DYNAMICS OF SOIL ORGANIC CARBON AS SUB-INDICTOR FOR LAND RESTORATION IN ETHIOPIA: IMPLICATION FOR...

Land degradation is one of Ethiopia's most serious environmental issues, affecting organic carbon storage through lowering land productivity in Ethiopia's most productive soils. For the past three decades, forest landscape restoration has been widely performed through community and public resource mobilisation. Soil organic carbon buildup is one of the important sub-indicators for achieving Sustainable Development Goal-15, which is to make land fit for life by 2030. From 2000 to 2015, the dynamics of soil organic carbon were investigated using secondary data from the Trend Earth Global Observation portal of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification's Praise-3 portal (UNCCD). The dynamics of soil organic carbon in six land use and land cover classes were studied across the country's whole land mass. Ethiopia's total land mass is 1,119,715.5 km2, according to the results. Over 15 years, the organic carbon in 4,059.5 km2 has improved by 0.36 percent, while the organic carbon in 278.9 km2 has degraded by 0.29 percent, while 1,112,128.4 km2 has remained unchanged by 99.32 percent. The current study found that the overall rate of soil organic carbon improvement is less than 1%, owing to the fact that organic matter decomposition took longer from the goal year to the baseline year. The highest positive rate of change from target year to baseline year was analysed for artificial/ built up area (111.78%), while the least was analysed for wetland (0.46%). On the other hand, the highest negative rate of change was analysed for grassland (-1.48%), while the least was analysed for other land (-0.18%). Correlations indicating trends in the amount of organic carbon dynamics among land use and land cover classes showed linear positive associations, while cropland and grassland had a negative linear correlation. As a result, efforts to promote below-ground soil organic carbon storage through community and government activities must include area ex-closure, climate smart agriculture, and a variety of physical conservation technologies. This study concluded that improving soil organic carbon accumulation as a sub-indicator of Sustainable Development Goal-15 to ensure reversing land degradation and combatting desertification and drought is a very slow process.

Please see the link :- https://www.ikprress.org/index.php/JOGEE/article/view/7434