A composite index that combines linear, areal and relief measurements of catchments to rank which mountain sub-watersheds most need soil conservation.
Authors
Shravan Kumar Ghimire, Yafeng Lu and Yukuan Wang
Published in
Ecological Indicators (Elsevier), 2025
About the study
Soil conservation budgets in the hills are limited, so agencies need a defensible way to decide where to work first. The Watershed Morphometric Composite Index (WMCI) integrates linear, areal and relief morphometric parameters into a single score for each sub-watershed, ranking them by vulnerability to erosion.
Contributions
- The WMCI, a multidimensional index for prioritising sub-watersheds
- A check of the prioritisation against observed erosion hotspots in the Himalaya
- Practical applications for watershed management policy