Study of Spatial Variation of Soil Moisture Availability in Akola District Using Geoinformatics

Abstract

The soils of Akola district are medium to deep black soil. Monsoon break for 7-10 days may not be a serious concern but more than 15 days duration especially at critical growth stages leads to soil moisture stress reduction in crop yield. Drought due to break in monsoon adversely affect the crops in shallow soils as compared deep soils. Soil moisture plays an important role in determining the amount of runoff that occurs and the chances of droughts and floods that may affect an area. The spatial variation of soil moisture availability in the study area was estimated using GIS tools based on spatial variation of soil types and digital elevation mode land region specific pedo-transfer functions. The point data on textural composition were converted into hydraulic data using pedo-transfer functions to estimate field capacity, permanent wilting point and bulk density of the soils. These estimates were then applied to the identical textural classes to generate soil moisture data. The maximum part of Akola district is having high available water holding capacity except the hilly area lying in Akot, Telhara Patur and Barshitakli taluka in the district. the available water holding capacity above 25 cm per meter depth of soil is observed in most part of Akola, Akot, Telhara and Balapur talukas and some part of Murtizapur, Barshitakli and Patur talukas. The spatial variation of available water holding capacity of soil in different talukas of Akola district indicated that the soil moisture availability is more in the Akola, Akot, Telhara and Balapur talukas as compared to the Murtizapur, Barshitakli and Patur taluka.