Community Adoption of Watershed Management Practices at Kindo Didaye District, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Watershed degradation resulted in long-term reduction in the quantity and quality of land resources, which has negative impact on the livelihoods of the rural poor who rely on land resources. The overall intention of this work was assessing Community Adoption of Watershed Management practices at Kindo Didaye district, by taking 6%(40HHs) randomly selected households from the watershed. Through semi structured questionnaire, focus group discussion, transect walk, key informant interview with guide checklist, primary data was collected. By using percentage, frequencies, and chi-square (X2 test) data was analyzed. The findings revealed that almost all respondents (100%) have recognized the watershed degradation problem; and the role of watershed management practices as a response. The key finding of the research presents that due to different interventions the livelihood of the community was diversified and enhanced especially; income, crop productivity, forest cover, water and food availability. The chi-square test result showed that the factors such as age, education, family size, and transport/ market and extension service were positively and significantly correlated. It is concluded that the watershed management practice is adopted by the community as it plays a significant role to enhance household's livelihood, ecosystem balance and cope with climate change impacts.