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Geospatial and AHP Approach Rainwater Harvesting Site Identification in Drought-Prone Areas, South Gonder Zone, Northwest Ethiopia

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Abstract

Drought is one of the most pervasive natural disasters because it depletes natural resource, environment disaster and an ecosystem devastation that support all forms of life. Remote sensing and geospatial modeling can be used in investigation of water harvesting through a scientific approach, hence making decision easier and precise. So, this research uses remotely sensed data and geospatial modeling with analytical hierarchical process (AHP) to identify locations for rainwater harvesting structure in the drought-prone area of south Gondar zone. Different thematic layers have been incorporated into the analysis including soil texture, soil depth, slope, rainfall, land use, distance from road and settlement, and lineament density. The aforementioned thematic layers were assigned respective weights of their importance by AHP and combined in a GIS environment to identify the potential site. This study is important to improve agriculture productivity, animal husbandry, water management and sustainable environment. The results of this study are to prepare map of potential rainwater harvesting sites. This will allow to build dams to store water, which will be especially beneficial in drought-prone areas. The suitability map is classified into four potential classes, from highly suitable to not suitable. The results of the suitability analysis show that 20.25% of the study area is highly suitable, 66.66% is moderately suitable, 4.70% is marginally suitable, and 8.39% is not suitable. The result of a suitable map is very convenient for decision-makers and planners to quickly select the sites for rainwater harvesting structure.

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Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The researchers are thankful to Debre Tabor University for providing an opportunity to do this research.

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support they received from Debre Tabor University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Debre Tabor University, Debre Tabor, Ethiopia

    Endalkachew Sisay Yegizaw, Mulualem Asfaw Ejegu, Melak Abebe Tegegne, Workie Mesfin Walle & Solomon Enyew Shibeshie

  2. Department of Hydraulics and Water Resource Engineering, Debre Tabor University, Debre Tabor, Ethiopia

    Asirat Teshome Tolossa, Afera Halefom Teka & Tesfa Gebrie Andualem

  3. Urban Land Administration Department, Kotebe Metropolitan University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Tiku Melak Dirar

Authors
  1. Endalkachew Sisay Yegizaw
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  2. Mulualem Asfaw Ejegu
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  3. Asirat Teshome Tolossa
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  4. Afera Halefom Teka
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  9. Tiku Melak Dirar
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study design, acquisition of geospatial data, entry, manipulation and statistical analysis, data interpretation, manuscript preparation, literature search conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by ESY, MAE, ATT, AHT, TGA, BZB, MAT, WMW, SES and TMD. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ESY and MAE, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Endalkachew Sisay Yegizaw.

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Yegizaw, E.S., Ejegu, M.A., Tolossa, A.T. et al. Geospatial and AHP Approach Rainwater Harvesting Site Identification in Drought-Prone Areas, South Gonder Zone, Northwest Ethiopia. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 50, 1321–1331 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-022-01528-5

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