Impact of Water Conservation Structures on Hydrology of a Watershed for Rural Development

Abstract

A watershed is an area of land from which all rain water drains to a common location. In their natural state, streams and their associated floodplains provide a variety of important functions including the movement of water and sediment, storage of flood waters, recharge of groundwater, treatment of pollutants, dynamic stability, and habitat diversity. Disturbances to this system, either natural or human-induced, places stress on the system and has the potential to alter structure and/or impair the ability of the stream to perform ecological functions. Water conservation structures are helpful in maintaining the desired flow requirement and sediment yield within the watershed area. In this study, Jonk River, a tributary of Mahanadi basin has been selected to assess the impact of conservation structures for disaster risk reduction, sustainable agriculture and rural development. The outlet of Jonk River is located near Rampur in Chhattisgarh. Total area of the watershed is computed as 3424 km2. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has been used to calculate the discharge and sediment flow on daily and monthly basis for the year of 2001 considering two case scenarios i.e. with and without ponds as conservation structure (20 ponds in the villages are considered along the buffer area of the centreline of jonk river). The simulated discharge and sediment flow data has been compared with the observed data and the correlation coefficient is found to be 0.84 & 0.77 respectively. The annual discharge and sediment flow value in “with pond scenario” has been detected to be reduced by 69.27 and 64.10% respectively. The results observed in the present work can be used for site suitability analysis of soil and water conservation structures in the areas those are prone to soil erosion and floods. The study also reveals that the applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Geospatial Data Management can be used efficiently for watershed management and rural development.