Abstract
Various Soil and Water Conservation (SWC) measures are widely implemented to reduce the surface runoff in the degraded and drought-prone watersheds. However, their implementation requires thorough assessment of morphometric and hydrological parameters prevailing in the watershed. This research was conducted to characterize the sub-watersheds for SWC in a drought-prone watershed of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra using morpho-metric analysis in GIS domain. Their prioritization has been carried out using two different Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) approaches viz. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) for a comparative assessment. The findings were further supplemented based on the severity of surface processes, quantitative estimation of soil erosion and surface runoff derived using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The priority value obtained using the AHP and TOPSIS ranged from 1.452–2.658 to 0.215–0.586, respectively. The comparison based on normalized values from the two approaches, shows similar results for the 73% of sub-watersheds and slight variation in the remaining. However, surface runoff and soil erosion-based prioritization carried out using SWAT have been found to have slightly better semblance with the TOPSIS model as compared to that of AHP. The study concludes that though the morphometric analysis and MCDA is and continue to remain the most widely used tool for watershed characterization, supplementing them with the hydrological inputs derived from SWAT provides a more effective approach for planning SWC measures at a local level.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Chowdary VM, Chakraborthy D, Jeyaram A, Murthy YK, Sharma JR, Dadhwal VK (2013) Multi-criteria decision making approach for watershed prioritization using analytic hierarchy process technique and GIS. Water Resour Manage 27(10):3555–3571
Chung ES, Lee KS (2009) Identification of spatial ranking of hydrological vulnerability using multi-criteria decision making techniques: case study of Korea. Water Resour Manag 23(12):2395–2416
Gassman PW, Arnold JJ, Srinivasan R, Reyes M (2010) The worldwide use of the SWAT Model: Technological drivers, networking impacts, and simulation trends. In: 21st century watershed technology: improving water quality and environment conference proceedings, 21–24 February 2010, Universidad EARTH, Costa Rica. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, p 1
Gopinath G, Nair AG, Ambili GK, Swetha TV (2016) Watershed prioritization based on morphometric analysis coupled with multi criteria decision making. Arab J Geosci 9(2):129
Hwang CL, Yoon K (1981) Methods for multiple attribute decision making. In: Multiple attribute decision making. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 58–191
Jaiswal RK, Ghosh NC, Galkate RV, Thomas T (2015) Multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for watershed prioritization. In: Winchell M, Srinivasan R, Di Luzio M, Arnold JG (2010) ArcSWAT Interface for SWAT 2009—User’s Guide. GSWR Agricultural Research Service & Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Temple, TX
Javed A, Khanday MY, Ahmed R (2009) Prioritization of sub-watersheds based on morphometric and land use analysis using remote sensing and GIS techniques. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 37(2):261
Jenson SK (1991) Applications of hydrologic information automatically extracted from digital elevation models. Hydrol Process 5(1):31–44
Julius JJ, Singh D, Brema J (2017, October) Morphometric analysis of linear and areal aspects of bhagirathi river basin—A GIS approach. In: 2017 2nd International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES). IEEE, pp. 549–554
Li J, Wong DW (2010) Effects of DEM sources on hydrologic applications. Comput Environ Urban Syst 34(3):251–261
McMaster KJ (2002) Effects of digital elevation model resolution on derived stream network positions. Water Resour Res 38(4):13–1
Parupalli S, Padma Kumari K, Ganapuram S (2019) Assessment and planning for integrated river basin management using remote sensing, SWAT model and morphometric analysis (case study: Kaddam river basin, India). Geocarto Int 34(12):1332–1362
Patel DP, Nandhakumar N (2016) Runoff potential estimation of Anjana Khadi Watershed using SWAT model in the part of lower Tapi Basin, West India. Sustain Water Resour Manag 2(1):103–118
Saaty T (1980) The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for decision making. Kobe, Japan
Stec A, Zeleňáková M (2019) An analysis of the effectiveness of two rainwater harvesting systems located in Central Eastern Europe. Water 11(3):458
UN-Water and FAO (2007) Coping with water scarcity: challenge of the 21st century. UN-Water and FAO, Rome
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gupta, S., Pendkar, R., Sarala, C., Reddy, K.M. (2021). Watershed Prioritization in GIS: A Comparison of Multiple Approaches. In: Mishra, R.K., Singh, R.B., Dubey, A. (eds) Sustainable Climate Action and Water Management. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8237-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8237-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-8236-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-8237-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)