Watershed degradation and management practices in north-western highland Ethiopia

Abstract

Watershed degradation in Ethiopia has become a major environmental threat and caused significant damages both in the natural environment and the development of human society. This paper assesses an overview of the extent, causes, and effects of watershed degradation and the management actions in north-western highland Ethiopia, taking the Rib watershed as a case study site. The data were collected from field observations, interviews, and questionnaire surveys administered to 210 farmers. The results show that watershed degradation is a serious and widespread problem in the study site. The major causes of watershed degradation include population growth, uncontrolled grazing, unsustainable land use and management practices, and weak land ownership system. Watershed degradation, mainly in the form of soil erosion, has adversely reduced agricultural production and worsened food insecurity and poverty in the study area. Various watershed management practices that combine structural and biological measures have been practiced to curb the problem. However, the farmers' decisions to adopt and implement the measures have been highly influenced by a range of socioeconomic, biophysical, and institutional factors. Access to support services, size of the farmland, educational level, and plot ownership were found to influence farmers' decisions positively at a statistically significant (P < 0.01) level. It needs efforts to create farmer environmental awareness and develop strong watershed management standards and guidelines. The watershed could benefit from hand in hand efforts of local farmers, concerned governmental agencies, and researchers.

Effectiveness of Community-Based Soil and Water Conservation in Improving Soil Property in Damota Area, Southern Ethiopia

“…But its implementation process varies in both space and time due to diverse social conditions [21]. As a result, the effectiveness of the implemented SWC effort has not been as planned [26]. Similarly, in the Damota area, soil erosion is still the greatest challenge, and the impacts of SWC measures resulted in significant results on some of the soil fertility indicators.…”

“…However, several research findings recently reported that soil erosion has been increasing with time. Soil erosion remains the main agricultural and environmental challenge in the highlands of Ethiopia [4,26]. For instance, over the period 1995-2005, the net amount of soil erosion increased from 130 to 182 million metric t [27].…”

“…e agricultural production was almost stagnant (0.4% increase) against the high spatial expansion of cultivated land (5.7% increase) in the period between 1991 and 2003 [27]. is indicates that the achievements are below the expectations [26].…”

Untitled

“…To reduce the effects of pests and diseases, farmers used chemicals. However, some studies demonstrated the existence of nonregulatory phytosanitary practices such as noncompliance with hygiene rules, poor waste treatment, use of non-recommended doses of pesticides and others impacts, resulting in water pollution, and presence of residues in tomato fruits (Moges and Bhat, 2020;Sopkoutie et al, 2021). This can cause certain forms of cancer, congenital malformations and genetic transformations as consequence on human and the development of resistance in pathogens populations (Manfo et al, 2012;Tarla et al, 2015;Medardo et al, 2017).…”

Soil Erosion Prediction Based on Moth-Flame Optimizer-Evolved Kernel Extreme Learning Machine

“…With over 98.8% of the world's human food coming from the land and less than 1.2% from marine, aquatic ecosystems, protecting arable land and maintaining soil fertility is vital to human well-being [1,2]. Soil erosion is one of the most critical threats to the world's food production [3][4][5]. Globally, about ten million hectares of arable land are lost each year due to soil erosion, resulting in less arable land available for world food production [6].…”