Assessment and Identification of water potential area for fodder production through irrigation techniques in Borana and Guji Zones, Oromia, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The project entitled, “Assessment and identification of water potential areas in Borana and Guji zone” to assess and identify the water potential with enough catchment and suitable command area that can improve the sustainable fodder production of the land and livestock supporting the Borana and Guji Pastoral and agro pastoral System. The Borana and Guji rangelands were well-known for fodder production potential, However, this production is declined from year to year due to different factors such as; Physical factors namely; grazing pressure, human activity, bush encroachment and climate variability as well as Policy attention and good government are the others most important factors. The land use change and climate variability are the key factor for affecting pastoralists’ and agro pastoralists’ livelihoods that cause food and feed insecurity both Borana and Guji zone. Therefore, the main objectives of assessment confidential into three classes, firstly, to assess the water potential areas of Borana and Guji rangelands, secondly, to identify and classify water potential sources and their limitations both zones that thematic areas of mercy corps, Thirdly, to improve communities’ livelihoods and increasing adaptive capacity of societies to climate variability and environmental and others social negative events in study areas. The assessment was conducted two zones of Borana and Guji Zones. During the assessment four main offices were selected for interview at zonal, woreda and PA level, those offices were Irrigation office, Land use office, Pastoral Development office and Water office, these cascaded to woredas accordingly. After selected and discussed with those main offices, we had been observed two main important offices that could play a crucial role of arranging and facilitation for the assessments. We assessed twelve woredas and identified thirty nine water potential sites from Borana zone while four woredas of Guji zone were assessed and eleven sites were identified as irrigation potential. The result indicated 50 sites were identified as water potential in Both Borana and Guji Zones for fodder production through irrigation techniques. Our result showed that 78% of water potential sites were found in Borana zone, while 22% of irrigation potential sites were found in Guji zone. We identified four water potential or sources through different reservoir construction techniques such as micro earthen dams 22 sites, rivers 8 sites, ponds 15 sites and depth wells 5 sites. Our Result showed that 44% of water potential sources were MEDs, 16% were river streams, while 30% shows pond and 10 % shows depth well respectively. The total of 13272 household head can serviced from more than 6636 hectares, while 18280 household heads can be benefited from 9140 hectares from studied sites’ in Guji zone. Totally, about 31552 household head could be diversify and improve their livelihood through irrigation from 15776 hectares of land. We identified 50 sites, from the selected site 78% found in Borana zone, while 22% found in Guji zone. In Borana Zone, the micro earthen dam is the major source of water, than pond water and river water sources respectively. Finally, depth well is ranked fourth. We concluded that there are water potential sources for irrigation for forage /fodder and others purpose production in Borana and Guji Zone in studied areas. Therefore, we recommended that the different development agencies, NGOs, Government and private should involve in fodders and others production purpose through irrigation support to improve pastoralists’ and agro pastoralists’ livelihoods in Borana and Guji zone. Due to time limitation and security issues, assessment was not cover each of potential sites of Borana and Guji Zones. Further study will be recommended to cover each potential site of Borana and Guji zones.