Land use and land cover changes and Soil erosion in Yezat Watershed, North Western Ethiopia

Tadesse, Lemlem; Suryabhagavan, K. V.; Sridhar, G.; Legesse, Gizachew

doi:10.1016/j.iswcr.2017.05.004

Cited by 205 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…This implies that the local communities within the study area have well recognized the possible environmental threats posed by the water-induced soil erosion and because of this, putting efforts into SWC practices in erosion-prone areas. Supporting the current study's findings, Tadesse et al [139] noted considerable improvement in the soil erosion and rehabilitation of degraded lands in the Yezat Watershed of North Western Ethiopia following implementation of integrated watershed development programs. Validating these findings, Akale et al [140] also reported that implementation of upland conservation measures significantly reduced the surface runoff and increased base flow in the Guale and Tikur-Wuha watersheds of the Ethiopian highlands.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Spatial Modeling of Soil Erosion Risk and Its Implication for Conservation Planning: the Case of the Gobele Watershed, East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia

Woldemariam

Iguala

Tekalign

et al. 2018

Land

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Abstract:Soil erosion by water has accelerated over recent decades due to non-sustainable land use practices resulting in substantial land degradation processes. Spatially explicit information on soil erosion is critical for the development and implementation of appropriate Soil and Water Conservation (SWC) measures.The objectives of this study were to estimate the magnitude of soil loss rate, assess the change of erosion risk, and elucidate their implication for SWC planning in the Gobele Watershed, East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia. Applying remote sensing data, the study first derived the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model parameters in an ArcGIS environment and estimated the soil loss rates. The estimated total soil loss in the watershed was 1,390,130.48 tons in 2000 and 1,022,445.09 tons in 2016 with a mean erosion rate of 51.04 t ha −1 y −1 and 34.26 t ha −1 y −1 , respectively. The study area was divided into eight erosion risk classes ranging from very low to extremely high. We established a change detection matrix of the soil erosion risk classes between 2000 and 2016. The change analysis results have revealed that about 70.80% of the soil erosion risk areas remained unchanged, 19.67% increased in total area, and 9.53% decreased, showing an overall worsening of the situation. We identified and mapped areas with a higher and increasing erosion risk as SWC priority areas using a Multi-criteria Decision Rules (MCDR) method. The top three priority levels marked for the emergency SWC measures account for about 0.04%, 0.49%, and 0.83%, respectively. These priority levels are situated along the steep slope areas in the north, northwest, south, and southeast of the Gobele Watershed. It is, thus, very critical to undertake proper intervention measures in upslope areas based on the priority levels to establish sustainable watershed management in the study area.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Spatial Modeling of Soil Erosion Risk and Its Implication for Conservation Planning: the Case of the Gobele Watershed, East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia

Woldemariam

Iguala

Tekalign

et al. 2018

Land

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“…This result could be explained by the fact that, even though the roles of the respondents were different along the Soyang watershed, they were especially concerned about the water quality level in the Soyang watershed. This was in line with the result, which showed the importance of the socio-economic determinants in the heterogeneous choice of the respondents [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44].…”

Section: A Conditional Logit Model With Two-way Interactionssupporting

confidence: 88%

“…With the emphasis on soil conservation measures, some studies focused on quantifying the costs and benefits for sustainable land use management practices [42,43]. Previous studies addressed land use and land cover changes in the spatial and temporal changes in the watershed as well as sustainable land use management [44].…”

Section: A Conditional Logit Model With Three-way Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farmers’ and Consumers’ Preferences for Drinking Water Quality Improvement through Land Management Practices: The Case Study of the Soyang Watershed in South Korea

et al. 2018

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Abstract:The drinking water quality along the Soyang watershed has been affected negatively by the intensive agricultural practices in the upstream area. Our study used a choice experiment method in order to estimate the values that the upstream water providers (i.e., farmers) and downstream water users (i.e., consumers) attach to the following attributes, namely, the agricultural profits, water quality, and biodiversity level of the Soyang watershed in South Korea. The preferences of the upstream water providers and downstream water users were presented by a conditional logit model and with interactions. The results from the conditional logit model specifications revealed that water quality is the most important attribute that is preferred by the downstream water users and upstream farmers. Both the upstream farmers and downstream water users have put substantial values on the protection of water bodies in the Soyang watershed, and are concerned about the consequences of water usage on the environment and human health. The respondents in each income group and in different local communities with income levels seemed to have different implicit costs for the water quality improvement in the Soyang watershed. Our study has provided robust results regarding the benefits of water improvement using sustainable land management and can be considered as a fundamental input for aiding the sustainable water-land nexus policies. We suggest that the government carefully designs a policy so as to compensate the highland farmers for their income losses as a result of the changing farming practices.

