TITLE:
Impact of Land Cover Change on Water Quality and Stream Flow in Lake Hawassa Watershed of Ethiopia
AUTHORS:
Wolka Kebede, Mengistu Tefera, Taddese Habitamu, Tolera Alemayehu
KEYWORDS:
Discharge, Ethiopia, Lake Hawassa, Water Quality, Wetland
JOURNAL NAME:
Agricultural Sciences,
Vol.5 No.8,
July
8,
2014
ABSTRACT: Quantifying the hydrologic response of land use/land cover change (LULCC)
is of paramount importance to improve land management. This study was carried
out to analyze the effect of LULCC on water quality and quantity. LULCC of the
watershed in 1986, 1999 and 2011 was analyzed from Landsat satellite images
using supervised classification. Time series and
point data were collected from the upper and
lower sections of Wedesa, Wesha and Hallo Rivers. Water quality parameters (turbidity, suspended solid
(SS), total dissolved solid (TDS), pH, electric conductivity (EC), total
organic carbon (TOC), ammonia, nitrate and phosphate) were analyzed in the
laboratory. A considerable decline in forest and an increase in woodland were
observed in the watershed during the indicated periods. Turbidity, SS, TDS and
EC were significantly higher (P P