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Soil Erosion Vulnerability Assessment in the Eco-Sensitive Himalayan Region Using Modeling Approach

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Abstract

Soil loss due to erosion has a huge impact on worldwide economy and environment. The Himalayan region is extremely vulnerable to erosion due to rugged terrain, erratic precipitation and excessive anthropogenic pressures. This study attempts to assess the spatial distribution of soil loss for managing soil disintegration rates in the western Himalayas using a GIS modeling approach. Factors affecting soil erosion were assessed and mapped using primary data from the field and secondary data. Map layers were developed for each identified factors and modeled using weighted overlay analysis. The rainfall-runoff erosivity, soil erodibility, topographic, cover management and support parameters varied around 361.75 MJ mm/ha/h/yr, (0.024–0.051) t ha h/ha/MJ/mm, 0–585.372, 0–1 and 0–1 respectively. The yearly soil disintegration rate varied between 0 and 6098.44 t ha/yr. The maximum area (137,165.30 ha) of the district’s total area (146,295.142 ha) was under the less vulnerable class and the minimum (259.92 ha) was under the severely vulnerable category. The findings reported 70.24% of the area was under the less vulnerable class, followed by extremely vulnerable (10.48%) > highly vulnerable (7.40%) > severely vulnerable (7.19%) > moderately vulnerable (4.69%). The maximum (810 t/ha) and minimum (15 t/ha) mean soil loss was found under severely vulnerable and less vulnerable categories. The findings will provide site specific data regarding soil loss and vulnerability for effective management of soils in the eco-sensitive region.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support received from the field staff of the Division of Natural Resource Management, Faculty of Forestry SKUAST-K in carrying out the field activities regarding preliminary survey, collection of soil samples and ground truth points.

Funding

We thank the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, for providing financial support to the Author 1 (SZ) in carrying out this study under INSPIRE Fellowship no. DST/INSPIRE Fellowship/2018/IF180413. We also thank EACEA to enable us to use the equipment purchased by the Author 2 (AAW) under Erasmus + funded URGENT project (No: 619050-EPP-1-2020-1-DE-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Natural Resource Management, Faculty of Forestry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Benhama, Ganderbal, J&K, 191201, India

    Shiba Zahoor, Akhlaq Amin Wani, Aaasif Ali Gatoo, M. A. Islam, Shah Murtaza & T. H. Masoodi

  2. School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 110067, India

    P. K. Joshi

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  1. Shiba Zahoor
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Contributions

Each author contributed to the work under different capacities. SZ and AAW conceptualized the design and drafted the manuscript. SZ, AAG, MAI and SM collected and complied the field data. SZ, AAW, THM and PKJ carried out the data analysis. All authors contributed in reviewing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Akhlaq Amin Wani.

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The authors declared that they have no conflict of interest.

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Zahoor, S., Wani, A.A., Gatoo, A.A. et al. Soil Erosion Vulnerability Assessment in the Eco-Sensitive Himalayan Region Using Modeling Approach. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 52, 1347–1360 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-024-01874-6

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