Effects of land use, slope gradient, and soil and water conservation structures on runoff and soil loss in semi-arid Northern Ethiopia

Taye, Gebeyehu; Poesen, Jean; Wesemael, Bas van; Vanmaercke, Matthias; Teka, Daniel; Deckers, Jozef; Goosse, Tom; Maetens, Willem; Nyssen, Jan; Hallet, Vincent; Haregeweyn, Nigussie

doi:10.1080/02723646.2013.832098

Cited by 163 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…This finding was confirmed by runoff plots at several slope positions in the Maybar watershed (Bayabil et al, 2010) Taye et al (2013) in Tigray in the Ethiopian highlands in semi-arid monsoon climate agrees for experiments with large runoff plots. They found that the crop land had less runoff and erosion located on the relatively steeper hillsides than grass land on the land with less slope.…”

Section: Saturation Excesssupporting

confidence: 73%

Improving efficacy of landscape interventions in the (sub) humid Ethiopian highlands by improved understanding of runoff processes

et al. 2015

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Despite millions of dollars invested in soil and water conservation (SWC) practices in the (sub) humid Ethiopian highlands and billions of hours of food-for-work farm labor, sediment concentration in rivers is increasing. This paper reports on the research to reverse the current trend. Based on the understanding of the hydrology of highlands, we provide evidence on sources of surface runoff and sediment and on mechanisms that govern the erosion processes and approaches and how they affect SWC practices. We suggest that priority in landscape interventions should be given to re-vegetation of the degraded areas so as to reduce the sediment concentration contributions originating from these areas. Additionally, efforts should be directed to gully rehabilitation in the saturated bottom landscape that may consist of vegetating shallow gullies and stabilizing head cuts of deeper gullies. Finally, rehabilitation efforts should be directed to increase the rain water infiltration in the upland areas through the hardpan layer by connecting the land surface to the original deep flow paths that exist below about 60 cm. It will reduce the direct runoff during the rainy season and increase baseflow during the dry season.

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Section: Saturation Excesssupporting

confidence: 73%

Improving efficacy of landscape interventions in the (sub) humid Ethiopian highlands by improved understanding of runoff processes

et al. 2015

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“…In addition, grazing in the basin has become more developed, with livestock quantities increasing from 468,800 in 1955 to 1,104,800 in 2011, a more than 2-fold increase. Unjustifiable human activities such as over grazing has caused a degradation and reduced ability of the earth's surface to retain rainfall-runoff, thereby accelerating the loss of water and soil [82].…”

Section: Human Activity Factormentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative Detection and Attribution of Runoff Variations in the Aksu River Basin

Meng

Huang

et al. 2016

Water

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Abstract:Since the flow variations of Aksu River are strongly influenced by climate change and human activities which threat the local ecosystem and sustainable development, it is necessary to quantify the impact degree of the driving factors. Therefore, this study aims to quantify the impacts of climate change and human activities on the variability of runoff in the Aksu River Basin. The Mann-Kendall trend test and accumulative anomaly method were used to detect the break points of the flow difference value (FDV) between the upstream and downstream flume stations. The improved slope change ratio of cumulative quantity (SCRCQ) method and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model were applied to decouple the contribution of each driving factor to the FDV variations. Furthermore, a Pearson Correlation Analysis was performed to show the relationships among the driving factors and the FDV. The time series prior to the year (1988) of break point was considered as the baseline period. Based on the annual precipitation and the potential evapotranspiration (PET), the relative impacts of precipitation, PET and human activities on FDV variations as determined by the SCRCQ method were 77.35%,´0.98% and 23.63%, respectively. In addition, the SWAT model indicated that climate factors and human activities were responsible for 92.28% and 7.72% of the variability, respectively. Thus, climate change and human activities showed a similar scale of impact on FDV changes.

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“…A study conducted by Nyssen et al (2009) in the northern highlands of Tigray shows that it is possible to reverse environmental degradation through an active, farmercentered SWC policy. Most of SWC focused studies conducted in northern Ethiopia looks at the effects to soil loss and run-off (Taye et al 2013;Gebremichael et al 2005;Selassie et al 2015) and food security (Van der Veen and Tagel 2011). From this perspective, we can quantify the vegetation cover improvement attributed to from the effects of SWC by using GIS and RS application in a basin which is not previously studied.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of soil and water conservation on vegetation cover: a remote sensing based study in the Middle Suluh River Basin, northern Ethiopia

2017

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Background: Soil and water conservation (SWC) has been implemented in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia since 1985. Besides this, the agricultural development strategy of the region which was derived from the national agricultural development led industrialization strategy formulated in 1993 was focused on natural resources rehabilitation and conservations. Accordingly, each year a 20-days free labor work on SWC activities were contributed by the rural communities. Other programmes such as productive safety net programmes, and sustainable land management project were deploying their resources aiming to reverse the degraded landscape in the region. Method:Multi-temporal remote sensing data of landsat imageries were used for estimating the normalized difference vegetation index, soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) and land surface temperature (LST) for the years 1985, 2000 and 2015. Long-term station based data on daily precipitation started from 1973 was aggregated to derive average annual precipitation (AAP) into three sections to correspond with the processed image data. The precipitation data then converted into raster format using the inverse distance weight interpolation method. The analysis was done using ENVI 5.3 software and results were mapped in ArcGIS 10.3 package. The correlation between AAP and SAVI; LST and SAVI was evaluated on village polygon based as well as pixel-by-pixel. Results:The results based on village polygons show that there is statistical significant inverse relationship between SAVI and LST in all the study periods. The correlations between AAP and SAVI pixel-by-pixel were r = − 0.14 in 2015 and r = 0.06, r = 0.25 for 2000 and 1985 respectively. In 1985, the total area with SAVI ≥ 0.2 was 23.57 km2. After 15 years (from 1985 to 2000), the total area with SAVI ≥ 0.2 increased to 64.94 km2. In 2015, the total area of SAVI with values ≥ 0.2 reached 67.11 km2, which is a 3.3% increment from year 2000. Conclusion:Based on the field observation and the remote sensing analysis results, noticeable gain in vegetation cover improvement have been observed in the 30 years period. These improvements are attributable to the implementation of integrated SWC measures particularly in areas where exclosure areas were defined and protected by the local community. Therefore, this study concludes by providing a theoretical bases and an indicator data support for further research on vegetation restoration for the entire region.

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Effects of land use, slope gradient, and soil and water conservation structures on runoff and soil loss in semi-arid Northern Ethiopia

Cited by 163 publications

References 49 publications

Improving efficacy of landscape interventions in the (sub) humid Ethiopian highlands by improved understanding of runoff processes

Improving efficacy of landscape interventions in the (sub) humid Ethiopian highlands by improved understanding of runoff processes

Quantitative Detection and Attribution of Runoff Variations in the Aksu River Basin

Effects of soil and water conservation on vegetation cover: a remote sensing based study in the Middle Suluh River Basin, northern Ethiopia

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