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Abstract
Water quality is a highly concerning issue as long as irrigation is planned to be used for crop production. Hence, groundwater at Bochessa catchment was assessed to determine the spatiotemporal variability of its quality and to evaluate its suitability for irrigation. For this study, 8 boreholes were selected and sampling was done during the dry and wet seasons between 2015 and 2017. Totally 48 water samples were collected from monitoring boreholes for laboratory analysis. Water samples were analyzed for 13 parameters including major cations and anions. The general linear model of two ways analysis of variance was used to determine the variability of parameters across the seasons and locations. The results revealed that about 46.0 and 16% of the parameters showed significant variation at P<0.05 across seasons and locations, respectively. This suggests temporal variation has a noticeable effect on the quality of groundwater. Almost all quality parameters showed a declining trend during the wet season. This also confirmed that how temporal variation influences groundwater quality in the area. SAR values in all locations were found within the limit and the water is suitable for irrigation. However, its values showed an increasing trend over time suggesting sodicity may challenge irrigation practices. Therefore, management practices such as; irrigation-fallowing, leaching, and choice of crops may help the farmers to maintain soil productivity. Key words: Agriculture, groundwater, permissible limit, quality parameters, suitability.
Highlights
Food insecurity issues in developing countries including Ethiopia make irrigated agriculture an important area of interventions
The results of laboratory analysis of different parameters were recorded and the mean values were from the analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each borehole, are given in Tables 2 and 3
Irrigation practice is a key factor to counter the problems created by a shortage of rainfall in arid and semi-arid areas of Ethiopia
Summary
Food insecurity issues in developing countries including Ethiopia make irrigated agriculture an important area of interventions. FAO (2017) and CSA (2018) reports indicated that more than eight million peoples were faced with the food shortage problem annually in dry regions of Ethiopia. Major causes that attributed to this problem are climate variability and extreme weather conditions during cropping seasons (Husien et al, 2017; FAO, 2017; Hadera, 2018). More than 80 percent of populations live in rural areas where rain-fed agriculture is the dominant source of household income (Edossa et al, 2014; Abduselam, 2017; CSA, 2018). This situation makes the livelihood of the farming community extremely vulnerable to changes in weather conditions. The use of irrigated agriculture is a key factor to counter the problems created by fluctuating weather conditions
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