Check dam near Kinhi
cd-1 · 20.8237, 79.8038 · Lakhandur taluka · PIN 441805
Contributing catchment 132.77 km² · at a 3 m bund it impounds 302 thousand m³ over 26 ha · design monsoon yield 77,229 thousand m³ · soil HSG-D (clay 40%).
In plain words
A check-dam site on a large nala near Kinhi (Lakhandur) with a big 133 km² catchment and a clear monsoon pulse on both sensors. Three cautions stack up: eleven buildings fall inside the 3 m footprint (the nearest 76 m away), the surrounding land is visibly building up (an encroachment signal), and the catchment is large enough that this is likely a through-flowing nala rather than a self-contained basin.
What to build
Survey first — a cadastral check on the eleven structures, a pour-point and foundation verification, and a look at the rising construction nearby. Build only if the land and the hydrology both clear.
Why here
The water and catchment are real, but a moderate-displacement footprint on a reach that may carry through-flow, with encroachment advancing, is not something to fund from a desktop screen — each caveat needs ground truth.
How
Cadastral overlay + ground survey of the 11 structures; confirm the pour point and whether the reach is local catchment or through-flowing; assess the built-up encroachment against the design footprint.
The delta — now vs after
Clear the land and the pour point and it is a substantial storage/recharge site for Kinhi; if displacement or through-flow will not clear, drop it — the screen has done its job.
What it delivers · indicative
Indicative benefit at a 3 m bund (DEM area-capacity at 3 m bund) under standard norms (irrigation ~5 TCM/ha; drinking 150 lpcd). Recharge is limited on HSG-D clay (12% of storage). Actual yield varies with monsoon reliability, seepage and siltation.
Incremental over today · the net-new gain, from the 4-year record
≈ 302 thousand m³ of net-new water · 60 ha irrigable · 5,491 drinking person-years.
full design storage — no structure holds water here today.
Why this site
Sited on an order-4 nala with a 132.8 km² contributing catchment and gentle grade — a nala/check dam impounds monsoon runoff on the clay lowlands where infiltration is low.
Seasonal water extent · dual-sensor
Radar (S1, 48 passes) fills the monsoon gap that cloud hides from optical (S2, 38 scenes). Radar peak vs summer low: 24.5 → 0 ha, a 24.5 ha annual draw-down — the storage renovation recovers.
Area-capacity (DEM, 30 m) · gross storage by bund height
Cross-witness & confidence — independent corroboration
Two sensors track together
Optical (S2) and radar (S1) rise and fall together with correlation r = 0.58 across 38 paired months. Absolute extents match 0% — they differ by sensor physics on a flowing nala, so the shared rhythm is the witness, not the magnitude.
Nala flow (new-build site)
No existing lake here — expected for a new structure. Sensors confirm a monsoon flow pulse in the nala; nearest mapped lake is 7,854 m away.
Land acquisition (submergence)
A 3 m bund would submerge 26 ha — the land to be acquired. Cost & consent scale with this.
⚠ catchment likely includes a through-flowing nala — verify pour point
Displacement witness — real building footprints
Several structures — survey neededIn the submergence footprint
11
buildings within the 287 m design-submergence radius (26 ha pond at 3 m).
Nearest structure
76 m
to the closest mapped building.
Within 500 m
43
buildings in the influence ring.
Overture Maps buildings 2026-05-20.0 (union of OSM / Google Open Buildings / Microsoft / Esri), Bhandara admin_code=506. A desktop displacement screen — precedes, not replaces, cadastral (7/12) verification.
Reconnaissance context & access — Ola + Google Places
Nearest habitation
Kinhi
807 m away · Lakhandur taluka · PIN 441805
Nearest landmark
Zilla Parishad Primary School Manded
Schools within 2 km
6
nearest 749 m
Health within 2 km
2
nearest 979 m
Google Places (New) searchNearby + Ola Maps Places nearbysearch · reconnaissance-grade. Independent witness to the buildings displacement layer — dense amenities near a site corroborate high displacement. Does not replace cadastral 7/12 records, geotechnical bores or a level survey.
Human pressure — land-cover change (2022 → 2026)
Built-up rise (encroachment)Vegetation (NDVI) change
-0.048
291 ha lost · 28 ha gained over 1,865 ha land
Built-up (NDBI) change
239.9 ha
new built-up / bare (construction proxy)
Window
2022-11..2023-02 (8 scenes)
→ 2025-11..2026-02 (8 scenes)
Construction / encroachment is rising in the site vicinity — this changes runoff and raises future land-acquisition cost. Prioritise an early ground check.
Sentinel-2 L2A dry-season MEDIAN composites (2022-23 vs 2025-26), water-masked; NDVI+NDBI change screen — not cadastral or DEM cut/fill
DPR-grade desktop hydrology from Copernicus GLO-30 (30 m) + ISRIC SoilGrids + ESA WorldCover; water extent from Sentinel-2 L2A MNDWI (optical) and Sentinel-1 GRD VV radiometrically calibrated to σ⁰ (DN²/sigmaNought² from the product calibration LUT, GCP thin-plate-spline geocoded, open water at σ⁰ < −17 dB; thermal-noise floor not subtracted). A desktop assessment that precedes — not replaces — the statutory ground & geotechnical survey.