Assessment Of Soil Erosion And Its Effects On Agricultural Productivity The Case Of Machackel Woreda East Gojjam Zone Ethiopia

Soil Erosion has been a serious problem in Ethiopia and Its impediment on economic developmentrnpersists more than three decades. This thesis studies to quantify the impact of soil erosion on crop yieldsrnusing the results of a Machakel woreda, East Gojjam Zone Ketech watershed catchment. The research isrnto assess the extent of soil erosion and its effect on agricultural productivity, the perception andrnknowledge of people on soil erosion and gully. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected.rnQuantitative data was collected from satellite images and household surveying and qualitative datarncollected from focus group discussion, key informant interview, and field observation. Descriptive,rninferential, and econometric were employed for quantitative analysis while description, narration andrncontent analysis were engaged for qualitative analysis. The findings of the study deal with the amount ofrnaverage annual soil loss by using the RUSLE model used in Arc GIS images converted to quantitativelyrnmeasurement of Ketech watershed 612, 561.3 t. yr‾¹. In the study of the gully erosion, AGERTIMrn(assessment of gully erosion rates through interview and measurement) has been developed. It comprisesrnphysical field measurement of the current volume and monitoring semi-structured interview techniques:rnwomberet, Ketech, shembeqogelebet (a) and (b):Womberet, gully started around 1979, gradual changernfrom cropland which started from fox digging small holes and grew into gully which increases rapidlyrnand the average gully erosion rate in 33 years was found to be 168,921 m²/yr, the amount of soilrnloss.,Ketech gully incision in 1984, small rill canals to grown gully through farming practice formulatesrnin two adjacent croplands average gully volume erosion rates in 29 years was 9093 m²/yr, the total soilrnloss estimated and the total soil loss of the other two-volume of gully erosion rate is estimated to be 3,500rnm²/yr. The perception of farmers to pertain the vulnerability of livelihood to consider food security facesrnto challenge soil erosion demarcates different reasons through the nature of demographic, level socioeconomic, institutional and topographic factors significantly related with soil erosion was establishedrndeterminants (sex, education, landholding size, experience, access to training, credit access, soilrnconservation, and extension service and family size) logit statistically significant association of analysisrnvariables employed to determine for farmers‗ perception showed that landholding size, condition ofrneducation and farmers experience were significant factors of determining farmers` perception of soilrnerosion in the study area. To explain in the Agro-ecological zone, high land areas assure to fieldrnobservation sever rill erosion, sheet and gully erosion comparatively aggravate in high land areas, highrnrainfall/high run-off and steep slope (>0.5%) down-land based on the nature of soil type is luvisols ofrnhigh possibility of eroded(0.35), its severity increase from time to time. so, community integratedrnparticipation soil conservation practice is the priority concern.

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