Pradeep Singh Kashyap

The Bundelkhand region in Madhya Pradesh state poses many issues related to water resource availability and is under grip of frequent drought like situation. The drought condition in the region is continuously worst than before due to climate change which intimate increased drought intensity and magnitude. The region mainly consists of 7 district of Uttar Pradesh and 6 district of Madhya Pradesh. The present study aims to investigate drought characteristics in Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh using departure analysis and prioritization of which is carried out using Relative Departure Index (RDI) for planning immediate mitigation strategies. The impact of climate change was assessing using Mann-Kendell test and its magnitude of change using Sen’s slope estimator. For assessment of drought characteristics and evaluation of climate change 45 years (1970-2014) monthly rainfall data is analyzed. The average annual rainfall in Bundelkhand region in M.P is computed as 1071.1 mm. In 1970, 1974, 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2010 the region was under grip of widespread drought condition. Prioritization using RDI indicated that Sagar district is at the highest priority and was followed by Chhatarpur and Panna. The trend analysis reveals the decrement of seasonal rainfall patterns except in Damoh and Chhatarpur districts. The annual rainfall trends assessment showed quite similar changing patterns among the districts, except in Chhatarpur and Panna district.

Human-induced agricultural and developmental activities cause substantial alteration to the natural geography of a landscape; thereby accelerates the geologic soil erosion process. This necessitates quantification of catchment-scale soil erosion under both retrospective and future scenarios for efficient conservation of soil resources. Here, we present a revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) based soil erosion estimation framework at an unprecedentedly high spatial resolution (30 × 30 m) to quantify the average annual soil loss and sediment yield from an agriculture-dominated river basin. The input parameters were derived by using the observed rainfall data, soil characteristics (soil texture, hydraulic conductivity, organic matter content), and topographic characteristics (slope length and percent slope) derived from digital elevation model (DEM) and satellite imageries. The developed approach was evaluated in the Brahmani River basin (BRB) of eastern India, wherein the different RUSLE inputs, viz., rainfall erosivity (R factor), soil erodibility (K factor), topographic (LS factor), crop cover (C factor), and management practice (P factor) factors have the magnitude of 1937 to 4867 MJ mm ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ year⁻¹, 0.023 to 0.039 t h ha MJ⁻¹ ha⁻¹ mm⁻¹, 0.03 to 74, 0.16 to 1, and 0 to 1, respectively. The estimated average annual soil loss over the BRB ranged from 0 to 319.55 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹, and subsequent erosion categorization revealed that 54.2% of basin area comes under extreme soil erosion zones in the baseline period. Similarly, the sediment yield estimates varied in the range of 0.96 to 133.31 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹, and 35.81% area were identified as high soil erosion potential zones. The extent of erosion under climate change scenario was assessed using the outputs of HadGEM2-ES climate model for the future time scales of 2030, 2050, 2070, and 2080 under the four representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5. The severity of soil erosion under climate change is expected to have a mixed impact in the range of −25 to 25% than the baseline scenario. The outcomes of this study will serve as a valuable tool for decision-makers while implementing management policies over the BRB, and can be well extended to any global catchment-scale applications.