Journal of Degraded and Mining Lands Management (Oct 2021)
The role of soil, water and forest conservation on vegetation cover and landscape greenness in degraded areas of upper Blue Nile
Abstract
Recently, large-scale soil, water, and forest conservation/protection practices have been implemented in Ethiopia. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of soil, water, and forest conservation/protection on vegetation cover and landscape greenness in the Gumara watershed. Landsat satellite imageries were used to analyze the changes using land use/cover and net difference vegetation index (NDVI) and its differencing methods. Over the period 1995-2017, forestland and shrub-woodland covers increased by 48.4% (2.8-4.2%) and 8.3% (20.2-21.9%), respectively. Similarly, the NDVI result showed high improvements in landscape greenness and vegetation density. A 13.5% of the watershed area experienced a significant increase, of which 61.4% was observed on forest and shrub-woodland covers. The watershed area covered by very high (NDVI>0.4) and high (NDVI 0.3-0.4) vegetation density classes were increased by 189.2 and 145.5%, respectively. Upon the increasing human pressure and related problems, the observed improvement of vegetation cover and landscape greenness show the positive impact of soil, water, and forest conservation/protection practices done for the last two decades. Therefore, strengthening the current efforts and investing more in sustainable and evidence/priority-based soil, water, and forest conservation measures that are ecologically friendly with diversified livelihood importance can bring a more effective result of land rehabilitation.
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