Soil Potential Erosion Risk Calculation Assessment Using Geospatial Technique in Keonjhar District, Odisha, India

Abstract

The greatest threat to our economic and environmental well being is soil erosion. GIS is used to estimate erosion rates over a number of terrains. Soil erosion has been investigated in mines and forest covered with drainage in Odisha. We used the newly developed Revised Universal Soil Equation (USLE), which integrates a Geographic Information System (GIS) to quantify soil loss. A high degree of slope mainly affects the topsoil and fertility in agricultural land in contour farming. In Keonjhar district, soil erosion estimation is necessary because the population in that region is increasing. Also, extraction of minerals has been started in many regions, which causes deforestation and also affects the loss of agricultural land. About 80% of the population is agriculture-dependent, and about 1,1976,000 Million tonnes. minerals have been extracted from the district in the mineral sector, which involves the rest of the population and much less of the population in the tertiary sector economy. Hence, soil erosion must be controlled with planning. This study, through a Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model, estimates the soil loss of Keonjhar District, Odisha. Various analyses are done in the district with addition of land use and land cover, slope variation, types of soil, rainfall, flow accumulation and various inner calculations. In the study area, 0–10 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ having 36.31% area is in the weakly severe zone, 10–20 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ is moderately severe, having 27.69% area covered, 20–30 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ is strongly severe, having 16.57% area covered, 30–40 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ is very strong, having 11.82% area covered, and the extremely strong severe zone for soil loss is 40 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ and above, covering 7.61% area of the annual potential soil loss.