Prioritization of potential regions that are severely threatened by soil erosion is a prerequisite for formulating and implementing conservation measures and management practices, particularly in fragile semiarid regions. The present study prioritized eight delineated Nagmati sub-watersheds located in the Kutch District of Gujarat State, India, based on three approaches, namely principal component analysis (PCA), integrated PCA with weighted sum (I-PCWS), and analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and on 10 morphometric erosion risk parameters (ERPs). Sub-watersheds were categorized into three priority classes, namely high, medium, and low. PCA retrieved the three most significant ERPs (i.e., length of overland flow, Lo; drainage texture, Dt; and compactness coefficient, Cc) explaining 86.876% of the variance and exhibiting the highest correlation, i.e., r = 0.961, 0.986, and 0.934 for the first three principal components. Sub-watersheds SW2 and SW7 were rated high priority, SW1 was rated low priority, and the rest were rated medium priority. The I-PCWS approach revealed that sub-watersheds SW2, SW6, and SW7 were in high-priority zone, followed by SW3, SW4, and SW8 in medium-priority zone and SW1 and SW5 in the low-priority zone. The AHP assigned the highest and lowest ranks to “Lo” and “Cc,” respectively, with consistency ratio of 8.1% and principal eigenvalue of 11.075. Results from AHP revealed sub-watershed SW2 to be the highest priority and sub-watersheds SW1 and SW5 to be the lowest priority. Out of eight prioritized sub-watersheds from three approaches, five were found to be the common priority classes, with SW2, SW6, and SW7 demanding urgent implementation of efficient soil conservation measures to prevent further degradation of the identified regions. Results from I-PCWS approach closely complied with the existing landforms within the study area, and this approach was considered more reliable and robust than the other two approaches. The methodology adopted in this study can be applied to different vulnerable, data-scarce regions to sustainably manage and conserve soil erosion through efficiently framed strategies.

中文翻译：

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使用PCA，集成PCWS和AHP的Nagmati河子流域优先级：案例研究

优先考虑受到水土流失严重威胁的潜在地区，是制定和实施保护措施和管理措施的先决条件，尤其是在脆弱的半干旱地区。本研究基于以下三种方法对位于印度古吉拉特邦Kutch区的八个划定的Nagmati子流域进行了优先排序，这三种方法分别是主成分分析（PCA），带加权总和的综合PCA（I-PCWS）和层次分析法（ AHP），以及10个形态侵蚀风险参数（ERP）。子集水区分为三个优先级，即高，中和低。PCA检索了三个最重要的ERP（即，陆上水流的长度Lo；排水结构的Dt；压实系数Cc））解释了86.876％的方差，并且显示出最高的相关性，即 前三个主成分的r = 0.961、0.986和0.934。子集水区SW2和SW7被定为高优先级，SW1被定为低优先级，其余的被定为中等优先级。I-PCWS方法揭示了子流域SW2，SW6和SW7在高优先级区域中，其次是SW3，SW4和SW8在中优先级区域中，而SW1和SW5在低优先级区域中。AHP将最高和最低等级分配给“ Lo ”和“ Cc”，一致性比率为8.1％，主特征值为11.075。AHP的结果表明，子流域SW2是最高优先级，子流域SW1和SW5是最低优先级。在三种方法的八个优先子集水区中，五个是优先级最高的流域，SW2，SW6和SW7要求紧急执行有效的土壤保持措施，以防止已识别区域的进一步退化。I-PCWS方法的结果与研究区域内现有的地形非常吻合，并且该方法被认为比其他两种方法更可靠，更可靠。本研究中采用的方法可以应用于不同的脆弱，数据稀少的地区，以通过有效的框架策略可持续地管理和保护土壤侵蚀。