Changing Agricultural Landscapes in Ethiopia: Examining Application of Adaptive Management Approach

Amare Haileslassie, Wolde Mekuria, Petra Schmitter, Stefan Uhlenbrook and Eva Ludi
Additional contact information
Amare Haileslassie: International Water Management Institute, East Africa and Nile Basin Office, C/o ILRI-Ethiopia Campus, Kebele 21, Woreda 17, Addis Ababa 1000, Ethiopia
Wolde Mekuria: International Water Management Institute, East Africa and Nile Basin Office, C/o ILRI-Ethiopia Campus, Kebele 21, Woreda 17, Addis Ababa 1000, Ethiopia
Petra Schmitter: International Water Management Institute C/o Irrigation Head Office Yangon Compound Thitsar Road, Yankin P.O., Yangon 11081, Myanmar
Stefan Uhlenbrook: International Water Management Institute—Colombo 127, Sunil Mawatha, Battaramulla, P.O. Box 2075 Colombo, Sri Lanka
Eva Ludi: International Water Management Institute, East Africa and Nile Basin Office, C/o ILRI-Ethiopia Campus, Kebele 21, Woreda 17, Addis Ababa 1000, Ethiopia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-19

Abstract: Ethiopia has decades of experience in implementing land and water management interventions. The overarching objectives of this review were to synthesize evidences on the impact of implementation of land and water management practices on agricultural landscapes in Ethiopia and to evaluate the use of adaptive management (AM) approaches as a tool to manage uncertainties. We explored how elements of the structures and functions of landscapes have been transformed, and how the components of AM, such as structured decision-making and learning processes, have been applied. Despite numerous environmental and economic benefits of land and water management interventions in Ethiopia, this review revealed gaps in AM approaches. These include: (i) inadequate evidence-based contextualization of interventions, (ii) lack of monitoring of bio-physical and socioeconomic processes and changes post implementation, (iii) lack of trade-off analyses, and (iv) inadequacy of local community engagement and provision of feedback. Given the many uncertainties we must deal with, future investment in AM approaches tailored to the needs and context would help to achieve the goals of sustainable agricultural landscape transformation. The success depends, among other things, on the ability to learn from the knowledge generated and apply the learning as implementation evolves

Keywords: landscape; land and water management; ecosystem services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/8939/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/8939/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:21:p:8939-:d:435774

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().