Monitoring land use/land cover change impacts on soils in data scarce environments: a case of south-central Ethiopia

Abstract

To monitor land-use/land-cover (LULC) change and assess its impact on the soil property, the availability of benchmark data is indispensable, which is hardly available in the intensively cultivated regions of developing countries. Our study attempts to solve this problem by generating a benchmark soil data through the development of modified spatial analogue (MSA) method in the context of the Upper Dijo River catchment, south-central Ethiopia. The magnitude and patterns of LULC changes were extracted from air photos and satellite imageries, along with the acquisition of soil samples from the reference and target sites through ground survey. Analysis of digital image processing shows significant LULC changes in a period that spanned three decades. The impact of LULC change on soil quality was assessed by comparing the soil physico-chemical properties sampled from the reference and target sites. The result shows a decline in total nitrogen, organic matter, available potassium and pH levels in soils collected from target sites, which conforms to results reported by studies conducted in data-rich environment. With careful validation, MSA could be useful for monitoring soil property changes in data-scarce environment and generate soil-related parameters for agro-ecological models.

Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Bale Mountain Eco-Region of Ethiopia during 1985 to 2015

“…LULCCs have been widely investigated in different parts of the world, e.g., in the USA and Europe [49], South America [44,50], Australia [51], Asia, and Africa [44], including Ethiopia [22,23,26,30,40]. These studies have shown that the expansion of agricultural land, both for commercial and subsistence crop production, is the main driver of LULCC [52].…”

“…Various authors addressed LULCC in Ethiopia, their focus varying greatly in terms of thematic area as well as spatial locations [20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. However, comprehensive and national scale analysis was conducted by the Woody Biomass Inventory and Strategic Planning Project (WBISPP), which has produced land use and land cover maps for Ethiopia [27].…”

Multi‐criteria‐based Plant Species Selection for Gully and Riverbank Stabilization in a Sub‐humid Tropical Area

“…Preliminary field surveys before the present study also clearly indicated that gullies, landslides and riverbanks are the main sources of sediment in the catchment. As Ethiopia is characterized by a rugged topography, these problems remained critical challenges being aggravated by an increasing population pressure, lack of awareness and poor land management (Girma, 2001;Muys et al, 2006;de Mûelenaere et al, 2014;Mengistu & Waktola, 2014;Tesfaye et al, 2014;Ayele et al, 2015;Lanckriet et al, 2015;Mekonnen et al, 2015;Kassa et al, 2016;Mukai, 2016).…”

Retrospective land use land cover change detection using geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing techniques: The Case of Andasa Micro-Watershed, Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia

“…While, cultivated land and bare land jointly increased to Mengistu and Waktola (2014) showed that, that only 7.5% of the 1972 riverine trees were detected in 2004. About 92.5% of the riverine trees were converted into another LULC types.…”

“…Clay content, as opposed to silt and sand, varied significantly among LULC types. The LSD test showed significantly different clay content between soils of degraded lands and reference soils and finally resulted in change in soil texture (Mengistu and Waktola, 2014).…”