Erosion risk assessment: A contribution for conservation priority area identification in the sub-basin of Lake Tana, north-western Ethiopia

Soil erosion is a serious environmental problem arising from agricultural intensification and landscape changes. Improper land management coupled with intense rainfall has intricated the problem in most parts of the Ethiopian highlands. Soil loss costs a profound amount of the national GDP. Thus, quantifying soil loss and prioritizing areas for conservation is imperative for proper planning and resource conservation. Therefore, this study has modeled the mean soil loss and annual sediment yield of the Gumara watershed. Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7ETM+, and Landsat 8 OLI were used for land use land cover (LULC) change analysis. Besides these, other datasets related to rainfall, digital soil map, Digital Elevation Model, reference land use, and cover (LULC) ground truth points were used to generate parameters for modeling soil loss. The watershed was classified into five major land-use classes (water body, cultivated land, grazing land, built-up and forest and plantation) using a maximum likelihood algorithm covering a period of the last 30 years (1988–2019). The mean annual soil loss and sediment yield were quantified using RUSLE, Sediment delivery ratio (SDR), and Sediment Yields models (SY). The analysis result unveils that within the past 30 years, the watershed has undergone significant LULC changes from forest & plantation (46.33%) and grazing land to cultivated land (31.59%) with the rate of −1.42km2yr-1 and -2.80km2yr-1 respectively. In the same vein, the built-up area has expanded to cultivated and grazing land. Subsequently, nearly 15% (207 km2) of the watershed suffered from moderate to very severe soil loss. On average, the watershed losses 24.2 t ha−1 yr−1 of soil and yields 2807.02 t ha−1 yr−1 sediment. Annually, the watershed losses 385,157 t ha−1 yr−1 soil from the whole study area. Among the admirative districts, Farta (Askuma, Giribi, Mahidere Mariam and Arigo kebeles), Fogera (Gazen Aridafofota and Gura Amba kebeles), East Este (Witimera kebele), and Dera (Gedame Eyesus and Deriana Wechit kebeles) districts which cover 50% of the watershed were found severely affected by soil erosion. Thus, to curve back this scenario, soil and water conservation practices should prioritize in the aforementioned districts of the watersheds.