Impact of resettlement schemes on land use land cover, woody species diversity and selected soil properties under different land use: the case of borecha district, south west ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopian government sponsored resettlement programs that were carried out during 1984/85. Ressettlement is caused to damage the environment by clearing large areas of forest. To build homesteads, to acquire farmland, and to construct access roads. Lack of current knowledge of the extent and magnitude of land use and land cover change due to resettlement to promote sustainable land management encouraged the production of this research. Therefore the, aim of this study is to assess the impact of resettlement schemes on land use land cover, woody species diversity and soil carbon under different land use in Borecha district, south west Ethiopia. A satellite image from land sat of 1986 TM, 2002 ETM+ and OLI, 2018 was used to generate land cover map. To generate information focus group discussion, key informant interview were used. For land USE land cover analyses ERDAS imagine software 2015 version was used. The SPSS version 20 was used for Shannon diversity index data analysis. Transact lines of 200m apart were used along which 20m*20m plots at 100m interval were taken to identify tree species composition and diversity. Soil laboratory analysis and statical analysis used for selected soil properties under different land use. The results of the study were shows that between 1986 to 2018 forest in the study area decreased from, 2936ha (16.3%) to 1557 ha (8.61%) with rate change of -43. 8ha /year. From 1986 to 2018 the forest was lost by net change of -1379ha (-11.9%) for indicated period in study area.The Cultivated increased from 6584ha (36.4%) to 12, 227ha (67.64%).Cultivated land increased by net change of 5,640ha with annual expansion rate of 47.7% in the study area. The result shows that Shannon diversity index woody vegetation for forest 3.38 and evenness 0.53, agroforestery 2.69 evenness 0.42, cultivated land 1.93 evenness 0.33 and grazing land 2.12 and evenness 0.39 respectively. The highest result of soil organic carbon was found in forest and while, the highest soil bulk density values was observed in crop land. Conservation management was need for some species such as Cordia africana, Prunus africana and Ekebegia capensis which endangered because they have been extracted for timber and other purposes by the resettlers. The future prospect of this study should be Government and NGOs important to minimize forest burdens by expansion of electricity, biogas and encourage the modern stove for resident community for energy sources