Management and restoration of degraded Agricultural Landscapes in the northwestern Ethiopian highlands: Good implications for climate change adaptive mechanism

Abstract

Climate change is a pressing challenge globally, which needs adaptive strategies. This research was conducted to evaluate the role of soil and water conservation practices (SWCPs) as climate change adaptive strategies. The study was conducted in the northwest highland of Ethiopia that represents areas with high rainfall and high degradation. The effects of SWCPs were compared on cultivated farms and ex-closures. Sufficient soil samples and crop yield were collected to evaluate the performance of SWCPs to climate change adaptive mechanism. A total of 27 disturbed composite and 27 undisturbed soil samples at a depth of 0-20 cm were collected on cultivated land treated with different soil conservation practices along with 27 wheat yield samples. Similarly, 36 undisturbed soil samples at 0-15 and 15-30 cm were collected from ex-closure and adjacent grazing land. Collected data were subjected for the analysis of variance (ANOVA) for their significant differences followed by the mean separation for the treatments that showed significant difference using least significant difference (LSD). The result showed that SWCPs improved soil physico-chemical properties including soil organic carbon as well as wheat grain yield. Degraded grazing lands rehabilitated and resulted large stock of soil organic carbon by management interventions. Therefore, rehabilitation of degraded cultivated and grazing lands through SWCPs was found to improve soil properties, grain yield, and stock soil carbon and could be recommended as a climate change adaptive strategy.