Project 6: Mitigate soil and water loss through runoff with suitable control measures

Project 6: Mitigate soil and water loss through runoff with suitable control measures.

Introduction:

Land degradation refers to the loss of inherent capacity of land to produce healthy and nutritious crops. It may occur with various forms – physical, chemical and biological. Soil erosion is the most important forms of land degradation as the vast area of our country suffers due to such process. It is, therefore, necessary to protect this shrinking valuable land resource to meet the demand of ever increasing population. Some of the common measures are practiced for preventing the loss of runoff water and soil particles from the sloppy land, which includes terracing, bunding, cover cropping, strip cropping, conservation tillage, cultivation along or across the slope etc.

Objectives:
1) Quantify loss of soil and water through runoff.
2) Implement control measure to check the loss of soil and water.
3) Sustainable land use practice in areas prone to erosion.

Methodology:
1) Selection of a suitable sloppy land.
2) Divide the land into at least 3 parts along with the slope.
(Minimum width of each part shall be 3m)
3) Treatments
a) Keep fellow or undisturbed.
b) Grow cover crops.
c) Grow strip crop as per local practice.
4) Separate the adjoining parts by erecting suitable barriers with non porous inert materials
5) Place suitable notch at the middle part of the lower end through which runoff water and soil particle will pass.
6) Place a large bucket or suitable tank to collect the run off water and soil particles.

How to calculate slope of a land?
A
Note : Fig. is not shown.



B C
Suppose BC is the length of a land and AB is the height of the land;
So, Slope, % = (BC/ AB)x 100


Observation:
1) Length of slope
2) Percent of slope
3) Amount of water added at the upper end to initiate the runoff process
4) Measure the amount of water and soil collected in the tanks at lower end.

Follow-up:

1) Transfer the results of the experiments to the farmers and local people.
2) Demonstrate the experiment to students of the area.