Geoinformatics based approach for estimating the sediment yield of the mountainous watersheds in Kashmir Himalaya, India

Abstract

Sedimentation of water bodies is governed by the erosional processes occurring at the watershed level. In this research, a method is proposed for assessing the sediment yield of the mountainous watersheds surrounding the Wular lake in Kashmir Himalaya, using geoinformatics and geostatistics. This method is empirical and semi-quantitative in approach and takes into account the weightage-based influence of the parameters governing the watershed sediment yield. The results of this study reveal that out of the six surrounding watersheds of the Wular Lake, Madhumati watershed with the highest sediment yield index, SYI (39.78) drains maximum sediments into the Lake followed by Arin (39.27), Ferozpur (34.30), Wular II (32.53), Wular I (24.65) and Gundar (23.43) in the event of a same intensity storm. The proposed method is reasonably a better approach in the data-scarce Himalayan region and shall be a useful tool for watershed management in other regions with similar geographic setting.