Author(s)

Usha Chirala, Bhavana Pedada

Department of Geo-Engineering, Andhra University, Vishakhapatnam, India.

With global warming and over-exploitation of water resources due to population explosion and related issues, numerous studies are being carried around the world in an effort to reinstate a state of a balanced life between the existing water resources and their utilization by human beings. Keeping in view, a watershed of 366 sq.km on 1:50,000 scale 65O/1 SOI map surrounding the Meghadrigedda reservoir in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, India has been taken up for the study. The watershed has been delineated into nine sub-watersheds and hydrogeomorphology, drainage, drainage density, slope, NDVI and NDWI of the study area has been carried out using Landsat data 2010 and Sentinel data 2020 in ARCGIS 10.0 environment. All the villages in the catchment greatly depend on groundwater for irrigation, drinking as well as personal utilization. Change detection has been carried on to display the decline in surface water and ground water due to increased concentration of built-up land, siltation of ponds as well as decrease in the number of ponds. The watershed is experiencing large scale anthropogenic activities. The government must curb built-up activities and desilt the ponds to sustain the monsoon water, facilitating more recharge. The results of the study can serve as a basis for planning as well as for the development of a sustainable basin area.

Morphometry, Meghadrigedda, GIS, Mandal

Chirala, U. and Pedada, B. (2021) Hydrogeomorphology, NDWI and, NDVI of the Meghadrigedda Sub-Watersheds for Optimal Utilization of Resources, Visakhapatnam District, Andhra Pradesh-India Using Landsat Data 2000 and sentinel Data 2020. International Journal of Geosciences, 12, 584-604. doi: 10.4236/ijg.2021.126033.