Watershed management

1. SEMINAR
ON
WATERSHED
MANAGEMENT

2. CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PRINCIPLES OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
• OBJECTIVES OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
• USE OF REMOTESENSING AND GIS IN WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
• TYPES OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
• FACTORS AFFECTING WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
• WATERSHED MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
• KARNATAKA WATERSHED DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
• WATERSHED MANAGEMENT IN RAJASTHAN
• CONCLUSION
• REFERENCES

3. INTRODUCTION
Water is an essential to our existance or the breathing air.
We can survive without food for several weeks, but without water we would die in a
few days.
Watershed is a geohydrological unit or piece of land that
drain at a common point. It is defined as the “any spatial area from which rain or
irrigation water is collected and drained through a common point”.
It is a geographic region which hydrological conditions
are such that water becomes concentrated within a particular location, eg: a river
or reservoir, by which the watershed is drained. The watershed is important
sources of drinking water.

4. CONT……
Watershed management is a form meant to capture the
sum of the action taken to preserve and maintain watersheds. The watersheds the
land area draining to a point on a stream or river, is nature’s production unit for
water supplies. It is the process of guiding and co-ordinating use of land and water
resources in a watershed.
The management of watershed includes all measurements
that can be taken to protect, manage, and conserve water and related land
resources.

5. PRINCIPLES OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
• Utilizing the land based on its capability.
• Protecting fertile top layer soil.
• Minimizing setting up of tanks, reservoir and lower fertile land.
• Protecting vegetative cover throughout the year.
• In situ conservation of rainwater.
• Safe diversion of gullies and construction of check dams for increasing ground
water recharge.
• Water harvesting for supplemental irrigation.

6. OBJECTIVES OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
The watershed aims, ultimately at improving standard of living
of common people in the basin by increasing their earning capacity, by offering
facilities such as electricity, drinking water, irrigation water, freedom from fears,
floods etc.
•Recognition of watershed
•Adequate water supply for domestic , agricultural and industrial needs.
•Abatement of organic, inorganic and soil pollution.
•To protect and enhance the water resource originating in the watershed.
•To increase infiltration of rainwater.

7. USE OF REMOTESENSING AND GIS IN WATERSHED
MANAGEMENT
Remote sensing finds its way to use in faster assesment of
natural resources such as soil, geology, drainage etc. Aerial photographs and
satellites images convey important information on land use, vegetation, slope
ingredient, erosion etc. It also find its use in assesment of economic activities
through land use and infrastructure of land use.
GIS is an important tool for tracking spatial data. GIS give clear
perspective for analysis various level to different patterns of watershed.

8. Watershed management satellite imagery

9. GIS application in Watershed management

10. TYPES OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
Grassland development

11. Gully plugs

12. Tree plantation

13. Contour bedding

14. Land leveling

15. Water conservation structure

16. Lift irrigation scheme

17. Watershed development

18. Micro catchments for sloping land

19. Check dams

20. Percolation pond

21. FACTORS AFFECTING WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
a) Watershed characters
i) Size and shape
ii) Topography
iii) Soils
iv) Relief
b) Climatic characteristic
i) Precipitation
ii) Amount and intensity of rainfall
c) Watershed operation
d) Land use pattern
i) Vegetative cover
ii) Density
e) Social status of inhability
f) Water resource and their capabilities

22. WATERSHED MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
1. In terms of purpose
2. To increase infiltration
3. To increase water holding capacity
4. To prevent soil erosion
5. Method and accomplishment

23. Watershed management practices in
Karnataka

24. In brief various control measures are:
1) Vegetative measures ( Agronomical measures)
2) Strip cropping
3) Grass land farming
4) Wood lands
5) Engineering measures ( Structural practices)
6) Contour bunding
7) Terracing
8) Construction of earthern embankment
9) Construction of check dams

25. CONT……
11) Construction of farm ponds
12) Construction of diversion
13) Gully controlling structure
14) Rock dam
15) Establishment of permanent grass and vegetation
16) Providing vegetative and stone barriers
17) Construction of silt tanks detention
18) Influence of soil conservation measures and vegetation
19) cover on erosion, Runoff and Nutrient loss
20) Pasture cropping

26. Rainwater harvesting is the main component of watershed management. Some of
the watershed management structures are as follows.
BROAD BEDS AND FURROWS
•FUNCTION
To control erosion and to conserve soil moisture in the soil during rainy days.
• GENERAL INFORMATION
•The broad bed and furrow system is laid within the field boundaries. The land
levels taken and it is laid using either animal drawn or tractor drawn ridges.

27. COST
Approximate cost for laying beds & furrows is Rs.1800 / ha.
SALIENT FEATURES
•Conserves soil moisture in dry land
•Controls soil erosion.
•Acts as a drainage channel during heavy rainy days.
CONTOUR BUND
FUNCTION
To intercept the run off flowing down the slope by an embankment.

28. BENCH TERRACING
FUNCTION
It helps to bring sloping land into different level strips to enable cultivation.
4.PUERTORICO TYPE TERRACE

29. KARNATAKA WATERSHED DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Karnataka is the driest state in India after Rajasthan. Large state of the area are
prone to recurrent droughts. Around ¾ of all farmland is rain-fed and there is
still little scope to expand irrigation. As a result, farm productivity is low water is
only 3 to 4 months available within a year.
Groundwater tables are falling and most wells run dry in
the long summer months. Because of water scarcity, farmers are only able to
grow a narrow range of 1 or 2 dry land crops. The growing population is increasing
the pressure on land.

30. CONT….
Forest has been cut down to make way for agriculture. This caused rapid soil
erosion, and use of more fertilizer and pesticides reduced soil fertility. There is an
urgent need to conserve both soil and water to raise farm productivity. Therefore
rise of watershed development is necessary.

31. Photo taken during watershed management programe under sir D.Nagaraju and students.

32. WATERSHED MANAGEMENT IN RAJASTHAN
Rajasthan is one of the region in India where there is scarcity of water therefore
watershed management is practiced in Rajasthan, watershed management
practice include various methods to collect water and then use it for human
utilization.
Large number of arid regions exist in Rajasthan where
watershed management is necessary to conserve water in rainfall and make use of
available water property. Local people take active participation in construction of
tanks, dam and other tasks related to watershed activities.

33. Watershed management practice in Rajasthan

34. CONCLUSION
Watershed is an essential in day to day life, a vast range
of activities of every day life depend upon adequate supplies of water for example
agriculture and industry, power production, inland transportation, sanitation and
public health services, and so on. Therefore to provide all these activities
construction of watershed and manage is essential. Watershed is a
geohydrological unit of land that drain at a common point.
The management of watershed provides a means to
achieve sustainable land and water management, poor watershed management is a
major cause of land and water degradation rural proverty in the world.

35. REFERENCES
• “WATERSHED MANAGEMENT”- Dr. Archana misra
Authors press publishers of scholarity books, New Delhi edition 2005,
Page- 1 to 16.
• “WATERSHED MANAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT”
- K.Gopal Iyer and Upendra Nath Roy, Kanishka publishers
New Delhi edition 2005, page-105,106,109,110,111
• “WATERSHED DEVELOPMENT, MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY”
-Suresh Lal, Mangal deep publication, Jaipur edition 2004,
Page- 1 to 27.
• “HYDROLOGY AND THE MANAGEMENT OF WATERSHEDS”
Kenneth N. Brooks
Panima publishing corporation, New Delhi edition 2008
Page- 270-275
WEBSITE
• WWW.WIKIPEDIA.COM/WATERSHEDMANAGEMENT.HTM