STUDY AREA

Sagara taluk as depicted in Figure 1 is located in Shimoga district of Karnataka state. Sagara taluk has an area of 1933 km2, extending from 13.8549O N to 14.3427O N latitude and 74.6259O E to 75.2955O E longitude. Figure 2 depicts drainage map of Sagara taluk which shows that the western portion of Sagara taluk has highly undulating terrains (Ghats) whereas the eastern portion of the taluk is less undulating, these topographic feature leads to formation of rivers and dense drainage networks along the western side, whereas interconnected lakes in the eastern side, which either leads to river Sharavathi in the West or river Varada in the east. Variations in topography has also led to formation of various natural and manmade landscapes such as evergreen forests, deciduous forests, scrub lands, grass lands, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, agriculture, horticulture and so on. Some of the forests in Sagara taluk are classified under the sacred groves, these groves are part of relic forest with rich biodiversity, higher ability to withhold water during the monsoon and steadily release during the post monsoons. Rainfall variations across seasons and space are as presented in Figure 3 and Figure 4 respectively. Rainfall in sagara is due to the south west monsoons, mostly occurring between June and October, spatially annual rainfall varies from 4500mm at the Ghats to 2000mm towards the plains .Temperature in Sagara taluk fluctuate between 15OC during winter (December) to 32OC during summer (April) and evapotranspiration follows the thermal regime across seasons i.e., 3 mm/day during the monsoons about 4 mm/day in the winter and about 5mm/day during the summer. Variations in temperature and PET across seasons are presented in Figure 5. Soils texture varies from clayey to loamy clayey. Population in the taluk is about 206112 people as per 2011 census [36], which has increase at a decade rate of 2.55% from 2001.