Impact of sustainable land management on vegetation cover using remote sensing in Magera micro Watershed, Omo Gibe Basin, Ethiopia

The hydrological impact of many expensive investments on watershed interventions remains unquantified due to lack of time series data. In this study, remote sensing imagery is utilized to quantify and detect vegetation cover change in Magera micro-watershed, Ethiopia, where sustainable land management interventions have been implemented. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values were retrieved for the period 2010 to 2019, which encompasses before, during and after the interventions. Mann-Kendal trend test was used to detect temporal trends in the monthly NDVI values. In addition, multiple change-point analyses were carried out using Pettitt’s, Buishand’s and Standard Normal Homogeneity (SNH) tests to detect any abrupt changes due to the watershed interventions. The possible influence of rainfall on changes in vegetation cover was investigated. A significant increasing trend (from 1.5% to 33%) was detected for dense vegetation at the expense of a significant reduction in bare land from 40.9% to 0.6% over the analysis period. An abrupt change in vegetation cover was detected in 2015 in response to the interventions. A weak and decreasing correlation was obtained between monthly rainfall magnitude and NDVI values, which indicates that the increase in vegetation cover is not from rainfall influences. The study shows that the sustainable land management has an overall positive impact on the study area. The findings of this research support the applicability of remote sensing approaches to provide useful information on the impacts of watershed intervention investments.