Topic - Application of Remote Sensing & GIS Techniques in Watershed Management

1. SOL- 512
Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques for Soil and Crop Studies
(Batch: 2023)
Submitted by:
Ajeet Jakhad
Ph.D. Scholar
Registration number: 12327430
Submitted to:
Dr. Princy Thakur
(Department of Soil Science, School of
Agriculture, LPU)

2. Application of Remote Sensing
&
GIS Techniques in Watershed Management

3. Watershed Watershed is defined as the
hydrological unit and an area that
generally drains the surface water
to a common outlet. These outlets
are in various forms such as
rivers, streams, wetlands etc.
A watershed is an area of land
that drains all the streams and
rainfall to a common outlet.

4. What is a Watershed ?
Source- https://snohomishcd.org/whats-a-watershed (IMAGE CREDIT. A. VICENTE, U.S. FOREST SERVICE.)

5. Classification of Watershed
Type Size (Hectare)
Mini watershed 1-100
Micro watershed 100-1000
Milli-watershed 1000-10,000
Sub-watershed 10,000-50,000
Macro watershed > 50,000
Source- https://agritech.tnau.ac.in/agriculture/agri_majorareas_watershed_watershedmgt.html

6. Problems in Watershed
Soil erosion by wind and water
Shifting cultivation
Water-logging
Land degradation
Over grazing of forest and grass lands
Increasing rate of degradation and depletion of resources
De-forestation
Natural disasters like Drought, Floods, Landslides etc.

7. (Source - Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 4048-4067; doi:10.3390/rs70404048)
(a)
(b)
Case study: Mbow et al conducted a study on Land degradation in Sahel, Africa by using Rapid Eye sensor and
matched satellite image with ground image.
(a) Water erosion with gullies
(b) Red colour – Loss of woody vegetation caused by poor management and climatic changes induces wind/water.
Bright yellow - Erosion of fertile topsoil.

8. Watershed Management and Role of
Remote Sensing & GIS Techniques in
Watershed Management

9. Watershed Management
• Watershed management is a term used to describe the process of implementing
land use practices and water management practices to protect and improve the
quality of the water and other natural resources within a watershed by managing
the use of those land and water resources in a comprehensive manner.
• Watershed based management is the most effective way to enhance water
quality and natural resources, protect aquatic habitat, prevent soil erosion.

10. To control
damaging runoff
To manage and
utilize runoff for
useful purposes
To control erosion To enhance ground
water storage
Objectives of Watershed Management
Watershed management implies the proper use of all land and water
resources of a watershed for optimum production with minimum hazard
to natural resources with the objectives:

11. Role of Remote Sensing & GIS Techniques
• Due to synoptic coverage, entire watershed can be mapped for various geo-spatial databases
using remote sensing data and GIS.
• These database can be used to perform land use/land cover mapping and change detection,
runoff estimation, soil erosion study, site suitability analysis for rainwater harvesting etc.
using GIS techniques.
• Further, due to availability of high spatial resolution satellite data like IRS P6, IKONOS,
CARTOSAT can be used to accurately map land use/land cover classification & location of
soil and water conservation structures.
• Using DEM (Digital Elevation Model), slope, aspect, flow direction, flow accumulation and
flow length maps can be derived, which can be integrated into the other geo-spatial databases
to derive suitable sites for various watershed conservation measures.

12. Multispectral Satellites used for Management of Watershed
Remote sensing satellites Spatial resolution Spectral bands
Landsat 8 30 m 11
SPOT 5 20 m 5
ASTER 15-90 m 15
MODIS 250-1000 m 36
Quick Bird 3.2 m 4
IRS – P6
AWiFS
LISS-3
56 m
23.5 m
4
4
IRS-Resourcesat
LISS-4
5.8 m 3
Cartosat 1 & 2 2.0 m (PAN) 1 (PAN)
Source - IIRS Lecture, Geospatial Modelling for Watershed management
https://youtu.be/_r_3-2nD-Pk?si=t_FDTHxrHlhc07aJ
*PAN – Panchromatic data, ASTER- Advanced Spaceborne
Thermal Emission and Reflection radiometer

13. Choice of Satellite/Sensor on the bases of Watershed Level
Satellite/Sensor Spatial Resolution Category of Watershed
WiFS 180 m Sub-Watershed
LISS-2 36.5 m Mini-Watershed
LISS-3 23.5 m Mini-Watershed
IKONOS XS 4 m Micro-Watershed
Cartosat-1 2.5 m
Micro-Watershed
Cartosat-2 1 m
Micro-Watershed
Source - IIRS Lecture, Geospatial Modelling for Watershed management
https://youtu.be/_r_3-2nD-Pk?si=t_FDTHxrHlhc07aJ
*LISS- linear imaging self-scanning sensor
*WiFS-Wide-Field Sensor

14. Watershed Management
using Remote Sensing &
GIS Techniques
Remote Sensing techniques is applied for- (Step)
1. Delineation of watershed area
2. Watershed characterization
3. Soil erosion intensity mapping and identification
of erosion prone areas
4. Land use/Land cover mapping
5. Drainage pattern mapping
6. Climate
7. Selection of sites for the rainwater harvesting

