Study on Surface Soil Erosion of Bhogdoi River Basin Using GIS and Remote Sensing

Abstract

The river Bhogdoi is a small but perennial river coming down from the foothills of Assam–Nagaland border into the plains of Assam and finally pours into the Brahmaputra. The river is surrounded by the hills of the Naga-Patkai range on the south and the floodplains of Brahmaputra on the North. Soil erosion is one of the most serious problems in recent times which affects both cultivable and forest lands. It creates serious problems in agriculture and water resources management. This paper emphasizes on determining the surface soil erosion around Bhogdoi River Basin. Since the study area experiences heavy rainfall, so it is obvious that rainfall plays an important role in study of surface soil erosion. Again, the change in land use/land cover plays an important role in surface soil erosion more specifically, the change in vegetation. This study evaluated the impact of combined effect of rainfall and LULC change and impact of change in vegetation on soil erosion. For this, Morgan, Morgan and Finney, MMF model was used. Various input parameters to the model were derived using RS and GIS using ArcGIS software, and finally soil erosion was estimated. In the combined effect, average soil erosion in 1975 has been found to be 5.18 kg/m2 which has been increased to 5.32 kg/m2 in 2008 followed by 5.53 kg/m2 in 2018. In the study of impact of vegetation change, it has been found that average soil erosions in 1975, 2008 and 2018 were 3.39 kg/m2, 3.43 kg/m2 and 3.64 kg/m2, respectively.