Area Exclosure as a Strategy to Restore Soil Fertility Status in Degraded Land in Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Land degradation is revealed in the form of vegetation and soil fertility degradation. It is becoming a major ecological and agricultural problem in Ethiopia. To overcome the problems of land degradation, area exclosure is used as strategy to restore degraded lands in Southern Ethiopia. The overall objective of this study was to investigate the potential contribution of area exclosure to restore soil fertility status. To achieve the objective, Mitija watershed was selected from Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State for the study. Soil samples were collected along transects from area exclosure for eight year and adjacent degraded land with similar landscape positions. Soil samples were collected from transects by systematic sampling plot design technique. The result showed that, Exclosed areas had significantly (P<0.05) different for all soil parameters except for bulk density, EC and pH. The high bulk density, sand, EC, and pH were recorded in the degraded site, whereas the rest of soil properties were high in exclosure. The present study indicated that the mean values of degraded and exclosure site of soil of OC, TN and Av.P were 2.21 and 1.61%, 0.19 and 0.14%, and 7.92 and 5.88 ppm, respectively. Generally, area exclosure has a great contribution to restore soil fertility status in the study area. Keywords: Area Exclosure, Degraded Land, Land Restoration and Soil Fertility.