Background: Landscape change and disturbance are major challenges of wildlife management worldwide. The purpose of this study is to determine the impacts of anthropogenic landscape disturbances on the abundance and habitat use of terrestrial large mammals of Nech Sar National Park. Disturbance of natural habitats for 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2013 was analyzed using descriptive metrics of different landscapes at the class level. Population estimates of large terrestrial mammals were conducted using the line-transect method. Data were collected on the distribution and abundance of human settlement, domestic animals' sightings and livestock Karel using field observation and Google Earth digital image. Result: The results have shown that anthropogenic disturbances lead to changes in the size, number, distance, spatial distribution and configuration of fragments in the natural habitats between 1985 and 2013. The highest anthropogenic impacts are detected on the forest and grassland habitats through fuelwood and construction wood collection, settlement and overgrazing. Large concentrations of settlement with grass-roofed and tin-roofed houses are observed in the grassland and wooded grassland habitats. Out of the recorded 1079 houses built within the park, 867 (80.4%) were mud and wood wall with grass-roofed and 212 (19.6%) were tin-roofed houses. The ratio of tin-roofed and grass-roofed houses is 0.24:1 which suggests the permanency of human settlement and the high intensity of human impact on the wildlife. About 771 cattle Karels were recorded with the ratio of Karel to house as 0.89:1 which indicates that households have at least one Karel near to their residence. These habitat disturbances have resulted in the decline of key wildlife species in Nech Sar National Park. For instance, the population of Grant's zebra (Equus quagga) has decreased from 6500 in 1985 to 2161 in this study based on the 2013 count. The population of Swayne's hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus swaynei) has significantly decreased in the past decades from 40 in 1992 to 35 in 2008, to 12 in 2010, to four (4) in 2013 and locally extinct between 2017 and 2018 based on the Nech Sar National Park office information. Conclusions: Human activities in the Nech Sar National Park are the root causes for the decline of key wildlife species particularly for the loss of Swayne's hartebeest in the park over the past three decades. These changes are mainly related to habitat loss and habitat fragmentation due to deforestation, livestock overgrazing and residential expansion (tin-roofed, grass-roofed houses). Therefore, the main priority in Nech Sar National Park should be designing management strategies to restore the park as a fully functioning sustainable ecosystem and ensuring the social and economic sustainability of the local community. This intervention can be addressed by creating other means of livelihood,

Background: Unlike the studies undertaken on agricultural and hydrological sectors, focused climate change vulnerability researches in urban centers in Ethiopia is not widely available and of recent history. However, as many signals of climate change vulnerability started to happen in urban centers as well, it is inevitable to analyze, quantify, map, prioritize and be prepared for adaptation measures. This study is therefore, tried to assess, quantify and map climate change vulnerability in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by integrating two climate change vulnerability assessment models, namely, the Sullivan and Meigh's Model of composite climate change vulnerability index and the IPCC's approach of vulnerability assessment which comprises exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Fifteen subcomponents of vulnerability indicators were identified in ten sub-cities (Addis Ketema, Arada, Akaki-Kality, Bole, Gulelle, Kirkos, Kolfe-Keraniyo, Lideta, Nifasilk-Lafto and Yeka) of Addis Ababa. Due to the scale, degree, amount and unit of measurement for the selected indicators varied, their values were normalized to a number which ranges between 0 and 1, indicating as the values increased to 1, vulnerability to climate change increases. The study uses Iyengar and Sudarshan's unequal weighting system, to assign a weight to all indicators. The results were mapped using ArcGIS 10.2 package. Results: The results indicated that the ten sub-cities in Addis Ababa were found in different levels of vulnerability to climate change. The exposure and sensitivity were highest for Addis Ketema, Arada, and Lideta which are found in central parts of the city, with a normalization index value greater than 0.5. The adaptive capacity index is the highest in Gulelle, Bole, and Arada sub-cities. These sub-cities have better quality houses, well-planned districts, good infrastructural facilities and good coverage of green areas compared to others. The overall climate change vulnerability was the highest (normalized index > 0.5) in Arada, Addis Ketema and Lideta, due to the adaptation capacity is the lowest compared to other sub-cities. Conclusion: Addis Ababa is vulnerable to climate change impacts and the degree of vulnerability is underpinned by the interaction of multiple factors mainly adaptive capacities of sub-cities, location based characteristics and changes in climatic parameters. These present a need to strengthen mitigation and adaptation activities and prioritize sub cities for intervention based on the degree of vulnerability. It is also understood that the Sullivan and Meigh's Model and IPCC's approach for climate change analyses, could be used simultaneously for preparing vulnerability index per different geographical locations.

