*2.6. Land Use Scenarios*

The scenarios were developed based upon the common cropping practices adopted by the farmers in this area. A common practice for agriculture is the sowing of one or two crops a year. Other than the sowing period, the fields remain uncultivated as fallow land. Based upon this practice, the scenario related to land cover change was adopted—that is, winter wheat to fallow land change. Another other management practice is the use of conservation structures, which are used by the farmers for soil–water conservation and to meet crop water requirements. These structures safely pass the overland flow during the monsoon season and minimize the damages to the terrace ridges and bunds.

The SWAT model was applied based on four scenarios at all watershed sites. The scenarios are described as follows:

Scenario 1 (S1): The model was applied for soil erosion estimation on land without structures under the following conditions: the land use type was determined to be winter wheat; for overland flow, Manning's *n* = 0.15 (for short grass) was used, and for channel flow, Manning's *n* = 0.025 (for natural, earth uniform streams) was used.

Scenario 2 (S2): The model was applied for soil erosion estimation on land with structures under the same conditions as S1.

Scenario 3 (S3): The model was applied for soil erosion estimation on fallow land without structures. Manning's *n* = 0.09 was used for overland flow. The crop residue and channel flow conditions remained the same.

Scenario 4 (S4): The model was applied for soil erosion estimation on land with structures under the same conditions as S3.
