Application of RS and GIS to Land Degradation Assessment in Enebsie Sar Midir micro watershed, western Ethiopia
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2020-10
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The application of GIS and Remote Sensing has paramount importance in the assessment of environmental problems such as land degradation. The target of this thesis was to assess land degradation vulnerability assessment in Enebsie Sar Midir micro-watershed western, Ethiopia through the assimilation of GIS application and RS data. The multi temporal satellite image TM for 1986, ETM+ for 2003 and 2019 ISRIS were used to map indicators of land degradation. Biophysical indicators of land degradation were identified. These included land use / land cover change, normalized difference vegetation index and gully density. So, the most erosion vulnerable micro-watersheds have to be identified. To assess the potential gully areas the topography of the area are used the images were classified into five classes, these are, agricultural land, bare land, forest land, grass land, and shrub land. Generally, the results of this study have shown that there was a major expansion of agricultural areas in the 33 years analysis period from 27.3% in 1986 to 41.6% in 2003 and 49.6% in 2019. From the total area of the micro -watershed which is 161 km², 9.5 km² are possible areas for gully expansion. During 1986 gully density in one kilometer square agricultural land from 0.22 km/km² gully erosion are found and 0.16 km/km² from bare land were estimated implying variations in severity of gully erosion between land use class micro-watershed in Enebsie Sar Midir woreda. The NDVI trend map shows that a majority of the study area has covered non-vegetation land. More than 24.7% of the area has practiced a positive trend in vegetation cover (“greening”) and less than 75.3% of the area has experienced a decrease in vegetation cover. The overall positive trends is not in line with before study acclaiming expand and permanent land degradation. In general GIS and remote sensing were able to be prioritized for conservation and other environmental protection activities and to identify land degradation indicators in the micro-watershed in Enebsie Sar Midir, western, Ethiopia.
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Application of RS and GIS to Land Degradation Assessment in Enebsie Sar Midir micro watershed, western Ethiopia