Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

QUANTITATIVE MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF RANGAPUR WATERSHED USING REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) IN MIDDLE KRISHNA BASIN OF RAICHUR DISTRICT, INDIA

Mallika K.B., Maheshwara Babu, Rajesh N.L., B.S. Polisgowdar and G. V. Srinivasaredddy

Abstract

Rangapur watershed is a constituent of the middle Krishna river basin, Raichur district, Karnataka state, India, covering an area of 2079 ha, representing seasonally dry tropical climate. The study area boundary was extracted from Survey of India (SoI) topomap of 1:50000 scale, by joining the ridge points. The recent changes are updated with the help of IRS-P6 LISS-III (DoA; 16 Nov 2011) satellite imagery. The drainage map is prepared with the help of Geographical Information System (GIS) tool and then morphometric parameters such as linear, areal and relief aspects of the watershed were determined. These dimensionless and dimensional parametric values are interpreted to understand the watershed characteristics. The dendritic drainage pattern is identified and drainage density of the watershed is 2.79 km km-2 indicating moderate drainage density and also found elongation ratio of 0.70, and circularity ratio 0.75, which indicates that the watershed is elongated in shape with low discharge runoff and has high permeability in subsoil.