Effect of Land Use Land Cover Changes on River Water Quality and Household Food Production in Little Akaki River Catchment, Central, Ethiopia
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Date
2023-09
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The study area is located where urban and peri-urban agriculture practiced, urbanization expanded and land use changes observed. The overall objective of this research is to investigate the effect of land use land cover changes on river water quality and household food production in Little Akaki river catchment, central Ethiopia. To classify land use classes, supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification were used. Ten water sampling sites were selected using a purposive sampling procedure to assess water quality parameters. Additionally, eight key informants were interviewed for valuable insights. Data were gathered from USGS satellite imagery, field observations, secondary sources, and key informant interviews. Change detection were used to analyze the land use land cover change. Time series plot were used to see the water quality trend. Multiple linear regression and Pearson correlation were used to examine the land use classes that affect river water quality and household food production. Furthermore, paired t-test were used to examine the significance of water quality parameters. The maximum likelihood classification and change detection revealed that seven land use classes for the last three decades were identified using Arc GIS 10.7.1. The overall accuracy was 96% (1994) and 94.56% (2023). The settlement and buildup area faced the most significant change, in 1994-2023 with 27.25% (109.86km2) and 7.43% (29.97km2) during 2019-2023 showing increase of urbanization and industrialization process which has a significant effect. The time series plot revealed that there is significant change in river water quality parameters. The physio-chemicals decreased, Temperature by 0.09550 c, Power of Hydrogen=0.054, Dissolved Oxygen=0.0964, Total Dissolved Solids=163.77, Salinity=537.048, Chromium=0.0569, Cadmium=0.00476, whereas Turbidity=518.6, Lead=0.1671 and Zinc=0.09534 has increased. The multiple linear regression revealed that all land use classes have strong positive significant correlation with water quality indicators, whereas water body has strong negative correlation with dissolved oxygen. Furthermore, results revealed that decrease in crop land affected their household food production and livelihood. The study conclude that land use land cover change has outstanding effect on river water quality and Household food production. Finally, the research recommended enhancing regulation and enforcement, improving public awareness, prioritizing low impact development strategies, promoting agricultural initiatives, implementing water harvesting system and conservation, developing comprehensive land use plan,
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Keywords
Change detection, Land use land cover change, Multiple linear regression, River water quality.