15. Step 1. Delineation of Watershed Area
• Study area- Uttarakhand (Tehri-Garhwal), India
• Used data- IRS- P6, LISS-IV sensor, Ortho-
image and DEM of Cartosat-1 satellite
Watershed Delineation in hilly
region using satellite data
Source –Kumar, A., Bhardwaj, A., Kumar, P., & Padaliya, H. (2017). Delineation of Micro-Watershed using Geo-Spatial Techniques”.
Suresh Gyan Vihar University International Journal of Environment, Science and Technology, 3, 14-34.
→ Process of identifying the boundary of watershed – Delineation

16. Step 2. Watershed
Characterization
• Size
• Shape
• Slope
• Drainage
• Geology
• Soils
• Climate
• Land use
• Ground water

17. Step 3. Soil Erosion intensity mapping and
identification of erosion prone areas
• Remote sensing data utilized for the mapping of soil erosion by visual image
interpretation methods and erosion can be seen in the form of :
SLIGHT EROSION: Splash/ Very thin sheet
MODERATE EROSION: Sheet erosion
SEVERE EROSION: Rill erosion
VERY SEVERE EROSION: Gully erosion.
• Rill and Gully erosion can be seen on high resolution satellite data

18. Case Study: Study
has been done on
Soil loss map of
Himachal Pradesh
(Source: GS Sidhu and
RP Yadav -
Conservation
Agriculture, 2016-
Springer)

19. Step 4. Land use/Land cover mapping
• Study area – Arani and Koratalai river, Southern India
• Satellite- IRS-1D
• Sensor- LISS-3
• Year- April, 2006
(Preparation of land use or land cover map to know the various uses of the land in that particular area)
(Source: Suganthi et al Earth Sci. Res. J. vol.17 no.2 Bogotá July/Dec. 2013)

20. Step 5. Drainage pattern
mapping
• Study area- Palamu district, Jharkhand
State, India
• Drainage map was Prepared (SURVEY
OF INDIA TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP)
using (AWiFS) Advanced Wide Field
Sensor, LISS-4 and LANDSAT image.
Source- Shekhar et al. (2014), Geocarto International, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10106049.2014.894584

21. Step 6. Climate data
(Rainfall)
• Study area- Palamu district, Jharkhand
State, India
• Rainfall data 15 year (1986-2000)
• Sensor - LISS-4, AWiFS
Source- Shekhar et al. (2014), Geocarto International, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10106049.2014.894584

22. Step 7. Selection of Sites
• Case Study: Khudhair et al (2020 ) listed a set of parameters which
need to be analysed to fix appropriate locations for the water harvesting
structures:
1. Runoff information
2. Soil type information
3. Suitable zones
4. Slope information
5. Drainage density
Study area- Iraq
Data Use in study- Satellite
images, Metrological data
Satellite- Landsat 8

23. Soil Type- The soil texture map is categorized by reference to the FAO
global map. This map shows that the basin has four types of soil: clay
loam, loam, sand clay loam, and silty loam.
Slope- The slope map is generated using DEM with 30 m resolution,
which generated from Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data.
Drainage density- Landsat image 8 used to extract drainage density
map.

24. Source- M A Khudhair et al 2020 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 881 012170

25. Changes due to the application of watershed conservation
Improvement of vegetative cover of the area- increase in vegetation, improvement in
vegetative health.
Improvement in soil conditions in areas- increase the infiltration rate in the area.
Increase in surface water storage- surface runoff is stored and leaching down to the
sub-surface.
Improvement in ground water storage- due to increased infiltration and surface water
percolation level of ground water improves.

26. Conclusion
Above studies concluded the role of Remote Sensing
and GIS Techniques for watershed management
which helps to improve the natural resources and
increase the living standards of people.
Time saving technique to plan and
implement the management practices.

27. References
• https://snohomishcd.org/whats-a-watershed (IMAGE CREDIT. A. VICENTE, U.S. FOREST SERVICE.)
• https://agritech.tnau.ac.in/agriculture/agri_majorareas_watershed_watershedmgt.html
• Mbow, C., Brandt, M., Ouedraogo, I., De Leeuw, J., & Marshall, M. (2015). What four decades of earth observation
tell us about land degradation in the Sahel?. Remote Sensing, 7(4), 4048-4067.
• https://youtu.be/_r_3-2nD-Pk?si=t_FDTHxrHlhc07aJ
• Shekhar, S., & Pandey, A. C. (2015). Delineation of groundwater potential zone in hard rock terrain of India using
remote sensing, geographical information system (GIS) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) techniques. Geocarto
International, 30(4), 402-421.
• Suganthi, S., Elango, L., & Subramanian, S. K. (2013). Groundwater potential zonation by Remote Sensing and GIS
techniques and its relation to the Groundwater level in the Coastal part of the Arani and Koratalai River Basin,
Southern India. Earth Sciences Research Journal, 17(2), 87-95.
• Khudhair, M. A., Sayl, K. N., & Darama, Y. (2020, July). Locating site selection for rainwater harvesting structure
using remote sensing and GIS. In IOP Conference series: Materials science and engineering (Vol. 881, No. 1, p.
012170). IOP Publishing.

28. Thank you 