The impact of soil and

water conservation
practices on
erosion and sediment
transport in the Adere
watershed, upper Dire
catchment

October 2023
Addis Ababa
Presentation outline
 Introduction
 Methods
 Results/findings
 Conclusion
Introduction
Introduction: Juniperious procera

 In the Adere watershed

 There has been High rate of soil erosion.
 It is sediment source for the Dire water supply dam
reservoir
Grassland (encroachment)
 It is also a source of pollution due to use of chemicals such
as herbicides
 There is decline in soil fertility & decline in crop
productivity
 Biodiversity loss, and farmers poverty level is high
Active gully
 Baseline survey was conducted in 2021
- On soil and water conservation (SWC) and
- Farmers livelihood status

 SWC intervention started in Aug 2021 Dire dam

 The impact of the intervention?
-On erosion and sediment reduction when compared to VEI
sediment reduction goals (5-10% end of the project period
(2025)… how to assess impact/change???
 The initial plan of VEI
>> establish gauging station
>> unfeasible
 Challenge:
(1) No baseline stream data collected
(2) Difficult to detect impact with gauging
- Short duration (2022 to 2025)
- Sampling bias
- Poor sensitivity to local variation
- Sediment prediction from stream flow (ht)
challenge. Variation due to intervention
(3) Instrument availability issues and cost
(4) Sustainability of measurements
(5) Measures only suspended sediment
(6) Casual factors (SWC interventions) not understood
(7) Sediment variability due to annual storm variability  Benefit: Absolute sediment values can
(8) Met station at the catchment required be obtained.
 Alternatively we preferred to use sediment
and erosion models.

 Models show hotspot areas

 Less cost:
- no access bridge cost, Erosion/Sediment models:
- Low data acquisition (e.g. expert,
guard costs)  Physical/mechanistic models
 USLE
- No laboratory sediment analysis
 MMF (Morgan…)
- No met station establishment  Intermediate
required  InVEST
 Casual factors can be determined  Process based models
 WEPP
 LISEM
 MUSLE
Objective:
 Quantify soil loss/erosion
 Identify erosion hotspots
 Identify the underlying factors for soil erosion

 Quantify sediment at the outlet of the Adere watershed

 Identify main sediment sources/sinks
 Identify the underlying factors
Dire dam
Methods
Study site: The Adere watershed
No Name of micro- Kebelles Area
watershed ha %

1 Adere micro Bura maru Tulu korbecha 836 51

watershed (coded 4) and Chefa Kullo Huluko
2 Adere micro Bura maru tulu korbecha, 801 49
watershed (coded 5) Bura Didibe Kiki and
Dire sokoru

Total area (Adere watershed) 1,637 100

Population
HHS Population
Kebelle's Name
MHHs FHHs total Male Female total
Bura didibe kiki 316 69 385 1,519 1,487 3,006

Bura Maru tullu

kerbecha 367 59 426 1,649 1,615 3,264
Dire Sekoru 572 119 691 2,251 2,204 4,455
Total 1,255 247 1,502 5,419 5,306 10,725
Sediment values??

 Relative (Models?)
 Absolute (gauging station?)
The Sediment and Erosion model
used: InVEST SDR model

 InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs):

A suite of models that includes the Sediment Delivery Ratio (SDR)
model for assessing sediment export from watersheds. It uses USLE
and SDR to estimate
 USLE

Soil Loss(A) = R*K*L*S*C*P

where A is the computed soil loss per unit area (ton . ha-1 . y-1)
R is rainfall and runoff erosivity factor (MJ . mm . ha-1 . h-1 . y-1),
K is soil erodibility factor (ton . h . MJ-1. mm-1),
L is slope-length factor (dimensionless),
S is slope-steepness factor (dimensionless),
C is cover-management factor (dimensionless),
P is conservation supporting practices factor (dimensionless).
Input to the model
Limitation of the InVEST SDR model

The model gives

Input datasets for InVEST:
 Climate: CHIRPS
 Soil: Awash soil…. Geopedologic map
 Topography: DEM 30 m (SRTM)
 Land use land cover (C –factor) from Landsat OLI and Google earth
(digitization)
 Practice (management P-factor), GPS delineation and field observation

