Assessment Of Soil Quality And Erosion Rate In Kilie Catchment Lume Woreda East Shoa Ethiopia

In Ethiopia 85% of the population are directly supported by the agricultural economy. However, the productivity of that economy is being seriously eroded by unsustainable land management practices both in areas of food crops and in grazing lands.rnA field study was conducted in the Lume Woreda of Kilie catchment, East Shoa Zone, Ethiopia to identify and describe the major causes of soil degradation through household level socio – economic questionnaires, assess its extent and rate through soil loss prediction model, field surveys and soil laboratory analyses.rnSocio - economic data was collected from randomly selected households in the study catchment and data generated was used to identify the major causes of soil degradation. Status of degradation of different land use types; grazing land, cultivated land and forest land, was assessed using soil organic matter content, cation exchange capacity, bulk density and gully parameters. Degradation Indices were computed for grazing and cultivated lands through comparison with the forest land. The rate of soil loss through sheet and rill erosion in the study area was determined using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) with the integration of techniques in Remote Sensing & Geographical Information Systems (RS/GIS) environment.rnAmong the many causes of soil degradation in the study area, loss of soil nutrients through biomass fuels consumption as a result of huge energy consumption demand was the major cause of soil degradation. About 705.52 ton of biomass fuel was consumed in the study area annually. Poor land management practices and poor livestock and grazing land management system were the other causes of soil degradation in the area next to the loss of soil nutrients.rnOrganic matter was found to be the most deteriorated soil parameter than cation exchange capacity and bulk density in the study area which were the selected soil parameters for analysis. When compared to the forest area, organic matter showed degradation indices of –71.21% and –68.88% for cultivated land and grazing land, respectively. Among the three land use types selected to be studied; cultivated land, grazing land and forest land, the cultivated land was the most degraded one with a degradation index of -105.11% with respect to the forest land.rnThe final soil erosion rate map developed after multiplication of the six factors involved in the USLE with the integration of techniques in Remote Sensing & Geographical Information Systems, and through gully measurement in the study area showed that the soil erosion rate was higher for the upland areas than the lowlands.rnThe overall output from the research showed that if appropriate interventions are not carried out in the study area for the future, the soil degradation extent and soil erosion rate would escalate and reversing the process would become difficult.

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