scholarly journals Assessing the impact of watershed land use on Kebena river water quality in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalkidan Asnake ◽  
Hailu Worku ◽  
Mekuria Argaw

Abstract Background The impact of watershed land-use on surface water quality is one of the under researched areas in mega cities of the developing countries like Addis Ababa. The study examined the impact of watershed land uses on the Kebena river water quality within its seasonal and spatial variation and assessed the relationship between river water pollution and dominant land-use types in the sub-watersheds. Method The main land use types in the sub-watersheds were digitized from aerial photograph of 2016, and quantified for water quality impact analysis. Water samples were collected from the main Kebena river and the three sub-watersheds source and outlet points. A total of 128 samples were collected during the dry and wet seasons of 2016 and 2017 and analyzed for various water quality parameters. The study employed ANOVA, independent t-tests and multiple regression analysis to examine variations in water quality and assess the influence of the different land uses on water quality. Results Forest, built-up area and cultivated lands are the three major land use types in the Kebena watershed accounting for 39.14, 32.51 and 27.25% of the total area, respectively. Kebena catchment is drained by three sub-watersheds namely, Denkaka (44.9% cultivated land), Little-Kebena (60.87% forested) and Ginfle (90.44% urban land). The concentration of pollutants in the Kebena river was significantly higher (P < 0.001) in the dry season than in the wet season. However, when compared to surface water quality standards, both the dry and wet season water quality records are exceptionally high. The urban and forest dominated sub-watersheds contribute significantly high amount of (P < 0.001) pollutant loads to the river which is associated with high runoff from impervious surfaces and sewerage discharge to the river from nearby urban settlements. Conclusion Integrating watershed planning with land use planning is of paramount importance to address water quality problems in urban areas. Thus, in the urban dominated sub-catchment, land-use planning should aim to relocating river front communities, providing sufficient river buffer-zones and forwarding appropriate storm water management schemes. In the forested sub-catchment, planning should protect, retain and enhance the existing natural green spaces through open space planning, and management schemes while providing wide river-buffer with natural vegetation cover to minimize pollution load to urban rivers from agriculture dominated sub-watershed.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalkidan Asnake ◽  
Hailu Worku ◽  
Mekuria Argaw

Abstract Background: The impact of watershed land-use on surface water quality, especially in urbanized areas, has been investigated in numerous studies in developed countries, however, the issue is one of the under researched areas in developing cities of Africa. To study the impact of watershed land-use on surface water quality, we used the main land use types of the Kebena watershed from aerial photograph and collected river water samples during the dry and wet seasons for two consecutive years at different points from the river course. We calculated the share of each land use using ArcGIS and tested the water quality during each season. The variations in water quality parameters relating to the different land use types of the sub-watersheds were analyzed using ANOVA. Results: Kebena watershed is mainly covered by 39.14% forest, 32.51% built-up area and 27.25% cultivated land. At sub-catchment level, Denkaka, (agriculture dominated) sub-catchment with 44.90 % cultivated land, Little Kebena, (forest dominated) sub-catchment, with 60.87% forest cover and Ginfle (urban dominated) sub-catchment with 90.44% built-up area were identified. The variations in water quality parameters relating to the different land use types of Kebena watershed revealed the significantly high seasonal relationship between the concentration of the water quality indicators during the dry season at (P<0.001, P<0.05). Furthermore, there is a strong positive relationship between the urban and forest dominated sub-catchments and water quality indicators during both the wet and dry seasons than agriculture dominated sub-catchment.Conclusion: Integrating watershed planning with land use planning, therefore, becomes one of the vital tools to address water quality problems in a holistic manner to further prioritize restoration and protection strategies for specific sub-catchments. Thus, in the urban dominated sub-catchment, relocating riverfront communities, providing a well-designed sewage system, applying appropriate storm water management schemes, are some of the important measures while providing wide river buffers with various vegetation cover are necessary to minimize pollutants influx to the river from the agriculture dominated sub-catchment. Furthermore, in the forested sub-catchment, applying preventive measures to retain and enhance connectivity of the existing natural green spaces through open space planning, development and management schemes is crucial.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matjaž Glavan ◽  
Sara Bele ◽  
Miha Curk ◽  
Marina Pintar

Intensive agriculture causes nutrient leaching and accelerates erosion processes, which threatens the good quality status of surface waters, as proposed by the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive. The purpose of this study was to define the impact of two alternative agricultural land-use change scenarios defined in a Municipal Spatial Plan on surface water quality by using the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) model. As experimental area, we chose a small Kožbanjšček stream catchment (1464 ha) situated in the Goriška Brda region in Slovenia. The area, due to favorable conditions for vineyards, is facing increasing deforestation. The change of 66.3 ha of forests to vineyards would increase the sediment, nitrate, and phosphorus loads in the stream by 24.8%, 17.1%, and 10.7%, respectively. With the implementation of vegetative buffer strips as a mitigation measure of the current situation, we could reduce the sediment, nitrate, and phosphorus loads by 17.9%, 11.1%, and 3.1%, respectively, while a combination of the two land-use change scenarios would result in a slight increase of the above-mentioned loads, corresponding to 0.61%, 2.1%, and 6.6%, respectively, compared to the baseline situation. The results confirm that, as we can increase pollution levels with deforestation, we can also reduce water pollution by choosing proper types of land management measures.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Shu ◽  
Weibo Wang ◽  
Mingyong Zhu ◽  
Jilei Xu ◽  
Xiang Tan ◽  
...  

Abstract The coupling between land use/landscape pattern and water quality in river system varies across different spatial and temporal scales. It is important to understand the association between water quality and land use/landscape pattern across different spatial and temporal scales for the protection of water resources. Here, we measured seasonal water quality at 12 sub-basins in the upper reaches of the Han River (UHR) between 2010 and 2018. We conducted factor analysis and redundancy analysis to determine the links between land use and water quality at multiple spatial scales and to identify the main factors influencing water quality. We found that the concentration of nutrients, including total nitrogen, total phosphorus, nitrate-N, and ammonium-N were higher during the wet season than the dry season. Total nitrogen was identified as the main driver of nutrient pollution of UHR, whereas total phosphorus was identified as another potential nutrient pollutant. We also found that water quality parameters had a stronger related to land use types over the wet season than the dry season. Croplands and urban lands increased phosphorus concentrations of river water, whereas forest and grass lands decreased the nitrogen concentrations of river water at the sub-basins scale. Land use at riparian zone scales better explained variations in water quality than land use at sub-basin scales. The explained variations in landscape metrics were generally higher over the dry season compared to that over the wet season. The largest patch index and Shannon's diversity index were the main predictors of river water quality in UHR.


InterConf ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 413-421
Author(s):  
Jingyao Su ◽  
Simon Courtenay

Teck's Castle Project is the largest coal mine project to be mined in Canada. This article is an environmental assessment of Teck's Castle Project based on five valued ecosystem components (VECs) including: Surface Water Quality, Fish and Fish habitat, Vegetation, Local Employment, and Land Use. I proposed to use a surface water quality model to detect the degree of pollution of the water quality of the surrounding rivers and use an economic multiplier to measure the impact on local economic employment. Through research, I found that the water treatment facilities used by Teck Coal Limited can effectively alleviate the impact of the project on the water quality of the surrounding rivers, and I recommended that Teck Coal Limited wear protective equipment to protect their health when working.


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