Land Resource Inventory and Characterization for Planning Soil Conservation Measures in Aravalli Hill Slopes

Abstract

The Aravalli region in India is very prone to soil erosion and low hydrological regimes. The present study has been carried out in the Aravalli hill slopes to characterized land resources, identified soil problems to establish appropriate soil conservation measures in risk prone areas and appropriate land management practices. The integrated remote sensing (IRS-P6-LISS-IV and cartosat-1 merged data) and GIS based methodologies were employed for terrain analysis, identification of slope, landform, land use/land cover classes, hydro-geomorphology. Detailed soil resource characterization generated soil depth, texture, drainage condition, soil erosion status, and their related site-specific problems. The soils of the region are varied as per their physiographic set up. Soils of hill/ hill slopes are very shallow to shallow, excessively drained, gravely sandy loam, very severely eroded soils while upper piedmont plains are moderately deep to deep, somewhat excessively drained, loamy sand to sandy loam, moderately eroded while, soils of lower piedmont plains are deep to very deep, well drained, slightly eroded, sandy loam in texture and soils of fluvial channels or abandoned channels are moderately deep to deep, moderately well drained, stratified soils and severely eroded. The site-specific problems/potentials and thematic information generated were integrated, and suggested need based soil and water conservation measures such as contour bunding, staggered contour trenches, mechanical trenches, gully plugging, vegetative bunds, and field bunding to enhance the hydrological regime of the watershed and to check degradation and restore the eroded area for management of soil resources for sustainable production for improving socio-economic condition of the farmers in Aravalli region.