Watershed Management in Highlands of Ethiopia: A Review

Abstract

Watershed is not only a hydrological unit for hydrologist but also a socio-political-ecological entity for rural community. Ethiopian highlands hailing as the cradle of humanity and home to about 80% of the population helped shelter from foreign conquest and making a strong base of rural community. The area is threatened with erosion and loss of agricultural productivity. The soil and water conservation program initiated in 1970 achieved only limited success due to its failure in addressing to the problems of local people. The prominent reasons assigned were lack of community participation, ignoring indigenous knowledge, adopting top down approach and poor institutional collaboration. The present government taking lessons from the past, started community based integrated watershed management program removing all the shortcomings through the instrument of new policies for improved livelihood and living conditions of rural communities.

Farmer’s Perception on Soil Erosion and Land Degradation Problems and Management Practices in the Beressa Watershed of Ethiopia

“…Deforestation and natural resource degradation, therefore, are severely reducing the capacity of natural resource to contribute for food security, and other benefits, such as fodder and fuelwood in Ethiopia [2,7,8,9]. Alarming rate of population growth, more demand for food and expansion of settlement resulting deforestation for expansion of agriculture, construction materials, fuelwood, and overgrazing [10,11].…”

Assessment of Natural Resources in Ketech Watershed, East Gojjam Zone of Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia

“…Increase in human population reported as the main threat to other Ethiopian highlands too. The highlands constituting majority of land is currently under stress due to rising population pressure and their conservative socio economic practices [23], [7]. According to [1], an increasing rate of population growth, being as the cause for deforestation, leads to an increased demand for fuel wood that speeds up deterioration of natural resources.…”

Major Constraints of Watershed Management Practices in Ethiopia and Ways Forward

“…Since then, many efforts were given to conserve the natural resources under watershed management [19]. There are success stories of watershed management in many districts of Ethiopia [8,14,20,21]. Among the successes of watershed management, water spring recharging again, soil loss reduction, regeneration and afforestation of the degraded land, soil fertility improvement, crop production increment, animal product improvement and in general the livelihood of the community changed positively could be listed where watershed management applied properly [21][22][23][24][25].…”

“…There are success stories of watershed management in many districts of Ethiopia [8,14,20,21]. Among the successes of watershed management, water spring recharging again, soil loss reduction, regeneration and afforestation of the degraded land, soil fertility improvement, crop production increment, animal product improvement and in general the livelihood of the community changed positively could be listed where watershed management applied properly [21][22][23][24][25]. The core features of a watershed that control the management approaches are the interconnection of upstream resources such as water and land with downstream impacts and externalities, coexistence of land and water resources [1].…”

“…There are various opportunities under watershed management such as working together getting benefits together, conserving the nature and reducing negative impacts together [21,[28][29][30][31]. However, there are challenges arises during implementing the watershed management in different watershed [21]. The challenges should be clearly identified and forwarding solution should be given for policy and decision makers in order to improve the success and benefit of watershed management in Ethiopia.…”