objective of this paper is to quantify and map an estimated soil loss by Using the empirical equations, the sediment yield at the watershed outlet was calculated as follows. Free grazing and cultivation of steep slope(Northern parts) contributed for moderate soil erosion in the watershed should be managed by cutcarry system, limiting the number of cattle units to be grazed in the specific plot of land and leaving the marginal steep slope areas with no ground covers for natural regeneration. The total annual soil losses are 456,415.60 ton/year. The volcano is believed to have spread over more than 5000m2 and resulted in a thick sequence of basaltic lava some 3,000-3,500m thick that was deposited on Precambrian crystalline basement. 2007), unwise management and the use of natural resources which are also the major challenges affecting crop yield in the Southern region (Tsegaye and Gebremichael 2014). 0000003057 00000 n It is difficult to estimate P_values due to lack of permanent conservation practices, irregularities on the implementation of conservation measures in different topographic position in the watershed. 8). Soil erosion has on-site and off-site effect; soil quality and productivity as on-site effect (Haregeweyn et al. "Ethiopian xeric grasslands and shrublands". [2] Climate[edit] The dramatic views are due to this volcanic activity. Cont Min Petrol 166(2):351370, Nyssen J, Poesen J, Moeyersons J, Deckers J, Haile M, Lang A (2004) Human impact on the environment in the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlandsa state of the art. J Nat Sci Res 4(7):5969, Veihe A, Rey J, Quinton JN, Strauss P, Sancho FM, Somarriba M (2001) Modelling of event-based soil erosion in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Mexico: evaluation of the EUROSEM model. The Eastern Lowlands get rain twice a year, in AprilMay and OctoberNovember, with two dry periods in between. Acrisols having plinthite within 125 cm of the surface, Other Acrisols showing hydromorphic properties within 50 cm of the surface, Other Acrisols having an umbric A horizon or a high organic matter content in the B horizon, or both. examining different topographic and anthropogenic factors for the planning and 16:447467, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2012) A national soil model of Ethiopia a geo statistical approach to create a national soil map of Ethiopia on the basis of an SRTM 90 DEM and SOTWIS soil data. Of the 25 World Reference Base/FAO soil orders, 17 exist in Ethiopia. Schweizebart, Stuttgart, pp 310316, McCann JC (1997) The plow and the forest: narratives of deforestation in Ethiopia, 18401992. The SDR physically means the ratio of the sediment routed to the outlet over the watershed, both overland and channel. /Flags 32 537, Wischmeier WH, Smith DD (1978) Predicting rainfall erosion losses: guide to conservation planning; Agriculture Handbook No. 137 27 The erodibility values of the study area contain two distinctive values ranging from 0.14 which is Chromic luvisols soil to 0.35 which is Eutric cambisols (Table7 and Fig. 11). Their parent materials include trap series volcanics, volcanic ash, and even metamorphic rocks. Correspondence to /Type /Font PubMedGoogle Scholar. Mt Res Dev 8(2/3):123130, Kappel R (1996) Economic analysis of soil conservation in Ethiopia: issues and research perspectives. 0000017283 00000 n Z.Geomorph.Suppl.Bb., 49: 3750, FAO (1984) Ethiopian highland reclamation study (EHRS). Am J Environ Sci 11(4):245-255. https://doi.org/10.3844/ajessp.2015.245.255, Bekele B (2020) Estimation of Soil erosion and sediment yield using Geographical information system (GIS) and RUSLE in Berta watershed Rift valley Basin, Ethiopia. 1). Corrections? Ethiop J Biol Sci 10(2):111136, White F (1965) The savanna-woodlands of the Zambezian and Sudanian Domainsan ecological and phytogeographical comparison. Ethiopia), where resources, facilities and trained scientific manpower are scarce, and where food is in short supply. The lowest soil erosion on Molic Andosols could be due to their good aggregate stability and high permeability to water which make these soils resistanttowater erosion. The most notable is the Awash Riverof Ethiopiathat terminates in a series of lakes near the border with Djibouti. Austrian J Earth Sci 103(2):153170, Haregeweyn N, Poesen J, Nyssen J, Govers G, Verstraeten G, De Vente J, Deckers J, Moeyersons J, Haile M (2008) Sediment yield variability Northern Ethiopia: a quantitative analysis of its controlling factors. The major part of the Simien Mountains consists of remnants of a Hawaiian-type shield volcano. 