Types of data Resolution Temporal Source

Landsat 8 OLI 30 m 2013 - 2022 http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ and Google earth
30 m 2000 engine
SRTM-30 http://glovis.usgs.gov/
CHIRPS daily 0.05° (~ 1981 - 2022 ftp://ftp.chg.ucsb.edu/ pub/org/chg
5km) /products/ CHIRPS1.8/africa_daily/tifs
/ africa_p05_tif/
Rainfall (Erosivity, R-factor)

Erosivity (MJ · mm/(h · ha · year)

based on Hurni (1985)

R= –8.12 + 0.562
RF
Hurni estimates are much lower values when compared to
moore and lower left global R (GloREDa)
 No Reference Soil Groups Area
Soils ha %
1 Leptosols 1,383 85.00
(Awash basin
2 Luvisols 185 11.00
study database)
3
69
Luvisols (Extrapolated) 4.00
Total area 1,637 100
Soil erodibility (K-factor):
 Williams (1983)

LS –factor (30m DEM)

- combined in a single index
 Desmet and Govers (1996) for LS computation
(InVEST SDR)
0 and 781.162
Result
4.1 Baseline LULC
(2021)

area
Land use/cover
ha %
1 Grassland open on steep 549 33.5
slopes
2 Cultivated 533 32.6
3 Forest (Eucalyptus) 325 19.9
4 Grassland on seasonally
water logged 169 10.2
6 Shrub land 32 2.0
7 Settlement/Built-up 28 1.7
8 Bareland 1 0.1
Total 1,637 100
 4.2 Intervention area (2021-2023)
S.no Intervention type Sum of Area (m^2) Ha’s S.no. Treatment type Area (ha)
1 Area closure 440,099 44.01 1 Area closure 4.8
2 Physical SWC 973,885 97.39 2 Area closure + Plantation 17.8
Physical SWC + 3 Plantation 7.4
3 Agroforestry 202,505 20.25
4 Plantations 113,546 11.35
4 SWC (Physical) 178.5
Grand Total 1,730,036 173.00 Total 208.5

2022 2023
4.3 Potential soil loss (susceptibility)

Potential soil loss is computed in the absence of crop cover (C) and
management (P). Meaning, R*K*L*S only, without being altered by
land use land cover and management. This was computed using:
potential_soil_loss = Hurni_f1 (R)* k_williams1 (K) *LS
4.4 Soil loss
2021 2022 2023
 Figure: Soil loss (tons) classes with their respective areas

There is an increase in an area

of the low soil loss class
during 2021 and 2023 when
compared to 2021.
This was the result of the
intervention on class 4 (15 -30
tons/ha), 3 (5-15 tons/ha) and
2 (1-5 tons/ha) during the two
years period.
4.5 Summary of the finding
Units: Tons/watershed

Year usle_tot sed_export sed_dep avoid_exp avoid_eros

185,911.6 49,896.9 54,375.3 103,912.6 389,525.5
2021
166,987.4 43,963.4 47,770.1 95,476.2 408,449.6
2022
Diff (2021-2022) 18924.2 5933.5 6605.1 8436.4 -18924.2
10.18 11.89 12.15 8.12 -4.9
%
153263.58 40741.06 46276.99 97714.98 422173.47
2023
32647.99 9155.87 8098.29 6197.59 -32648.00
Diff (2021-2023)
17.56 18.35 14.89 5.96 -8.38
%

usle_tot (Total Soil Loss): In summary, "avoided erosion" and "avoided

sed_export (Total Sediment Export): sediment export" are metrics that quantify the
sed_dep (Total Sediment Deposited): positive impact of conservation practices in
avoid_exp (Avoided Sediment Export): reducing both soil erosion (usle_tot) and the export
avoid_eros (Avoided Erosion): of sediment (sed_export) from the study area.
Conclusion:

 Soil erosion using the InVEST model has provided valuable insights into
the state of soil erosion within the study area for the before and after
intervention of SWC activities
 InVEST model provided a comprehensive understanding of erosion
dynamics and hotspot areas
 The VEI assumptions of reducing sediment from 5 to 10 % over the
planning period (4 years up to 2025) is already achieved. Out of the total
planned 1032 ha’s intervention area inside Adere 381.5 ha’s (37%) is
treated.
 We would like to stress that efforts to sustaining the implemented SWC
measures is very important.
Thank you for listening!