Theme 1-8-Restoring hydrologic regime of overgrazed pastures and forest lands

Abstract

The grasslands, rangelands and natural forest lands happens to be not only the major grazing support for more than 420 million live stock of the country but also the major source of fuel, wood, fodder, timber and natural habitat for wild life. Because of their common environmental inputs and land uses, these lands tend towards a series of common hydrological characteristics. Bundelkhand region of central India represents traditional rangelands of the country, which has now converted into degraded wastelands because of excessive grazing pressure and other adverse climatic & geological constraints. Two representative watersheds of this region were adopted for applying various soil and water conservation engineering (SWCE) measures like contour furrowing, shallow depth discontinuous staggered pits, contour stone dykes, micro ponds, loose boulder check dams and contour trenches to restore hydrologic regime of 1381 ha area in Jhansi district of U.P. and 500 ha area in Datia district of M.P. in India. This paper describes the impacts of watershed treatments giving encouraging results showing greater moisture conservation, reduced runoff & soil losses, increased infiltration and thus better vegetation growth and regeneration of forest.