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One of the recent advances in climate science research is the development of global general circulation models (GCMs) to simulate changes in climatic elements of the present and future, which helps us to determine consequences earlier and prepare for necessary adaptation measures. However, it is difficult to apply the raw data of GCMs at a local scale, such as the urban scale, without downscaling due to coarse resolution. This study, therefore, statistically downscaled daily maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation in 30-year intervals from the second generation of the Earth System Model (CanESM2) and Coupled Global Climate Model (CGCM3) under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) Scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) and two Special Report Emission Scenarios (SRES), A1B and A2, to examine future changes and their extremes. Two representative meteorological stations (Entoto at high elevation and Addis Ababa at downtown and medium elevation) were selected for model calibration and validation in the Statistical Downscaling Model (SDSM). Twelve core temperature and precipitation indices were selected to assess temperature changes and precipitation extremes. For the largest changes the results showed that the maximum temperature increases were in the range of 0.9 • C (RCP4.5) in 2020 to 2.1 • C (CGCM3A2) in 2080 at Addis Ababa Observatory. The minimum temperature is projected to increase by 0.3 • C (RCP4.5) in 2020 and 1.0 • C in 2080 (CGCM3A1B). While the changes in maximum temperature are lower at Entoto station compared to Addis Ababa Observatory, the highest minimum temperature change is projected at Addis Ababa Observatory, which ranges from 0.25 • C in the 2020s to 1.04 • C in 2080 according to the CGCM3 model. Except for the coldest nights (TNn), the mean temperature and other temperature indices will continue to increase to the end of this century. The highest precipitation change is projected by CGCM3A2 and CanESM2 RCP8.5 at an increase of about 11.8% and 16.62% by 2080. The highest total precipitation increase is 29% (RCP4.5) in winter and 20.9% (RCP8.5) in summer by 2080. There is high interseasonal variability in changes of extreme events. The topographic role will diminish in influence on the air temperature distribution due to the high rate of urbanization. The rise in temperature will exacerbate the urban heat highland effects in warm seasons and an increase in precipitation is expected along with a possible risk of flooding due to a low level of infrastructure development and a high rate of urbanization.

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Earlier studies on land change (LC) have focused on size and magnitude, gains and losses, or land transfers between categories. Therefore, these studies have failed to simultaneously show the complete LC processes. This paper examines LCs in the Legedadie-Dire catchments in Oromia State, Ethiopia, using land-category maps with intensity analysis (IA) at three points in time. We comprehensively analyze LC to jointly encompass the rate, intensity, transition, and process. Thirty-meter US Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat imagery from 1986, 2000, and 2015 (< 10% cloud) is processed using TerrSet-LCM and ArcGIS. Six categories are identified using a maximum likelihood classification technique: settlement, cultivation, forest, water, grassland, and bare land. Then, classified maps are superimposed on the images to statistically examine changes with an IA. Considerable changes are observed among categories, except for water, between 1986-2000 and 2000-2015. Overall land change occurred quickly at first and then slowly in the second time interval. The total land area that exhibited change (1st ≈ 54% and 2nd ≈ 51%) exceeded the total area of persistence (1st ≈ 46% and 2nd ≈ 49%) across the landscape. Cultivation and human settlements were the most intensively increased categories, at the expense of grassland and bare ground. Hence, when grassland was lost, it tended to be displaced by cultivation more than other categories, which was also true with bare land. Annual intensity gains were active for forest but minimal for cultivation, implying that the gains of forest were associated with in situ reforestation practices and that the gains in cultivation were caused by its relatively large initial area under a uniform intensity concept. This study demonstrates that IA is valuable for investigating LC across time intervals and can help distinguish dormant vs. active and targeted vs. avoided land categories.

Background: There is a substantial interest in the values that consumers place on drinking water quality and supply. Financial resources are crucial to improving the urban potable water supply in developing countries that are characterized by low-cost recovery rates and a high and rapidly growing demand for more reliable services. This study examined households' willingness to pay (WTP) for the improvement of water services by identifying their water choice decisions and the mode of water supply that they prefer the water supply authority to use among several alternative water supply options. Stated-preference data were collected from 322 randomly selected households in Addis Ababa, who were presented with three sets of choices (three alternative bundle choices, including the reference scenario). The data were analyzed using the mixed logit WTP space model. Three approaches to modeling the distribution of WTP (fixed, uncorrelated, and correlated) using mixed logit WTP space models were compared. Results: Three-quarters of the households agreed to contribute money toward ecosystem-based water supply management (EBWSM) intervention programs on a monthly basis. The average contribution that the respondents were willing to pay was 150.5 Ethiopian Birr (ETB) as a one-off lump sum to kick off the EBWSM activities. Most of the respondents chose a bundle of water supply options that provides risk-free and high-quality water with no months of shortages than moderate water quality that is safe to drink and palatable with 1 month shortages annually. This implies that households would need to be supplied with risk-free, high-quality water without interruption at an appropriate flow pressure. The model with correlations fitted the data well with the highest simulated log-likelihoods at convergence and gave the best estimate of the households' WTP for water improvement. Nearly 46% of the sampled households were willing to pay more than 33 ETB per month, and 49% of the households were willing to pay between 21 ETB and 33 ETB per month for the monthly water bill. Overall, approximately 95% of the sampled households were willing to pay more than 21 ETB. Conclusion: Customers are willing to pay to avoid most types of water supply restrictions. Moreover, WTP is sensitive to the scope of service improvement, income, affixed price, and elicitation method. In summary, mixed logit WTP-space models can help accurately predict household-level WTP, which can be used to select improvements in drinking water access and services in the Legedadie-Dire catchments.

Background: The widespread land degradation in Ethiopia has necessitated extensive soil and water conservation interventions over the last four decades. Despite these the degradation of land continues. The conservation interventions in most cases were, and still are, predominantly top-down approaches following government directives. The success of these blanket approaches has been limited and an alternative approach needs to be devised. This paper attempts to identify alternative options for selecting appropriate soil and water conservation technologies based on the biophysical suitability of the landscape. Results: The results of this study suggest that with appropriate soil and water conservation measures, it is possible to reduce soil loss within the Blue Nile Basin by up to 600 million tons 46% within 5-10. The statistics on net soil loss reduction also indicate that successful implementation of conservation measures in only four administrative zones (out of 17) can potentially reduce up to 60% of the total soil loss in the Basin.