Rangeland suitability analysis for livestock production using GIS and Remote sensing: The case of Yabello Woreda, Southern Ethiopia.
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2011-02
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Livestock production is essential for household food security in pastoralist areas since they uses
their products directly to exchange with other household commodities. Yabello Woreda is one of
the pastoral Woredas found in southern part of Ethiopia. For many centuries, these rangelands
were productive. However, high population growth which resulted in increasing demand for
arable land, increasing land use conflicts, land degradation and bush encroachment in the
study area led to reduced amount of land for natural grazing and forage production.
Improper land use results in land degradation and decline in agricultural productivity. Hence,
in order to get maximum benefit out of land, proper utilization of its resources is inevitable.
Therefore, land suitability analysis is needed in order to make proper land use planning.
Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing offer a convenient and powerful platform
to integrate spatially complex and different land attributes for performing land suitability
analysis and land allocations. This study is intended to analyze and map suitable areas for
livestock in Yabello Woreda using Geographic information system and Remote Sensing
techniques. For this study, seven suitability factors; Altitude, feed biomass, rainfall, land
use/land cover, soil, temperature and slope were considered. To arrive at final suitability result
for each livestock, weighted overlay technique of Multi-criteria evaluation in a Geographical
information system platform was used. For the case of land allocation for livestock species, a
vector (union) module was used. Livestock density was visualized using dot density map. The
result of the suitability analysis showed that, 13%, 11%, 3%and 7% of study area was highly
suitable for cattle, sheep, goat and camel respectively. In addition, 78%, 52%, 79% and 75% of
the land was classified as moderately suitable for cattle, sheep, goat and camel respectively.
While, 4%, 32%, 13% and 12% was marginally suitable for cattle, sheep, goat and camel
respectively. There is no parcel of land classified as currently not suitable nor permanently not
suitable. In the case of land allocation, 22 % and 77% were allocated as highly suitable and
moderately suitable respectively for a single species or a combination of them. Thus, the study
shows that the greater portions of Yabello Rangelands have moderate suitability for livestock
production.
Keywords: GIS and Remote Sensing techniques, Yabello Woreda, Suitability analysis, Multicriteria
evaluation, Livestock
Description
Keywords
GIS and Remote Sensing techniques