Prioritization of Sub-Watersheds based on Morphometric parameters in Pare watershed, Arunachal Pradesh, India
Mountainous watersheds are constantly under pressure of huge amount of soil loss due to soil erosion. Pare watershed is situated in the eastern Himalayan ranges of Arunachal Pradesh, India, which is subjected to such soil losses and its sub-watersheds are being degraded in many places. Watershed management programs are required in the area in which prioritization of sub-watersheds is one of the first steps. A study has been carried out to address this issue in the area to prioritize 26 sub-watersheds of Pare through morphometric analysis. The study used digital elevation model (DEM) to determine several morphometric parameters of the watershed. The analysis revealed that Pare river is of the 7th order comprising of 6127 stream segments running over the watersheds for about 2448 km. Based on the results obtained, the study area is an elongated well dissected watersheds with high relief and great presence of streams all over the watershed indicating faster runoff peak attainment which is synonymous to rapid transportation of sediment load. The analysis also revealed that SW25 required the top priority in dealing with soil, land and water management measures while least priority could be given to SW7 among all the sub-watersheds in the Pare basin. We suggest various stakeholders who are involved in watershed development programs in the region to take cues from the results obtained in this paper. The results of this study are quite satisfactory in understanding the various morphological aspects of the watershed. Nonetheless, efforts to improve the results can always be made through incorporation of land-use and soil information to enhance the prioritization process so that purpose utilization of the watershed may be reflected in the results.