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Agriculture Corner

What is a Watershed?

Introduction

What is a watershed? This is an important question to be addressed before going into its management. Watershed is an area of land that drains or whose runoff drains into a common collecting point. That point may be a river or water pool. It may also be defined as a natural land entity whose runoff is collected and flows out of area by means of a common outlet so that it can reach to another water body. In fact, it is a drainage basin that is bounded by ridges or gullies.

A Brief to What is a Watershed?

Generally, the term drainage area of catchment area is also used for a watershed. The catchment area is larger than the area of watershed which is comparatively small. Watershed area is the unit from the both angles i.e. water body unit and land unit; however, there are distinct units for both water and land in the catchment area. Due to this, the catchment area consists of all the areas or is connected with all the areas from which water flows out into water pool or common river.

An Introduction to Watershed
An Introduction to Watershed

There exists different water catchment area for different river’s tributaries where water flows out into a common large river or water pool. On the other hand, large drainage area is termed as river basin while the water catchment area of a tributary is termed as sub-catchment area. Different catchment area may be identified in it for it’s certain parts. Therefore, the catchment area of this certain part is called watershed area.

There may be discrepancies in the watershed area. When the area is hilly, undulating or rolling, that means that variations are more in number and thus the watershed area is smaller. While in case of plain we get larger watershed area.

The watershed management in an area may be carried out in a mutual manner. In this the watershed for the agriculture purpose may be composed of several field belong to different farmers and they contribute their runoff at a mutual lower point. This runoff movement on the other hand, depends on the land topography. A drawback faced by the farmers in agriculture is that the runoff from the upper fields that enters into the lower fields in watershed results in water and soil erosion.

After having detailed discussion over what is a watershed, let us now discuss the aims and objectives of watershed in agriculture.

Aims and Objectives of Watershed Management

  • To protect, improve and land resources for sustained and efficient production of crops in agriculture.
  • To protect as well as enhance the water resources, reduce silting up of tanks, moderate floods, increase rainwater conservation for irrigation of agriculture crops and ultimately aid in mitigate droughts.
  • To employ the natural indigenous resources for improving agriculture and its allied sectors or industries that will in turn improve the socio-economic conditions of the local habitants.

Cite this Article in APA Style as:

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]Rahman, M. A. (2018, March 12). What is a Watershed? [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://aridagriculture.com/2018/03/12/what-is-a-watershed/[/box]

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