Land use changes induced by irrigation development in the Fincha'a sugar estate, Blue nile basin, Ethiopia
Journal Title: Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences (JBES) - Year 2013, Vol 3, Issue 11
Abstract
Land use and land cover changes that occurred from 1984 to 2009 in the Fincha'a Sugar Estate, Blue Nile Basin of western Ethiopia, were monitored using a geographic information system (GIS) and a remote sensing approach with field verification. Fincha'a Sugar Estate is known for its sugar production and export of sugar as a surplus to major areas of the country. However, clearing increasingly flat and steeper land for cultivation and built-up land, land degradation is becoming a serious problem. The study revealed that the Sugar Estate has inundated 2.15% of water body, 8.70 % of natural forest, 4.52% of the built-up land, 12.39 % of the grass land, 38.20 % of the bush land and 34.05 % of the cultivated (sugar and other) farm land respectively. The results show that the natural forest cover declined from 17.25% in 1984 to 10.16% in 2005and 8.70% in 2009. The total natural forest cleared between 1984 and 2009 amounts to 3186 ha. This is 50% of the forest cover that existed in 1984. On the other hand, cultivated land increased from 6.01% in 1984 to 21.96% in 2005 and 34.07% in 2009. The study area had experienced a drastic change in its LUC conditions between 2005 and 2009 because of rapid increases in human settlement, deforestation and irrigation development. Such a dramatic change in 25 years and the increasing proportion of completely degraded lands clearly indicates the prevailing danger of land degradation in the area.
Authors and Affiliations
Getahun Kitila, Heluf Gebrekidan, Tena Alamirew, Megersa Oulumana, Hans Hurni
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP37414
- DOI -
- Views 193
- Downloads 0
Agglomerative hierarchical clustering based on morphmetric parameters of the populations of Labeo rohita
Labeo rohita populations from five geographical locations from the hatchery and Riverine system of PunjabPakistan were studied for the clustering on the basis of similarities and differences based on morphometric parame...
Effects of salt stress on leaf protein patterns of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) genotypes
Environmental stresses caused a protein disorders in plants and plants overcome to stress by altering the expression of genes which necessary for the synthesis of metabolites, structural proteins and enzymes of some meta...
Comparison of maize hybrids effect on phenological stages
In order to determine the growing characteristics and detecting the morphological bases of yield difference, study of relations between different traits with each other and with grain yield, determining the most importa...
Jouibar seaport tourism potentials and marketing: developing a strategy through SWOT model
Jouibar Seaport, despite having coastal tourist attractions, could not be adequately successful in attracting tourists and developing the tourist industry. Because of the overlap of various aspects of natural and humani...
Chemical composition of the essential oilof Verbascum songaricum from Iran
The essential oil of the aerial parts of Verbascum songaricum Schrenk. ex Fisch. & C. A. Mey., growing wild in Iran, was extracted by hydrodistillation method and analyzed by GC and GC/MS. Eighteen components were iden...