MODELING SURFACE RUNOFF AND SOIL EROSION IN HILKOT WATERSHED, PAKISTAN

Surface runoff and sediment transport are often considered as the two most important hydrological events in water resources engineering. Planning an effective water resources management/protection strategy requires an efficient monitoring and quantification of these events. Measuring runoff and sediments using classical field-based techniques is laborious and often expensive for large drainage basins. This study aims to develop a simple but accurate-enough mathematical model for runoff and soil loss estimation. A model was developed and calibrated with field data (using a genetic algorithm approach) for various land uses including degraded, pasture, forest, and agricultural lands. For model simplicity and due to limited availability of data, the study focused only on rainfall amount and ground surface slope. The model results followed the same trend as the field data and reproduced results successfully.