Water and Land Environment Carrying Capacity of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh Region of District Solan, Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

The present study evaluates the carrying capacity of two environmental settings: 1) Water Environment Carrying Capacity (WECC) and 2) Land Environment Carrying Capacity (LECC). WECC is based on two main factors: i) Water quantity and ii) Water quality. The Water Quantity Carrying Capacity (WQCC) involves population carrying capacity and water resource carrying capacity. The Water Quality Carrying Capacity (WQTCC) constitutes pollutant carrying capacity and carrying capacity based on water quality variables. The LECC constitutes Land Resource Carrying Capacity (LRCC) and carrying capacity based on Land Balance (LBCC). Based on the WQCC, the population carrying capacity per thousand is 736.60 and water resource carrying capacity is 2.33 i.e., conditionally save. Pollutant carrying capacity is measured in terms of COD and NH4-N at three different locations: i) Sirsa river upstream of Sitomajri Nallah with 13217 tonnes per annum in terms of COD load and 1599 tonnes per annum of NH4-N ii) Sirsa river downstream Nalagarh bridge with 14714 tonnes per annum in terms of COD load and 1778 tonnes per annum of NH4-N and iii) Sirsa river downstream of Nalagarh town with 14404 tonnes per annum of COD load and 1894 tonnes per annum of NH4-N. In order to evaluate WQTCC, 3 locations in Sirsa river and 2 open wells in each region (i.e., Baddi, Barotiwala and Nalagarh region) were considered. Among the two wells in each region, one well corresponding to industrial region and another well corresponding to non-industrial region were identified. WQTCC based on water quality variables was estimated by Indicator Evaluation (IE) method as suggested by Peng Kang and Linyu Xu. The LECC in both Land resource and Land balance carrying capacity were found to overshoot.