Prioritization of sub-watersheds for conservation measures based on soil loss rate in Tikur Wuha watershed, Ethiopia
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Prioritization of sub-watersheds for conservation measures based on soil loss rate in Tikur Wuha watershed, Ethiopia Abiot Ketema 1
&
Gowdagere Siddaramaiah Dwarakish 1
Received: 3 April 2020 / Accepted: 22 September 2020 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2020
Abstract Soil erosion is unquestionably the trickiest land degradation that adversely agricultural productivity. Since resources are scarce, in developing countries like Ethiopia, implementing soil and water conservation practice at a time on the entire watershed is not feasible. Therefore, recognizing erosion-prone areas (the priority watersheds) based on the magnitude of soil loss rate is indispensable. The purpose of this study is to delineate priority sub-watersheds of the Tikur Wuha watershed in Ethiopia based upon the soil loss rate. A universal soil loss equation under the geographic information system environment was employed to estimate the soil loss rate. The result revealed that the average soil loss rate from the watershed is 14.13. It is resulting in a gross soil loss of 962,083 from the entire watershed. A small portion of the watershed (9.22%) is suffering from severe and very severe soil loss rate (> 25). A total of 14.41% of the watershed have soil loss rates above the maximum soil loss tolerance of the area (> 12). Among the seven sub-watersheds in the watershed, four sub-watersheds (SW_3, SW_1, SW_2, and SW_4) are falling under the top priority zone. Soil and water conservation measures should be executed rapidly in the Tikur Wuha watershed, consistent with the rank of the priority watersheds. Keywords Ethiopia . Prioritization . Soil and water conservation . Soil loss rate . Sub-watersheds
Abbreviations DEM digital elevation model GIS geographic information system LU/LC land use/ land cover MLC Maximum Likelihood Classification MoWR Ministry of Water Resource NMSA National Meteorological Service Agency SLR soil loss rate SLT soil loss tolerance SRTM Shuttle Radar Topography Mission SW sub-watershed SWC Soil and Water Conservation Engineering
Responsible Editor: Broder J. Merkel * Abiot Ketema [email protected] Gowdagere Siddaramaiah Dwarakish [email protected] 1
Department of Applied Mechanics and Hydraulics, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, Mangalore, Karnataka 575 025, India
TWW USA USGS UTM WGS WWDSE
Tikur Wuha watershed United States of America United States Geological Survey Universal Transverse Mercator World Geodetic System Water Works Design and Supervision Enterprise
Introduction Soil erosion is unquestionably the trickiest land degradation in the globe (Bridges and Oldeman 1999). Soil erosion influences about one billion people across the world, of which about 50% of the community under the influence is concerted in Africa (Lal and Humberto 2008). In Ethiopia, water erosion is the most critical environmental threat that adversely affects agricultural productivity, economic growth, and food security (Hurni 1985; Taddese 2001; Molla and Sisheber 2017; Gashaw et al. 2017). The c
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