Upland erosion processes: Assessment of soil erosion by water and farmer perception of land conservation

In developing countries in order to combat erosion, many soil and water conservation practices have been proposed but only a few, if any, are implemented by farmers on a long-term basis. Therefore, this study sets out to evaluate upland erosion and the farmers’ perception about erosion control practices and to identify factors affecting farmers’ land conservation decision-making processes. The book presents and discusses the results of the 15 surveyed agricultural fields and personal interview of 80 households conducted in the Debre Mewi watershed. To quantify the amount of soil loss due to rill erosion in the watershed, each rill’s dimensions were carefully measured to determine its volume and hence to obtain average magnitudes and rates of soil erosion for the fields. The result showed that the average soil loss in the surveyed fields was 36t/ha whereas USLE model predicted 39 t/ha. The knowledge and perceptions of the farmers about erosion problems and mitigation measures, their reasons for not carrying out periodic maintenance and construction of new conservation measures and conservations practices that are widely used by the farmers are also discussed in this book.