Assessment Of Climate Change Effect On Soil Erosion Using Rusle Model And Gis Spatial Tools In The Case Of Agafarie Watershed, Northern Ethiopia

Soil erosion by water is the major form of land degradation in Agafarie watershed. The integration of RUSLE model and GIS spatial tool was used for the estimation of historic and projected soil loss. Hence, this study aimed to quantifying soil erosion rate under Historic climate condition (1990-2023) and quantifying projected soil erosion rate under different climate scenario (2024 – 2100). The RUSLE factors such as rainfall erosivity (R), soil erodibility (K), topography (LS), cover and management (C), and support and conservation practices (P) factors will be computed and over-laid to estimate the soil loss. The CMIP6 climate models projected climate data under various climate change scenarios of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs); SSPs2 4.5 and SSPs5 8.5 were used to quantify effect of climate changes in soil erosion rates. The result showed that the historic annual soil loss rate of the watershed ranged up to 197.45 t ha-1 year-1 with mean soil loss 40.77ton/ha/year. The annual soil loss under projected climate scenario of SSPs2 4.5 ranged from 0 t ha-1 year-1 to 207.54 t ha-1 year-1 (2024 – 2049), 0 t ha-1 year-1 to 210.76 t ha-1 year-1 (2050 – 2075), 0 t ha-1 year-1 to 205.611 t ha-1 year-1 (2076 – 2100); with mean annual soil loss 40.96, 41.59, 40.58 ton/ha/year respectively. Soil Loss in SSPs5 8.5 ranges from 0 t ha-1 year-1 to 220.12 t ha-1 year-1 (2024 – 2049), 0 t ha-1 year-1 to 231.72 t ha-1 year-1 (2050 – 2075), 0 t ha-1 year-1 to 228.54 t ha-1 year-1 (2076 – 2100); with mean annual soil loss 43.44, 45.75, 45.11 respectively. Thus, the study finding was very supportive to stakeholder or policy maker for proper planning and implementation of soil and water consideration in watershed.