A Geographic Information System (GIS) based Soil Erosion Model for Estimation of Sediment Yield for Kshipra River Basin, Madhya Pradesh India

The study was carried out to simulate the sediment yield from Kshipra River basin, which is a southern tributary of Yamuna River basin-the second largest river basin of India. A Geographic Information System (GIS) based soil erosion model was used to estimate the sediment yield of river basin. Four different grid sizes such as 15×15 m, 30×30 m, 60×60 m and 90× 90 m were used in sediment estimation, among which 15×15 m grid size found to estimate good results. The annual rate of soil erosion estimated for 16 years (1995 to 2010) was found to vary between 10.02 to 20.31 t ha-1yr-1 along with an average of 15.31 t ha-1yr-1. The study reported about 78% area of Kshipra River basin is slightly or moderately affected by soil erosion having annual sediment production rate of less than 10 tha-1. A governing equation has been derived for estimation of rainfall erosivity and sediment yield for river basin. The findings of study will be most useful for predicting sediment yields where only rainfall and flow data are available at site.