Seifu Tilahun

Bahir Dar University · Faculty of Civil and Water Resource Engineering

Improper implementation of conservation structures in the Ethiopian highlands in general and in the Yewoll watershed, in particular, enabled the existence of soil erosion at an aggressive rate. This research aimed to enable a better understanding of the hydrological processes of the Yewoll watershed in the upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia. Rainfall,...

For sustainable climate hazard management, climate information at the local level is crucial for developing countries like Ethiopia, which has an exceptionally low adaptive capacity to changes in climate. As a result, rather than making local decisions based on findings from national-scale studies, the study area’s research gap of local level clima...

In Ethiopia, soil fertility problem caused by acidity substantially limits agricultural productivity, necessitating sustainable integrated nutrient management. This study assessed the effect of combined application of lime, manure and inorganic fertilizer on selected hydrophysical properties of an acid clay Nitisols in the Koga irrigation scheme, E...

Engaging youth and women in data-scarce, least developed countries (LDCs) is gaining attention in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) arena, as is using citizen science as a multi-faceted mechanism for data collection, engendering personal empowerment and agency. Involving these populations in citizen science is a powerful synergy that simultane...

Engaging youth and women in data-scarce, least developed countries (LDCs) is gaining attention in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) arena, as is using citizen science as a multi-faceted mechanism for data collection, engendering personal empowerment and agency. Involving these populations in citizen science is a powerful synergy that simultane...

Nutrient enrichment from increased anthropogenic activities causes algal blooms and the proliferation of water hyacinth and other aquatic weeds. It is a recent phenomenon in developing nations where the link between water quality and water hyacinth infestation is not well studied. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship betwe...

Closing the yield gap and enhancing efficiency in rainfed maize production systems in Ethiopia requires urgent action in increasing the productivity of degraded agricultural land. The degradation of land through continuous compaction and decline in the organic matter has resulted in a wide-spread formation of a hardpan that restricts deep percolati...

Background For sustainable climate hazard management, climate information at the local level is crucial for developing countries like Ethiopia, which has an exceptionally low adaptive capacity to changes in climate. As a result, rather than making local decisions based on findings from national-scale studies, the study area's research gap of local...

Agriculture in Africa is adversely affected by the loss of soil fertility. Conservation agriculture (CA) was introduced to curb the loss of soil fertility and water shortages and improve crop productivity. However, information on how CA practices enhance soil quality and nutrients is scarce in the sub-Saharan Africa context. The objective of this s...

Abstract: Understanding the relationship between topography, hydrological processes, and runoff source areas is essential in engineering design, such as predicting floods and implementing effective watershed management practices. This relationship is not well defined in the highlands with a monsoon climate and needs further study. The objective of...

Estimating water supply through irrigation canal distribution systems is a crucial process for better water management in the irrigation schemes. This study aimed to develop an approach to predict the discharge delivered to unregulated irrigation canals (such as quaternary canals) from geometric and hydraulic information of regulated section of the...

Groundwater resources have a fundamental importance to satisfy the rapidly increasing agricultural, livestock and domesticwater requirements within the region especially in Robit watershed. Hence the quantification of this water resource is important for the efficient and sustainable water resource management. In this study spatial variability of i...

Perovskite solar cells are one of the most promising solar cell technologies, showing rapid development in power conversion efficiency (PCE). In this work, the performance and stability of triple-cation perovskite solar cells under continuous outdoor illumination in Bahir Dar climatic conditions and also the luminescence properties using steady-sta...

Enhancing performance of irrigation schemes requires an improvement in the timing and amount of irrigation application from head to tail of irrigation infrastructures. This can be achieved using non-invasive techniques using thermal imaging to assess soil moisture regimes and plant water status. An infrared thermometry with hand held thermal camera...

Establishing worldwide sustainable and phosphorus efficient cropping systems is urgently needed because the supply of suitable phosphate rock is limited, and excess phosphorus in streams causes eutrophication. One of the impediments in the developing world for sustainable P practices is the lack of studies on P transport and its eventual dispositio...

Today, several developing countries struggle to improve the cost and time performances of major infrastructure works due to various reasons. Cost overrun and delay are one of the major challenges being faced by the construction and infrastructure sector. Hence, the aim of this study is to explore the extent of cost overrun and schedule delays in bu...

This study focused to analyze the main human-induced land use and/or cover changes and their impact on the response to surface runoff from the Hayk Lake endorheic basin between 1989 and 2015. The investigation of Landsat images of years 1989, 2000 and 2015 with the aid of ArcGIS 10.1 indicated an increase in cultivation land by 137.74% at the disbu...

Climate predictions using recent and high-resolution climate models are becoming important for effective decision-making and for designing appropriate climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Due to highly variable climate and data scarcity of the upper Blue Nile Basin, previous studies did not detect specific unified trends. This study...