6). /FontName /ArialMT recognize at the highest level of classification three major types of mountain soils: Lithosols, Rendzinas and Rankers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8026-1_1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8026-1_1, eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0). At a global scale, water erosion is the main cause off soil degradation (Deniz et al. Hydrobiologia 158:2967, Zanettin B, Bellieni G, Justin Visentin E (2006) Stratigraphy and evolution of the trachy-rhyolitic volcanism of the Senafe area (Eastern Eritrean Plateau). The mean slope length and steepness factor of the study area is 0.56 with standard deviation of 0.50 and maximum and minimum values of 78.48 and 0, respectively (Fig. Similarly, Hurni et al. where R is the rainfall erosivity factor and P is the mean annual rainfall (mm). 2011). FAO (1984) and Hurni (1993) also reported annual soil loss from Ethiopian highlands to be 200300 tons ha1year1. In: Edwards S, Asfaw Z (eds) The status of some plants in parts of tropical Africa. The result also reveals that most of the watershed erosion severity evaluated under very low and low soil erosion severity classes covering 97.3% of the watershed areas which is due to the effect of mixed plantation of various tree and terraces. Tigray livelihood papers no. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Nitosols is a deep, red, well-drained soil with a clay content of more than 30% and a blocky structure. 17, Washington, Corti G, Manetti P (2012) Geologia e paesaggi della rift valley in Ethiopia. Discussed further in Frederick J. Simoons, "Snow in Ethiopia: A Review of the Evidence", Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Welcome to the official website of Simien Mountains National Park", "Historical Notes on Books: An Early Ethiopian Map", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Simien_Mountains&oldid=1131529902, This page was last edited on 4 January 2023, at 15:09. form of soil erosion is a serious and continuous environmental problem in Jabi The result reveals that from the gross 456,415.60 ton/year soil erosion, 43,762 ton/year were estimated at watershed outlet. There are also fault-induced depressions, such as the Danakil Depression and Lac Assal, lying as much as 160 m below sea level. Solonetz showing hydromorphic properties within 50 cm of the surface. Humic Andosols are the dominant soil type which is mainly found at an altitude of 3,000m. The other types of soils are shallow Andosols, Lithosols, and Haplic Phaeozems that are mainly common in the area between 2,500 and 3,500m. The Simien Mountains are highly eroded as a result of human land use practices and as a result of the topography of the area. The result is consistent with the finding of Bekele et al. 3} , $$, $$ {\text{A}}\, = \,{\text{R}}*{\text{K}}*{\text{LS}}*{\text{C}}*{\text{P}}, $$, $$ {\text{SDR}}\, = \,{\text{A}}^{ - 0. Correspondence to Socio-economic and environmental issues. The total land areas covered by salt-affected soils in Ethiopia is estimated at about 11,033,000 hectares and occur for the most part of the rift valley zone, where groundwater has been used as source of irrigation water. The third biome, tropical thickets and wooded steppe, is found in the Rift Valley and Eastern Lowlands. Soil degradation in the PHAEOZEMS (H)Other soils having a mollic A horizon. Ethiopias natural vegetation is influenced by four biomes. Therefore, the present study has been initiated to estimate average annual soil loss rate and identify critical soil erosion-prone areas for proper intervention for the study watershed using USLE and GIS. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 /BaseFont /ArialMT Ferrasols having plinthite within 125 cm of the surface, Other Ferralsols having a base saturation of less than 50 percent (by NH4OAc) in at least a part of the B horizon within 100 cm of the surface; having an umbric A horizon or a high organic matter content in the B horizon, or both, Other Ferralsols having a cation exchange capacity (from NH4C1) of 1.5 me or less per 100 g of clay in at least some part of the B horizon within 125 cm of the surface, Other Ferralsols having a red to dusky red B horizon (rubbed soil has hues redder than 5YR with a moist value of less than 4 and a dry value not more than one unit higher than the moist value), Other Ferralsols having a yellow to pale yellow B horizon (rubbed soil has hues of 7.5YR or yellower with a moist value of 4 or more and a moist . The soil erosion contributing factors were estimated through different Approaches. Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE)(Wischmeier and Smith 1965) and Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation(RUSLE) are the common and widely used equations in erosion modeling (Fistikogli and Harmancioglu 2002), However, USLE model has been widely used as it combines the impact of climate, soil, topography and land use on soil loss with limited data (Wischmeier and smith 1978). The weight of each parameter was calculated using an 8 8 pairwise comparison matrix. Missing rainfall data for all stations have been filled using nearest neighborhood interpolation technique. There are, however, many hills and massifs, which range up to 1300 m as well as outstanding fault-induced depressions, such as the Danakil, lying as low as 155 m below sea level. 2, Addis Ababa, pp 3555, Kieffer B, Arndt N, Lapierre H, Bastien F, Bosch D, Pecher A, Yirgu G, Ayelew D, Weis D, Jerram AD, Keller F, Meugniot C (2004) Flood and shield basalts from Ethiopia: magmas from African superswell. 12, Dijo watershed was classified into four severity classes. This accounts for the influence of soil and cover management, such as tillage practices, cropping types, crop rotation, fallow, etc., on soil erosion rates. >> and PWP. According to the relationship between the watershed gross soil erosion and sediment delivery ratio, the sediment yield was estimated at watershed outlet. The countrys main geomorphological landscapes regions are identified as follows: (1) the northern highlands, including (i) the volcanic plug belt of Adwa, (ii) the central highlands and (iii) the southwestern highlands; (2) the Rift Valley, which consists of three main portions, namely the northern, central, and southern trunks and the Afar and Danakil depressions; (3) the southern plateau, which consists of a northern and southern sector and includes also the Ogaden tableland gently descending to Somalia and the Indian Ocean. Whereas, the low soil erosion rate in the watershed could be due to the flat topography of the watershed coupled with the implementation of physical and biological soil and water conservation measures through community participation and sustainable land management projects(SLMP). There are very few permanent watercourses. Catena 104:2131, Berehe WA (1996) Twenty years of soil conservation in Ethiopia. R_factor has been calculated for each station using mean annual rainfall data from regression equation developed by Kaltenrieder (2007) to Ethiopian conditions as shown in Equation [3-1] below using inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) Interpolation, with 12 neighborhoods in spatial analyst tool. (2019) from Karesa watershed reported the gross erosion as 42,413.72 tonyear1; Bekele (2020) reported the soil erosion from Berta watershed south central rift valley Basin of Ethiopia as 81,864 tonyear1. Lithic Leptosols, Humic Nitisols, and Eutric Vertisols are the major three soil types with area coverage proportion of 18.5, 11.9, and 10.2 %, respectively. GIS layers were formed in raster format for both Environmental (RKLS) and management factors (C and P) as input for the USLE model to generate the contribution of individual factors grid. Based on the classification, two sub watersheds fell under very low erosion severity classes (01 ton/ha/yr), 22 sub-watersheds fell under low erosion severity classes (15 ton/ha/yr). where A=Annual soil loss in ton/ha/year, R=Rainfall erosivity factor in MJmmha1year1 K=Soil erodibility factor in thrMJ1mm1, LS=Slope Steepness and Slope Length factor (dimensionless), C=Cover factor (dimensionless), p=conservation practice factor (dimensionless). The critical erosion-prone areas were classified based on the sub-watersheds. This ecoregion lies mainly between sea level and 800 meters (m) elevation. 7 Sedimentation must be slow.Otherwise, the time will be too short to form sufficient pyrite for To remove the depression, the original 30m30m cell resolution DEM were filled, flow direction, flow accumulation and slope in degree was computed in ArcGis environment. However, the wetter margins are excellent for livestock, and even the drier margins respond well to irrigation. xZr}W#P%!}erH&-;0..+_ C\p0c&g4fi" Gf3{y~"X?P|/sI4$i7"~}tfo rv7WFs+sgoWjY_Tg%YpL`].w57{v=K}/ND*/~^F0Ex'e*$>zJPJp9y,j\jQl:{%`}FhF.qO. Soil and water are crucial resources for agriculture, especially in arid and semi-arid rain-fed areas, yet farm-level economic impacts and the factors influencing the adoption of measures for. According to the Ethiopian highland reclamation study report, 27 million ha or almost 50% of the highland area was significantly eroded, 14 million ha seriously eroded and over 2 million ha beyond reclamation (Assefa et al. Slope gradient, slope and point interpolations of primary data. In parts of tropical Africa where R is the main cause off soil degradation in the (... E paesaggi della rift valley in Ethiopia soil quality and productivity as on-site lithosols soil in ethiopia ( et... 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