Assessing The Effect of Land Use Change on The Hydraulic Regime of Lake Awassa
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Date
2010-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
For the past years an increase in population pressure, government policy and external influences caused a consistent change in the land cover of the Lake Awassa catchment. This was mainly by deforestation as is the case in many other areas of Ethiopia as well. The effects of land cover changes have impacted the water balance of the catchment by changing magnitude and pattern of runoff, peak flow and ground water levels. This study is mainly focusing on the assessment of hydrological response due to the land cover data of 1965 and 1998 and Geographic information system (GIS) integrated with the hydrologic modeling.
The result of remote sensing assessment on the land cover of the catchment indicated that Natural Vegetation decreased by 11,768 ha or 9.06 % between years 1995-1998. This was mainly due to mainly the expansion of agriculture and urban area. Plantation expansion was 20,661 ha or 13.56 % and also urbanization increased by 1,310 ha or 0.89 %.
Based on this result, the inflow records were analysed statistically to evaluate if change in the land cover affected the hydrological response of the catchment. The result of the analysis indicated that the average inflow to Lake Awassa in 1998 is 3.15 m3/sec or 99.34MCM, where as in scenarios year 2017 the average inflow result is 3.5m3/s or 110.38MCM. so because of the land cover change the flow increased by 0.35 m3/s that is 11.04MCM.
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Keywords
Lake Awassa, Land Use, Hydraulic Regime