Soil and water are the most important natural resources within the ecosystem.They form the basis of sustenance of all forms of life.The prosperity and history of nation depends to a great extent on these resources and their management. Yet,the exploitation of these precious resources without check and balance and much thought for future has led to their rapid degradation. Quantitative assessment of runoff, erosion and sediment yield are needed for proper management of land and water resources especially for optimum agriculture production.The geomorphologic parameters directly or indirectly reflect almost the entire watershed based causative factors affecting runoff and sediment loss. The surface features are the fundamental units of analysis prior to adopting any sophisticated tools to monitor watershed responses in connection to any of the hydrological processes acting on it.Hence,these parameters can be used as the basis for determination of the development priorities of the watersheds for proper soil & water conservation measures.PCA is one of the important tools for screening out the irrelevant parameters and grouping the relevant parameters into physically significant groups.

Dr. Sandip Patingrao Nikam has worked with internationally reputed NGO¿s such as WOTR and GRASP.He was involved in implementation and evaluation of WDP.He has also worked as PFT Leader in World Bank aided project. Presently he is working as Asst.Professor of SWCE at MPKV,India.His areas of specialization are watershed management,modelling & SWCE.