G. S. DasogPrabhavathi Koraprolu2016-07-262016-07-262013http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/69864A study was carried out to determine the extent of different land degradation types in Belgaum district on 1: 50,000 scale using remote sensing and GIS techniques. Out of 13,44,084.60 ha of total geographical area of Belgaum district, 3,96,059.5 ha land is degraded accounting for 29.47 per cent. Among the various land degradation types, sheet erosion (23.13 %) was the dominant land degradation type followed by rill erosion (5.76 %) and barren rocky/ stony waste (0.44%). Three micro-watersheds were selected one each from Northern dry zone (Yadawad), Northern transitional zone (Hukkeri) and Hilly zone (Khanapur) for characterization, soil fertility mapping and soil loss risk assessment using USLE. The soils of Yadawad microwatershed were alkaline, low in organic carbon, available nitrogen, P2O5 and sulphur content and deficient in Zn and Fe. The soils of Hukkeri micro-watershed were neutral to slightly alkaline, low in organic carbon, available nitrogen and available phosphorus in two third of area. The entire watershed was found deficient in available sulphur, zinc and iron. The soils of Khanapur micro-watershed were slightly acidic to acidic in reaction. Available phosphorus, potassium and sulphur status was low in majority of the area. Nearly all of Yadawad micro-watershed depicted very low soil erosion risk class. Hukkeri microwatershed had very low soil erosion risk in 34.9 per cent of TGA and low soil erosion risk in 17.6 per cent of TGA. The Khanapur micro-watershed exhibited a wide range of soil erosion risk with 41.22 per cent of TGA under low soil erosion risk class with substantial extent (16.12 %) under high soil erosion risk class because of topographic variation.Thesis