Determinants of adoption and continued use of stone terraces for soil and water conservation in an Ethiopian highland watershed

Amsalu, Aklilu; Graaff, J. de

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.01.014

Cited by 336 publications

(315 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In the Ethiopian highlands case, the decline of soil fertility and severe soil erosion is due to water outflow on steep and fragile land that have been under intensive farming [2]. Researches assessed an actual rate of erosion exceeding the regenerating rate, which is 12 ton/ha/year.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adoption and Effect of Vetiver Grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) on soil Erosion in Somodo Watershed, South-Western Ethiopia

Tesfaye¹,

Debebe²,

Yakob³

2018

OALib

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Soil erosion is an important cause of land degradation and consequent to soil fertility which reduces land productivity and production. This problem aggravates in developing countries like Ethiopia. To minimize this challenge, soil and water conservation with proper design is the first choice. The aim of this study was to assess the adoption and effect of Vetiver grass on soil erosion in Somodo watershed. Community mobilization was used to implement Vetiver grass on farm lands as bund stabilization and grass strip. Accordingly, more than 45 km (20%) of the watershed was covered by Vetiver grass on soil bund as bund stabilizing measure. The hedge was fully established within two years and formed averagely 36 cm raised terrace. The result of the study showed that within two years period about 36 cm soil was accumulated above the hedgerow. From mean annual soil deposition and average bulk density of the watershed, the mean annual soil loss was recorded 20.88 ton ha −1

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adoption and Effect of Vetiver Grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) on soil Erosion in Somodo Watershed, South-Western Ethiopia

Tesfaye¹,

Debebe²,

Yakob³

2018

OALib

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“…The inverse farm-size-productivity relationship (Lamb 2003;Lipton 2009) has shown that small-scale farmers invest more in labour intensive land management than large-scale farmers. However, the adoption of SLM measures increases with an increasing farm size (Norris and Batie 1987;Pender 1992;Bravo-Ureta et al 2006;Amsalu and de Graaf 2007). This positive relationship is due to the ability of large-scale farmers to purchase inputs such as fertilizer or use labour-saving technologies.…”

Section: Review Of Institutional Causes Of Land Degradationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional Framework of (In)Action Against Land Degradation

Baumgartner

Cherlet²

2015

Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement – A Global Assessment for Sustainable Development

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While econometric and spatial data are increasingly helpful to quantify and locate the extent and costs of land degradation, there is still little understanding of the contextual factors that determine or influence the land users' practices that aggravate or counteract land degradation. In this chapter, we take an institutional economic approach to analyse the persistence of degrading practices, the low adoption of sustainable land management (SLM), or the eventual organisational reaction to land degradation. The chapter reviews four examples of land degradation in different contexts to reveal the multiple driving forces and contextual factors. We then propose a conceptual framework to better understand the incentive structure and factors determining the land users' decision making. A layered analysis of the social phenomena is applied, following Williamson (2000). The chapter shows how actions at different layers can help improve land management. The chapter concludes with practical recommendations for the institutional economic analysis of land degradation.

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“…Older farmers, owing to their accumulated experience and wealth, can diversify their income to safeguard their livelihood (Table 3) (Aklilu and Catley 2011;Bayard et al 2007). The positive relationship between access to credit and income diversification shows the role institutions may play in enabling adaptation (Di Falco et al 2011).…”

Section: Income Diversificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation of agriculture to climate change in semi-arid Borena, Ethiopia

Ng’ang’a

Wijk

Rufino³

2016

Reg Environ Change

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Livestock production is very risky due to climate variability in semi-arid Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data collected from 400 households in the Borena zone of the Oromia Region, we explored what drives adoption of agricultural practices that can decrease the vulnerability of agro-pastoralists to climate change. Households with more adaptive capacity adopted a larger number of practices. The households' adaptive capacity was stronger when the quality of local institutions was high. However, adaptive capacity had less explanatory power in explaining adoption of adaptation options than household socio-economic characteristics, suggesting that aggregating information into one indicator of adaptive capacity for site-specific studies may not help to explain the adoption behaviour of households. Strong local institutions lead to changes in key household-level characteristics (like membership to community groups, years lived in a village, access to credit, financial savings and crop income) which positively affect adoption of agricultural practices. In addition, better local institutions were also positively related to adoption of livestock-related adaptation practices. Poor access to a tarmac road was positively related to intensification and diversification of crop production, whereas it was negatively related to the intensification of livestock production, an important activity for generating cash in the region. Our findings suggest that better local institutions lead to changes in household characteristics, which positively affect adoption of adaptation practices, suggesting that policies should aim to strengthen local institutions.

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Determinants of adoption and continued use of stone terraces for soil and water conservation in an Ethiopian highland watershed

Cited by 336 publications

References 24 publications

Adoption and Effect of Vetiver Grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) on soil Erosion in Somodo Watershed, South-Western Ethiopia

Adoption and Effect of Vetiver Grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) on soil Erosion in Somodo Watershed, South-Western Ethiopia

Institutional Framework of (In)Action Against Land Degradation

Adaptation of agriculture to climate change in semi-arid Borena, Ethiopia

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