A GEOSPATIAL- STATISTICAL APPROACH TO ALIENATE PRIORITY AREA OF UPPER WATERSHED OF RIVER SUBARNAREKHA USING MORPHOMETRIC ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

Micro-watershed planning and management play an important role in addressing the issues and challenges of water scarcity of a region. The assessment of hydrological framework using morphometric calculation and GIS technology is a recognized tool for carrying out planning activities for the watershed. The uncertainties associated with the earlier work of watershed prioritization can be easily addressed with new emerging geospatial-statistical correlation techniques. A sum weightages methodology is applied on the upper watershed of river Subarnarekha in the state of Jharkhand, India, for identification of critical subwatershed, a priority level ranking and zonation mapping of each individual subwatershed is developed using the morphometric calculation coupled with GIS tools. This approach helps in identification and bifurcation of subwatershed with three level of priority, i.e, Low, Medium, High. The result reveals that 5.8 % of subwatershed lies in high priority zone that signifies the area as critical and susceptible zones of soil erosion, which requires immediate attention from planners and policymakers. The high-level priority region should be considered for soil, water, and land conservation work. This approach of prioritization techniques can further be extended to another critical watershed of India for better decision support system and planning.