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“…This can be attributed to expansion of agricultural and urban areas which are devoid of trees that can negatively control biosphere carbon fixation. As reported by Lemlem et al (2017), agricultural expansion has reduced woody biomass production. More importantly, most farm plots were devoid of broad leaf woods which intern reduces NPP at areas with intensive agriculture (Binyam et al 2015).…”

Section: Vegetation Changes Across Slope Gradient and Agroecologymentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Contrary to prospectus government reports, still there was natural vegetation degradation with opportunity cost of human induced land use pattern (Temesgen and Tesfahun 2014;Adugnaw et al 2016). In these respect, some studies have reported as ISWCP have brought significant changes in agricultural productivity (Chisholm and Tassew 2012;Schmidt and Fanaye 2012), reduction of soil erosion and sedimentation (Kebede 2014;Nigussie et al 2015;Molla 2016;Asnake 2017;Lemlem et al 2017), vegetation change and positive hydrological responses (Fikir et al 2009;Nyssen et al 2010;Shimeles 2012), climate change adaptation (Meaza 2015), biomass recovery (Essayas et al 2014;Lemlem et al 2017). Though these studies have reported prospectus impacts of integrated soil and water conservation programs, still there is no any study undertaken to show long-term watershed level vegetation productivity and vegetation regeneration to see impacts of conservation programs on ecosystem health and productivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of integrated soil and water conservation programs on vegetation regeneration and productivity as indicator of ecosystem health in Guna-Tana watershed: evidences from satellite imagery

Gella

2018

Environ Syst Res

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Background: Northern Ethiopian Highlands, including Guna-Tana watershed, have experienced profound natural resources degradation which are resulted from coupled natural and anthropogenic factors. To mitigate this problem, Ethiopian government has launched various soil and water conservation programs at different watersheds. Overall objective of this study was to analyze impacts of soil and water conservation programs on vegetation regeneration and ecosystem productivity at in Guna-Tana watershed. As prime data source, the study has utilized Moderate Imaging Spectrometer satellite bi-monthly Enhanced Vegetation Index, 8-day land surface temperature and annual Net Primary Productivity products of the past 17 years starting from 2000. Imagery was processed by using various image preprocessing and analytical techniques. Long-term trend was tested by using Sens slope estimator and Mann-Kendall's monotonic trend test. Analyzed trend was also segregated into slope and agroecology classes. More importantly, to supplement trend analysis, Vegetation Disturbance Index was developed. Results:Results have showed that despite of long-term soil and water conservation programs, except small patches, vast expanses of the watershed have showed decrease in vegetation regeneration and primary productivity trend. This observed trend has also spatial variability across slope gradient and agroecological classes of the watershed. Conclusion:Though there is tendency of increasing vegetation regeneration and productivity, its observed that significant positive change as a result of watershed conservation programs was very little. This indicates that for better regeneration of vegetation and maintenance of ecosystem health in a watershed, intervention programs should be revised and constraints should be assessed. Taking these into consideration, the study calls further implementation strategies which have accounted agroecology and livelihoods production system.

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Land use and land cover changes and Soil erosion in Yezat Watershed, North Western Ethiopia

Cited by 205 publications

References 26 publications

Spatial Modeling of Soil Erosion Risk and Its Implication for Conservation Planning: the Case of the Gobele Watershed, East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia

Spatial Modeling of Soil Erosion Risk and Its Implication for Conservation Planning: the Case of the Gobele Watershed, East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia

Farmers’ and Consumers’ Preferences for Drinking Water Quality Improvement through Land Management Practices: The Case Study of the Soyang Watershed in South Korea

Impacts of integrated soil and water conservation programs on vegetation regeneration and productivity as indicator of ecosystem health in Guna-Tana watershed: evidences from satellite imagery

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