Abstract:
The management of a catchment area is a vital aspect in conserving water, forest
and soil resources in a particular area. The catchment area selected for this study is
located at Icepeella, Wellawaya shows potential interruption by people in the
surrounding area through encroachments leading to depreciation. A quantitative as
well as a qualitative degradation of the selected water body has already been recorded.
The present study focuses on finding remedies to the current situation by using soil
conservation structures on the catchment agricultural lands.
According to the experimental data of the catchment, Soil erosion is the present
acute problem in the area. Sixty percent of farmlands have a slop of more than 30 %
and it represents the sloping nature of lands in area. Most lands have moderately deep
or shallow soils. In most cases, surface soils was clay loamy in texture and some cases
it was gravelly sandy clay loam as a result of severe soil erosion. Information was
collected thought field activities and questionnaires.
Using the XRF analytical instrumental method. the soil samples are analyzed to
identify the various levels of soil cations in conserved and non-conserved lands in the
catchment. In the case of there were analyzed exactly 20 samples from each type of
lands.
To identify the weight percentages differentiate of ion Na, K, Ca and Mg of the
conserved and non-conserved lands, samples were collected at 0 - 15 cm soil depth to
clearly identify the runoff effect on the non -conserved lands and conserved lands
separately.
The Decline of most of the cations from non-conservated agricultural land is more
than from 25 % - 50 % that of conserved lands in the catchment.
