TITLE:
GIS-Based Multi-Criteria Evaluation to Identify Areas for Soil and Water Conservation in Lower Lake Bogoria Landscapes, Baringo County, Kenya
AUTHORS:
Mark Boitt, John Gathoni, Dickson Kaelo, Laurine Koech
KEYWORDS:
Conservation, Run-Off, Soil Erosion, Land Use Land Cover, Soil and Water Conservation
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.10 No.11,
November
21,
2022
ABSTRACT: This study was meant to ensure that there is proper and efficient
conservation of soil and water using geospatial tools to enable us identify
priority areas to carry out conservation. Over the past years, various fields
of study have established how critical it is to conserve these natural resources
in the ecosystem and to ensure sustainability in not only green livelihoods but
also to enhance living conditions of the life on earth. The aim of this
research was to generate high priority sites for establishing soil and water
conservation techniques in the Lower Bogoria Landscapes in Baringo, Kenya using
GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis. Various criteria were analyzed to
generate the final conservation priority sites, such as land use land cover, rainfall runoff, soil
erosion and slope. The criteria were assigned weights using the AHP technique
and overlayed using the weighted overlay tools to produce the final outputs.
Land use land cover maps were generated using supervised maximum likelihood
technique, rainfall run-off maps were generated using the SCS-CN method and
soil erosion maps were generated using RUSLE model. The final soil and water
conservation maps showed that high and moderate priority areas requiring the
establishment of techniques and mechanisms to control soil erosion and conserve
water increased from 1990 to 2020. In 2020, more than 50% of the total study
area was classified as moderate to high priority for water and soil
conservation. Soil and water conservation structures such as water pans,
percolation tanks, farm ponds and stop dams should be constructed in such areas.