Discharge from basins joining a lake is the main factor determining the lake volume and sediment inflow to the lake. Suspended sediment is an important parameter for describing the water quality of aquatic ecosystems. Lake Tana is an important and the largest lake in Ethiopia for the local ecological system. However, environmental change and anthro...

There is an increasing need globally to establish relationships among flow, ecology, and livelihoods to make informed decisions about environmental flows. This paper aimed to establish the ecological foundation for a holistic environmental flow assessment method in the Gumara River that flows into Lake Tana in Ethiopia and the Blue Nile River. Firs...

Citation: Yimam, A.Y.; Assefa, T.T.; Sishu, F.K.; Tilahun, S.A.; Reyes, M.R.; Prasad, P.V.V. Estimating Surface and Groundwater Irrigation Potential under Different Conservation Agricultural Practices and Irrigation Systems in the Ethiopian Highlands.

This study assessed farmers’ soil and irrigation water management practices, perceptions, and major constraints at Koga, a large-scale irrigation scheme in Ethiopia. Key informant interviews, structured and semi-structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, and field visits were used for data collection. Soil samples were collected for the as...

Accelerated sediment concentration has become a pervasive feature in developing countries and has substantially impacted lake ecosystem functioning. Despite this, very few comprehensive studies have examined the changes in sedimentation over the time that agriculture intensified greatly with the increasing population. The study aims to fill this ga...

With the increasing climate change impacts and variabilities, water is becoming a limiting factor for rainfed crop production in Uganda. Conservation tillage practices could improve soil and water conservation in croplands. Field experiments were conducted for three consecutive seasons from April 2019 to June 2020. The experiments evaluated the eff...

Understanding irrigation expansion and its implications on water availability is critical for development of decision support tools for sustainable water resources planning. Irrigation expansion in the Lake Tana Basin of Ethiopia from 1986 to 2016 was examined using image classification from thematic maps and remote sensing imagery (Landsat5-8 TM/E...

Small-scale irrigation in Ethiopia is a key strategy to improve and sustain the food production system. Besides the use of surface water for irrigation, it is essential to unlock the groundwater potential. It is equally important to use soil management and water-saving systems to overcome the declining soil fertility and the temporal water scarcity...

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development addressing the issues of environmental degradation has been challenged by human developments and activities. Crop production systems and technologies (e.g. soil tillage) are among the leading factors causing environmental degradation. In this study, the effect of soil tillage systems (i.e. no-tillage (NT)...

Effective watershed planning requires an understanding of the hydrology. In the humid tropical monsoon climates and especially in volcanic highland regions such as the Ethiopian Highlands, the understanding of watershed processes is incomplete. The objective is to better understand the hydrology of the volcanic regions in the humid highlands by lin...

Lakes hold most of the freshwater resources in the world. Safeguarding these in a changing environment is a major challenge. The 3000 km 2 Lake Tana in the headwaters of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia is one of these lakes. It is situated in a zone destined for rapid development including hydropower and irrigation. Future lake management requires detail...

Volcanic highlands supply water to 40% of the world’s population. Soil degradation threatens this water supply. Studies on geohydrology that affect the effectiveness of land and water management (LWM) practices in reducing soil degradations are limited. To aid in the effectiveness of LWM practices, we conducted a field experiment in the Gomit water...

East African riparian countries have debated sharing Nile River water for centuries. To define a reasonable allocation of water to each country, the United Nations’ Watercourse Convention could be a key legal instrument. However, its applicability has been questioned given its overly generalized guidance and non-quantifiable factors. This study ide...

A nine-year (2010-2018) field study in the Debre Mawi watershed was conducted to understand the effect of governmentally-imposed and farmer-initiated conservation practices. The watershed is in the sub-humid Ethi-opian Highlands which experience high and increasing erosion rates despite years of conservation efforts. Consequently, reservoirs are fi...

Lake Tana is located in northwest Ethiopian highlands where intensive and traditional agricultural practice is dominant. The lake receives point and non-point sources pollutants from the surrounding cities and agricultural fields and its Trophic Status Index is shifting from mesotrophic to eutrophic condition. This condition of the lake favours the...

Lakes hold most of the world’s fresh surface water resources. Safeguarding these resources from water quality degradation requires knowledge of the relationship between lake morphometry and water quality. The 3046-km2 Lake Tana in Ethiopia is one of the water resources in which the water quality is decreasing and water hyacinths have invaded. The o...

Smallholder agriculture constitutes the main source of livelihood for the Ethiopian rural community. However, soil degradation and uneven distribution of rainfall have threatened agriculture at present. This study is aimed at investigating the impacts of conservation agriculture on irrigation water use, nutrient availability in the root zone, and c...

