BACK to TOC

Definition:
Soil Erosion may be defined as removal of soil particles
from the watershed under the influence of wind, water
or gravity forces. The removal of soil creates a very
serious problems to perform agricultural activities and
thereby causes reduction in crop yield.

The aim of this project is to prepare soil erosion

hazard maps for the Jhikhu Khola water shed of
the
existing rainfall and land use
conditions.

This project will prepare another soil

erosion
hazard maps with 25% increased rainfall
condition.

This work is limited only to water induced soil

erosion of the Jhikhu Khola watershed. The
calculation is based on the annual rainfall, not the
event rainfall.

Jhikhu Khola Watershed

District: Kavrepalanchok
Location: About 40 km East of Kathmandu.
Watershed Area : 111 km2.
Altitude of the Watershed Ranges: 800 m to 2200m

Source: PARDYP Project ICIMOD

Source: PARDYP Project ICIMOD

Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). USLE states

that the field soil loss, A, is the product of six
causative factors:

A = RKLSCP
where:
R = rainfall and runoff erosivity index
K = soil-erodibility factor
L = length of slope factor
S = degree of slope factor
C = cropping-management factor
P = conservation practice factor

Classification
(grade)
1
2
3
4
5
6

Erosion
Intensity
(m3/ha/year)
< 0.5
0.5 5.0
5.0-15.0
15.0-50.0
50.0-200.0
Above 200

Assessment of
the erosion
severity
Insignificant
Slight
Moderate
Severe
Very Severe
Catastrophic

Acquisition of Data
The following data were obtained from ICIMOD data base center
a):

DEM map (20m x 20m) of Jhiku Khola water shed.

b):

Annual rainfall data of 9 raingauge stations.

c):

Landuse pattern of year 96 (lu96).

d):

Tabulated C and P values for different land use.

e):

Soil type map of the watershed.

f):

Tabulated K values for the different soil types.

g):

Raster map of slope length.

DEM

Land
Use

Map Cal.

Slope %

LSf

Convert
To Raster

Link

Map Cal .

Cf

Map Cal .

Pf

Cf & Pf

Land
Sys

Link

Convert
To Raster

Kf

Kf

Rain fall

Interpolate
By Spline

Convert
To Raster

Map Cal.

Rf

 Severity of erosion follows the rainfall trend

and land slope
Rainfall in the watershed is severe. The are
is in need of some kind of preventive
measures to reduce erosion

BACK to TOC