Abstract
The study was conducted to investigate farmers’ perception of soil erosion, participation and adoption of soil conservation technologies (SWC) in Geshy sub-catchment of Gojeb river catchment, Omo-Gibe basin, Ethiopia during 2016. The study is based on a detailed survey of 77 households using structured interviews, field observation and focus group discussion. Descriptive and chi-square statistics were applied to analyze factors that affected farmers’ perceived soil erosion severity, participation and adoption options. The results revealed that about 79% of farmers perceived soil erosion problem and its consequences and 97.4% of them believed that it can be controlled. Almost all (97.4%) farmers acknowledged the presence of SWC technologies and about 92.2% of them were participated in conservation activities voluntarily. Thus, 93.5% of them realized decreasing rate of soil erosion and 79.9% of them observed an increasing trend in soil fertility status. Consequently, 94.8% of them confirmed the potential of SWC technologies to halt land degradation and improve land productivity. Furthermore, 98.7% of them were willing to adopt with very good adoption judgment and 94.8% of them were willing to continue maintaining constructed technologies in the future. Principally, farmers’ perception of soil erosion, their genuine participation derived from their conviction, and adoption of induced SWC technologies are the decisive elements for the success of watershed management interventions.
Highlights
Land degradation, is a gradual, worldwide negative environmental process and development and causes the temporary or permanent decline in the productivity of land resources’ capacity to perform their functions [1]
The results indicated that almost all of the respondents perceived soil erosion as a serious land degradation
Almost all of them confirmed that soil erosion can be controlled
Summary
Land degradation, is a gradual, worldwide negative environmental process and development and causes the temporary or permanent decline in the productivity of land resources’ capacity to perform their functions [1]. Water erosion induced soil degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is of concern mainly because of its consequences for subsistence agriculture, from which about 75% of the population derives their livelihoods [8]. Among the SSA countries, Ethiopia is the most environmentally troubled country which has a high level of continued soil erosion problem that seriously threatens peoples’ livelihoods [9] [10] [11]. These losses are primarily triggered by human activity that might be associated with rapid population growth and the need to maximize production [12]. Studies in Shomba sub-catchment indicated that the estimated mean annual rate of soil erosion in cultivated fields was 13.5 ton∙ha−1∙yr−1 that accelerates its rate beyond the tolerable level [20]
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