The Kiremt rainy season is the foundation of agriculture in the Ethiopian Highlands and a key driver of economic development as well as the instigator of famines that have plagued the country’s history. Despite the importance of these rains, relatively little research exists on predicting the season’s onset; even less research evaluates statistical...

Water hyacinth originated from the Amazon Basin and has expanded to other parts of the world since the 1800s. In Ethiopia, the weed is affecting the socio-economic activities of the people whose livelihood is directly or indirectly dependent on Lake Tana. Still, the area covered by water hyacinth and the impact of water level fluctuation on the exp...

Minasny et al. (2020) proposed enhancing future global soil science research by examining the role of soils in global ecosystem functioning. They argued in particular that meaningful collaboration between high- and low-income countries is essential to generate new knowledge and facilitate capacity building. In this commentary, we provide an account...

Gully erosion has many negative impacts on both cultivated and grazing lands in Ethiopian highlands. The present study was conducted in Chentale watershed, Ethiopia, to quantify the contribution of gully erosion, and to assess its temporal changes. Within the Chentale watershed, we selected a sub-watershed (104.6 ha) and nested gully catchment, and...

A field experiment consists of conservation agriculture (CA) and conventional tillage (CT) practices were set up in two areas, Robit and Dangishta, in sub-humid Ethiopian highlands. Irrigation water use, soil moisture, and agronomic data were monitored, and laboratory testing was conducted for soil samples, which were collected from 0 to 40 cm dept...

Sediment concentration of rivers in developing countries has been increasing greatly over the last 50 years due to the conversion of forest to continuously cultivated land with the increasing population. Few studies have addressed its effect on sedimentation and water quality of the lakes by analyzing bottom sediment characteristics. In this study,...

Understanding soil moisture at a small scale is beneficial for predicting productivity and management of both rained and irrigated agriculture in mostly smallholder communities. This study aims to accurately represent micro-watershed scale soil moisture using the optimization capability of SWAT (SUFI2) model and soil information derived from Sentin...

A problem of improving crop productivity is usually related to poor agronomic practices and scarce water resources but the poor gap in use of appropriate technologies within the farming system has also a role. In order to modify and design ergonomically safe, affordable, efficient and friendly tools that improving the farming system, task analysis...

Optimizing the use of irrigation water is of vital importance in conserving land and water resources as well as maximizing crop yield utilizing available water. Evaluating an irrigation system performance should measure and show the effectiveness of existing irrigation practice, provide remedial measures if necessary, as well as determining the imp...

The estimation of crop water demand and understanding groundwater use is an essential component for managing water effectively. Groundwater is the main source of irrigation in Dangila. However, there is a lack of information in the study area on amount of irrigated land, irrigation water use and demand, groundwater recharge. Consequently, the objec...

The effect of land cover and landscape on runoff and sediment yield was evaluated in the Ethiopian highlands. We selected three small catchments: agriculture dominated watershed, bush & agriculture dominated watershed and agriculture dominated but with higher coverage of bush & grass watershed compared to the other two watersheds with in 399 ha Ene...

Understanding soil moisture at a small scale is beneficial for predicting productivity and management of both rained and irrigated agriculture in mostly smallholder communities. This study aims to accurately represent micro-watershed scale soil moisture using the optimization capability of SWAT (SUFI2) model and soil information derived from Sentin...

The increasing population has put an immense pressure on our natural resources leading to water pollution and land degradation. The need for new agricultural areas, urbanization and industrial development have been responsible for resources degradation and pollution. Eutrophication can be resulted due to substantial driven enrichment of seasonal cy...

Soil water is an important variable in regulating and predicting hydrological process for optimal irrigation. Hydrus-1D was used to simulate soil water dynamics under overhead irrigation in Dengeshita watershed at the plot level. Experiments were carried out from October-February 2017/2018 and from March – June 2018. The treatments were conservatio...

Endosulfan, a mixture of α- and β-isomers, is used by farmers in the wet and dry season for khat and onion production. Khat leaf samples were collected in farmer fields at intervals of 1 h; 1, 5, 9 and 14 d after application. The dissipation rate of α- and β-isomers and residue level in khat were compared with residue levels in onion. The extractio...

Water security is one of the global indicators in sustainable development goals, which becomes the cross-cutting issue worldwide. Studies have been performed at global, national, and city levels to assess the water security issues. Since assessment of water security at domestic scale has not been done yet in developing countries like Ethiopia, it i...

Given the critical role of water in rural development, it is essential to quantify water use by various sectors. Reportedly, a significant water loss during the dry monsoon phase is by Eucalyptus trees in the Ethiopian highlands but few quantitative studies have been carried out. In our study in the Fogera plain near Lake Tana, consumptive water us...