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Soil loss and erosion potential estimation of Jhimruk watershed, Nepal

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Abstract

Soil erosion will have impact in the land productivity, water resource and watershed as a whole. The loss of top soil leads to land degradation and for an agrarian area like Jhimruk which also known as “The rice bowl of Nepal”, it would be a huge consequence on the land productivity. Therefore, it is essential to know the spatial distribution of the areas susceptible to the degradation and assess the erosion potential to plan effective mitigation measures. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model was used in a Geographic Information System (GIS) to estimate the soil loss of the Jhimruk watershed, Lumbini Province, Nepal. This research aimed to calculate the erosional soil loss status of the local governments lying inside the watershed. For this, remote sensing data obtained from various sources were used to generate the factor maps to calculate the soil loss through RUSLE. A 13-year mean annual precipitation data from the 8 meteorological stations in and around the watershed were used. The mean annual soil loss of the watershed was found to be 13.4 tons per hectare per year (t/ha/yr). However, the soil loss was calculated to be as high as 182 t/ha/yr. 68.82% of the total area of the watershed lie under very low erosion class and thus, have low conservation priority. On the other hand 7.73% of the total area of the watershed lie under extremely high erosion class and, thus, have a high conservation priority class. The mean erosion rate from the barren land was found to be highest (23.179 t/ha/yr) followed by agricultural (21.40 t/ha/yr) and forest area had the lowest erosion rate, i.e., 7.90 t/ha/yr.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Youth Alliance for Environment (YAE) through USAID PAANI project, which is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to acknowledge the help and support from Central Department of Environmental Science (CDES) TU, Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Government of Nepal (for providing the metrological data). We would also like to thank everyone who has been a part of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Department of Environmental Science, TU, Kirtipur, Nepal

    Parbati Pandey

  2. Youth Alliance for Environment, Gairidhara, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Anup Gurung

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  1. Parbati Pandey
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Correspondence to Anup Gurung.

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This study was funded by Youth Alliance for Environment (YAE), Gairidhara, Kathmandu Nepal.

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Pandey, P., Gurung, A. Soil loss and erosion potential estimation of Jhimruk watershed, Nepal. Environ Earth Sci 81, 496 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-022-10602-7

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