Morphometric based prioritization of watershed for groundwater potential of Mula river basin, Maharashtra, India

Abstract

Morphometric analysis gives a quantitative description of drainage basin. The main aim of the present study is to identify the morphometric parameters of a watershed of Mula River basin, Pune district of state Maharashtra, India, and to prioritize the sub-basin. The work outlines the significance of digital elevation model for assessment of drainage pattern and extraction of relative parameters. Basin has been divided into 5 sub-watershed namely SW1 to SW5. The stream order of watershed ranges from first to sixth order and have dendritic drainage pattern means homogeneity in texture and lack of structural control. Further, each parameter has been assigned their ranks according to their value. The basin with lowest parameter value is ranked as first. It was considered as high priority for adopting conservation measure as well. The suitable locations for conservation measure structures in highly prioritized sub-watersheds were also identified for the appropriate land and water management plane. The relevance of work shows the appropriate measure structure locations for preventing the soil from getting eroded from the highly prioritized sub-watershed.