Thirteen watercourses along the Nasrana Oistributry in Faisalabad district were studied for discharge and sediment load distribution to establish design criteria of settling Basins for efficient desilting of watercourses. The sediment load was found to vary exponentially with discharge and consisted of 83% sand, 12% silt and only 2 to 3% clay. The collected data were used to design settling basins which could entrap 85% of sediments and allow only 15% sediments to enter the fields with irrigation water. A procedure for design of such settling basins has been summarized to avoid unnecessary expenditure. The frequency of cleaning based on the discharge of the watercourses was also developed to facilitate planning and execution of cleaning and maintenance programme.
