Soil Erosion Computation using RUSLE for Harsul Lake Catchment of Kham River Basin, Aurangabad, India

Vedant Karhade, Shraddha Vangujare

Abstract: Soil erosion is the widespread concern as it leads to loss of the top fertile layer of the soil. Soil erosion is termed as the detachment, transportation and deposition of soil particles by the agents such as water, wind and biota. The main aim of this work is to evaluate the annual soil loss in the catchment of the Harsul Lake in Kham river basin which ultimately contributes to the silt load in the Harsul Lake. The revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) in integration with GIS is used to evaluate soil loss by computing and multiplying rainfall erosivity (R-factor), Soil erodiblity (K-factor), Slope length & steepness (LS-factor), Conservation practices (P-factor) and crop management (C-factor). Study reveals that annual average soil loss ranges from 0 to 59.63 ton/ha/year and around 76.65 % of the portion of the study area have soil loss less than 5 ton/ha/year. The lower value of average annual soil loss of 2.38 ton/ha/year can be correlated with the effective soil and water conservation (SWC) measures in the study area.

Keywords: Soil erosion, Erosion prediction, RUSLE, GIS, Kham River, India