Browsing by Author "Meghana, C.S."

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    Assessment of Soil Loss in Wet Tropical Region: A Case Study in Kumaradhara Basin, Western Ghats, India
    (Springer Nature, 2024) Roopa, N.; Ramesh, H.; Dhanush, B.M.; Meghana, C.S.
    Degradation of land resources and soil erosion are major issues affecting the productivity of the land. To design appropriate regional land management approaches using field data, an evaluation is a requirement to ascertain the extent and severity of soil degradation. Western Ghats of India is one of 34 global biodiversity hotspots, and habitat degradation has been causing havoc in this area for decades. The Kumaradhara River is a dominant part of wet tropical forested land on the Western side of the Western Ghats. The Hongadahalla and Kadumanehalla Rivers are tributaries of the Kumaradhara River. Mookanamane, Bidahalli, and Marenahalli are sub-catchments covering parts of the rivers Hongadahalla, and Kadumanehalla, having catchment areas of 41 km2, 33 km2, and 64 km2, respectively. The primary goal of the current study is to use the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to estimate annual erosion rates and develop a soil loss map for the year 2021 for the mountainous watershed of Kumaradhara. The geo-environmental data were collected from Indian Meteorological Department, Earth Explorer, and the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning. The impacts of rainfall erosivity, soil erodability, slope length and steepness, cover management, and conservation practice variables on mean annual soil loss in the study were calculated using GIS data layers. The quantitative results and analysis of soil erosion estimated by the RUSLE model ranged from 29.56 to 7992.89 t ha−1 year−1 in Mookanamane, 25.6 to 20,494.12 t ha−1 year−1 in Marenahalli, and 21.6 to 15,265.25 t ha−1 year−1 in Bidahalli. It has been observed that the risk of soil erosion in forests is low in the study area, whereas the risk of soil erosion on barren land is moderate. The study results shall create terrain management and planning strategies in environmentally sensitive mountainous areas. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.