Why Is It Important to Do Watershed Planning?

Lets discuss why Is It Important to Do Watershed Planning?In my views, watershed planning is importnat to carry out as,

• Everything in W/S is connected to everything else. Upstream activities affect the quality and quantity of water downstream.
• Surface and groundwater systems can be easily contaminated and have a limited tolerance for stress. Long term problems can develop that are costly and difficult to deal with in the future so preventative actions are required at the initial stages.
• Water resources can be protected more efficiently if watersheds are managed as whole ecosystems. By using a watershed approach to managing our resources, harmful impacts on the system can be identified quickly so that prevention, remediation or improvements can be carried out in start.
• Managing our water on a watershed basis and taking the necessary action to protect or rehabilitate it can prevent future community water shortages and poor water quality.

would like to know the point of views of other group members.

4 Answers

1. Grace, preventing the formation of a gully is much easier than controlling it once it has formed. If incipient gullies are not stabilized, they become longer, larger and deeper. Under certain climatic and geological conditions, vertical gully banks can easily become as high as 20-30 meters or more. treatment of gullies depends on a range of factors including: 1.the size of the gully. 2.whether it is actively eroding or not. 3.the soil type. 4. the size and frequency of water flow. 5.the topography of the area. You have to choose a control method depending on your requirement and the field conditions. Below articles will throw light on all the preventive methods you can use to control the erosion severity. http://bit.ly/O1PMLT http://bit.ly/Mw3TJK http://bit.ly/QJvFnt

2. Thank you Ms Raiput. Yes finding it hard to reduce the impact of gully erosion. Some more technical details for minimising the Gully Erosion will be appriciated. Thanks.

3. Hi Grace, rill is a much smaller channel. A gully was once a rill that got broader and deeper. Gully erosion is an advanced stage of rill erosion where surface channels have been eroded to the point where they can not be smoothed over by normal tillage operations. There are another differences too: 1- Ratio of width to depth: In gully that ratio is approximately 1:1 but in rills width is greater than its depth. 2- In agricultural activities, rills can be removed but gullies can not. 3- In specific area, number of rills are higher than gullies. 4- sediment production of gullies is much higher than Rills. The link I am posting here will give you a fair idea on treatment of gully erosion. http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/factsheets/pdf/land/l81.pdf

4. Hello Vishakha, this might be a very basic question but I am woking these days on agriculture rejuvenation project and have some very basic questions. What is the difference between rill erosion and gully erosion? Which one is more dangerous? How to reduce these types of erosions?