Evaluation of Watershed Development Programme in Prakasam District of Andhra Pradesh Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technology

Abstract

Aim: This study was taken up to investigate the usefulness of Remote Sensing & GIS tools for the evaluation of fourteen watershed projects implemented under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) project in the Prakasam District of Andhra Pradesh.
 Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted by Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department, Andhra Pradesh2009 to 2022.
 Methodology: Remote Sensing based methodology is adopted through temporal satellite data for monitoring the watersheds. This research study was investigated using high-resolution data like Resourcesat-2, and LISS-IV of 2011 (pre-treatment) and 2016 (post-treatment)to assess the changes in land use/land cover and biomass that have changed within a period of five years (2011-16).
 Results: There is a significant reduction in fallow land area from 31727 ha to 23893 ha, which is attributed to dense and open vegetation categories in 2016. The output of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index classification indicates the increase in dense vegetation from 16955 ha to 23256 ha, which indicates there is an improvement in the open vegetation category due to the reclamation of fallow land.
 Conclusion: This study reveals that an additional area of 419ha (07.53%) increased under water bodies and 2792ha of wasteland converted to cultivable land due to the construction of farm ponds, percolation tanks and check dams. This area is attributed to cropland and plantations.

Impact of Watershed Management on Bio-physical, Hydrological and Agricultural Indicators in the Lakkonda Watershed Project of East Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India

“…To highlight the effect of hydrological indicators, the depth of groundwater in open wells and bore wells in the project area, and total annual rainfall are considered. The category-wise natural resource management activities with financial allocation in PMKSY are furnished in Table 1 [16,17].…”

“…During the survey, the changes due to the implementation of the PMKSY watershed were noted in the questionnaires. The other participatory method utilized for obtaining the required data was focused group discussions [16,17].…”

“…The increase in medium and dense vegetation might be due to interventions of watershed development programs, afforestation and plantation programs taken up in the government and private land. The decrease in the area under nil and low vegetation might have been converted into dense and medium vegetation [21,15,16,17].…”

“…The data indicate an increase in the water body area of the project from 5.92 to 10.95 ha resulting and increase of 5.03ha (84.97%). This may be due to various water conservation and rainwater harvesting activities undertaken during the project implementation period [16,17].…”

“…This helped not only the farmers but also landless households in augmenting their income. The irrigated area increased due to infrastructure development under watershed activities resulting in the reduction of the rainfed area [16,17].…”