Analysing the trend of land use/land cover change and its cause and consequence on human livelihoods as well as on the environment is a matter of concern for sustainable development and management of natural resource. Retrospective analysis of land use/land cover dynamics and its driving force has been undertaken using satellite images of Landsat5 TM 1984, Landsat5 TM 1999, and Landsat8 TM 2015 with 30 m spacial resolution for Beressa watershed of Ethiopia. ArcGIS10.2.2 and ERDAS Imagine14 have been used for image processing to produce 6 land uses/land cover classes in the study area. The result of classified image indicated that in the last 3 decades, farm land and settlement area increased @ 71.6 ha/year and 16.8 ha/year respectively. Between 1984 and 1999, forest cover and water body decreased @ 5 ha/year and 0.03 ha/ year respectively but increased @15.6 ha/year and 7.1 ha/ year between 1999 and 2015 respectively. This increase could be possible due to the involvement of local communities to plant trees around their homestead and farm lands. In this program, plantation of indigenous tree species other than eucalyptus (which affect the ecology) was encouraged. The % share of grazing land and barren land has been decreased to 10 and 10.1 % respectively during 1999 that further reduced to 6.1 and 5.2 % during 2015 as against the 12.4 and 13.1 % during 1984 respectively in the Beressa watershed. Rapid population growth demanded more land for cultivation, more trees for domestic fuelwood consumption and more area for settlement had been responsible for drastic change in the land use/land cover change in the last 3 decades in the Beressa watershed. In order to check the loss of area from gazing land and barren land, alternative source income opportunities to the community dwellers may be provided. Therefore, environmental conservation, management and rehabilitation require integrated approach of community development at various levels.
Watersheds in cold regions provide water, food, biodiversity and ecosystem service. However, the increasing demand for water resources and climate change challenge our ability to provide clean freshwater. Particularly, watersheds in cold regions are more sensitive to changing climate due to their glaciers’ retreat and permafrost. This review revisits watershed system and processes. We analyze principles of watershed modelling and characteristics of watersheds in cold regions. Then, we show observed evidence of their impacts of cold processes on hydrological and biogeochemical processes and ecosystems, and review the watershed modeling and their applications in cold regions. Finally, we identify the knowledge gaps in modeling river basins according to model structures and representations of processes and point out research priorities in future model development.
Background: In the rainfed areas, water, not land, is the foremost restraining resources for better agricultural production to satisfy the growing demand of food and other needs. Water harvesting and enhancing productivity of available water, and not volume of yield per units of land, is therefore a better solution for rainfed agriculture. Under these circumstances, it is necessary toimplement efficient and effective integrated water resources management practices. Elsewhere rainfed dependent highland parts of Ethiopia, in the Beressa watershed most of the rainwater lost in the form of runoff particularly during excess rainfall; therefore, the benefit of rainwater during less rainy season is insignificant. The objective of this study therefore was to assess crop water requirement and net irrigation requirement using CROPWAT8.0 model and Rainfall Contribution Index (RCI) for various crops and to describe the benefits of water harvesting and integrated and sustainable water resources management. Crops growing during the month of February to June (less rainy season) are among the highest irrigation requirements.Results: Based on RCI (as the value far from 1) reflect rainfall contribution is insufficient to satisfy the crop water requirements for the whole growth stages. Therefore, there is a need for supplemental irrigation and rainwater harvesting and a necessity for integrated water resources management. To reduce the intensity of water shortage therefore conservation planning and water management at watershed level in an integrated manner is critical. Similarly, soil and water conservation management practices is essential for the communities to reduce runoff and other resources for future uses and determine the optimal amount of water resources consumption at the irrigation fields is an urgent issues.
Conclusions:As a result, there is a need to do more efforts related to water harvesting and integrated water resources management for the sustainability of agriculture and over all human survival. which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
In Ethiopia erosion and land degradation on the livelihood resource had become a key issue, resulted for food insecurity and difficult to break through the poverty gap using subsistence farming. Previously implemented soil and water conservation practice were not halted the threat, because it was mass mobilization without detailed study of real situation and without convicting farmers. Over sighting the past experience, community based watershed management practice was recommended as a possible option against the ongoing problem. Therefore, this paper analyzed farmer's perception on soil erosion and degradation problems and their management practice. From 92 randomly selected households using survey, formal and informal discussion with farmers and field observation were employed to generate the data. The result indicated that farmers were acknowledged the prevalence of soil erosion and land degradation in their watershed (93.5%) and affecting their livelihoods. However, mostly they noticed erosion and degradation when it forms gullies. They identified many prominent causes for natural resource degradation such as improper conservation practice, traditional farming practice, continuous cultivation without fallow periods, deforestation and over population. To tackle the ongoing problems, many ranges of conservation technologies were used by farmers. Following the intervention and rehabilitation practice, the rate of erosion and degradation overtime moderately reduced (58.7%). Though the practice was not demand driven and site specific management practice. Finally, this study concluded important points which needs immediate consideration for community based watershed management practice effort not only for the study area but also for the country at large are: Identifying and integrating technical as well as efficiency of indigenous and site specific and demand driven technology help to cope erosion and degradation hazard-hence increase short and long term benefit obtained from the practice.
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