Abstract:
The impact of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) change on soil resources is getting global
attention. The LULC change directly causes soil erosion due to different agents. In the study
area soil erosion by water was considered as a main agent. The aim of this study was to
assess the impacts of land use land cover change on soil erosion. Four study periods (1990,
2000, 2010, and 2020) of satellite imageries were used for the purpose of land use land cover
change detection. Five factors such as rainfall erosivity (R), soil erodibility (K), topographic
factor (LS), and vegetation cover (C), and conservation practice (P) were computed to
estimate soil loss. The result shows that bare land, shrub land and grass land were decreased
all over 30 years due to the expansion of cultivated land and built-up area. The present
finding shows the increment of cultivated land and built-up land over 30 years in the study
areas. This result indicated the expansion of cultivated land and built-up area at the expense
of forest, shrub land, and grass land. The average annual soil loss of the study areas were
estimated 35.53ton/ha/yr, 28.71ton/ha/yr, 36.09ton/ha/yr, and 35.66ton/ha/yr in 1990, 2000,
2010, and 2020 respectively. According to the result, 55.9% of the land area falls into very
low to low soil erosion risk, and 16.01%, 8.94%, 11.11%, and 8.05% of the areas falls into
moderate, high, very high and severe soil erosion risk classes respectively over 30 years.
Cultivated land and built up area were the main cause of the soil erosion in the study areas.
It can be recommended that the areas fall into moderate to severe soil erosion risk needs
strong conservation practice by Adama Woreda Office of Agriculture, NGO’s and farmers to
rehabilitate the areas prone to erosion to rehabilitate areas prone to erosion.
