodies (9.72 ha). Runoff and sediment yield for the landuse of the years 2006 and 2016 were simulated by the WEPP model using climatic data for the year 2006 and again with that of the year 2016. The simulated runoff, sediment yield and sediment delivery ratio got increased from 53.70 mm to 63.70 mm (18.62%), 10.20 Mg/ha to 15.10 Mg/ha (48.04%) and 0.192 to 0.254 (32.23%) under climate-2006 and 64.60 mm to 81.90 mm (26.78%), 12.90 Mg/ha to 16.80 Mg/ha (30.23%) and 0.261 to 0.303 (16.09%) under climate-2016 due to change in landuse during the study period of 10 years. Runoff coefficient increased from 0.054 to 0.064 under climate-2006 and 0.058 to 0.074 under climate-2016 for landuse of the years 2006 and 2016, respectively. However, threshold value of rainfall that produced runoff decreased from 15 mm to 9 mm under climate-2006 and 15 mm to 11 mm under climate-2016 for the years 2006 and 2016, respectively. Hillslope and channel slope soil loss also increased significantly due to landuse change in the watershed.ennullThesis