Potential rainwater harvesting suitable land selection and management by using GIS with MCDA in Ebenat District, Northwestern Ethiopia

Abstract

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is the way to reduce the effects of mid-season dry spells and drought, which often reduce crop yields. Geographic information system (GIS) with multi-criteria decision making (MCDA) is a powerful tool to identify and solve spatial problems like the identification of the suitable site of RWH. Sentinel image, soil, metrological row data, geological data, and digital elevation model (DEM) data were the source of a dataset to undertake the preprocessing, manipulation, and analysis the suitable site identification by using GIS and remote sensing spatial analysis. More than seven parameters where identified based on an extensive literature review which is land use/land-cover, soil textural, rainfall, lineament, slope, runoff density and curve number, distance from settlement and road. The multi-criteria decision-making method was used for weight value estimation of each criterion and finally, the rainwater harvesting suitability map was generated. The potentially suitable site was grouped into four levels of suitability, which accounts in hectare 3,620, 16,0618, 69,867, and 14,010 ha of highly suitable, moderately suitable, less suitable, and restricted respectively from the total area coverage of 248,115 ha respectively.

Identification of Suitable Rainwater Harvesting Sites Using Geospatial Techniques With AHP in Chacha Watershed, Jemma Sub-Basin Upper Blue Nile, Ethiopia

“…As shown in the overlaid map Figure 5, the northern, northeastern, and middle watershed parts are highly suitable while the small portion of the watershed near the outlet point is not suitable for RWH development. The sensitive parameters obtained in this study were aligned with the study carried out by Ammar et al (2016), Ejegu and Yegizaw (2020), Ibrahim et al (2019), Maina andRaude (2016), andYegizaw et al (2022).…”

“…(3), a formula with two parameters only was obtained: The estimated runoff depth was mapped in the ArcGIS tool and classified into four standardized suitability zones as per Ejegu and Yegizaw (2020), from low runoff depth to high runoff depth values. An area with a high runoff depth value was rated as highly suitable and low runoff depth-producing areas were rated as unsuitable considering the time taken to fill water in the RWH assembly.…”

“…The lowland areas of the watershed located near the outlet point have rugged topography and it is exposed to soil erosion; thus, the soil depth is decreasing from time to time. Critchley et al (1991) and Ejegu and Yegizaw (2020) suggested deeper soil is suitable for collecting high runoff.…”

“…While, Al-Ardeeni (2015) selected only the factors of slope, LULC, soil texture, and rainfall. Slope, LULC, soil texture, soil depth, rainfall, and lineament density were also used by Ejegu and Yegizaw (2020) and Yegizaw et al (2022). No research was conducted considering all the factors selected in the present study.…”

Geospatial technology with the integration of MCDA to identify potential irrigation site for agricultural land management in Wanka watershed, Northwestern Ethiopia

“…Therefore, to bring food security, improved diets, improve crop productivity and income of smallholder farmers in the study area, development and expansion of irrigation infrastructure and agriculture should be seriously considered (Domènech, 2015;Kebede and Ademe, 2016;Wakeyo and Gardebroek, 2017;Sema et al, 2020). In recent years, integration of geographic information systems and multi-criteria decision making has been used for site selection studies (Babalola and Busu, 2011;Uyan, 2013;Wale et al, 2013;Watson and Hudson, 2015;El Maguiri et al, 2016;Anwarzai and Nagasaka, 2017;Baseer et al, 2017;Gheshlagi and Feizizadeh, 2017;Feizizadeh and Kienberger, 2017;Maleki et al, 2017;Ejegu and Yegizaw, 2020). Therefore, the main goal of this study was to use GIS and MCDA to find a possibly acceptable site for surface irrigation in the Wanka watershed.…”