Abstract
The search for a sustainable land management has become a universal issue. It is especially necessary to discuss sustainable land management and to secure a site with enough feed supply to improve the lives of the farmers in the Ethiopian Highlands. This research studied the Adi Zaboy watershed in Tigray in order to reveal the changes in land management, assess how the different forms of land management affected the vegetation through unsupervised classification and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) analysis with geographic information system (GIS) 10.5 using a WorldView-2 satellite image taken in September 2016 and field investigation, and consider how to allow both environmental preservation and sustainable use of feed resources. The land management types at the research site were classified as “seasonally-closed grazing land”, “prohibited grazing and protected forest land”, and “free grazing land”. On comparing the NDVI of each type of land management, it was found that the seasonally-closed grazing land makes it highly possible to secure and supply feed resources by limiting the grazing period. The expansion of the prohibited grazing and protected forest land is likely to tighten the restriction on the use of resources. Therefore, sustainable land management to secure feed resources may be possible by securing and actively using seasonally-closed grazing land, securing feed by a cut-and-carry, and using satellite images and GIS.
Highlights
The search for a sustainable land management that can maintain the balance of preservation and use of environmental resources has become a universal issue
It is necessary to discuss sustainable land managements and to secure a site with enough feed supply to improve the lives of the farmers
The land managements were classified into free land, free grazing land, seasonally-closed grazing land, and prohibited grazing and protected forest land
Summary
The search for a sustainable land management that can maintain the balance of preservation and use of environmental resources has become a universal issue. The alpine region of northern Ethiopia located over 2000 m above sea level is made up of a steep terrain created by abrupt uplift in the Pliocene period (about 2.58 million to 5 million years ago) and the Pleistocene period The unstable rainfall and frequent drought make this region very susceptible to soil erosion and soil fertility decline. This is why the region has a high risk of Environments 2019, 6, 2; doi:10.3390/environments6010002 www.mdpi.com/journal/environments. It is reported that the croplands have extended to the steep hills with a slope of more than 30% between 1957 and 1982 [3]. Ethiopia is the country with the most livestock in all of Africa, and according to the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia [4]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
