Rethink the interlink between land degradation and livelihood of rural communities in Chilga district, Northwest Ethiopia

Background: Ethiopia is among the poorest countries where land degradation caused livelihood problem to its inhabitants. The livelihood of rural communities in Ethiopia is seriously threatened by land degradation. Land is the major natural resource that economic, social, infrastructure, and other human activities are undertaken on. Thus, land resources play an important role in shaping rural livelihoods, and lack of sustainable land management practices leads to land degradation. Thus, this study aimed to analyze interlink between land degradation and livelihood of rural communities in Chilga district, Northwest Ethiopia. It also addresses the factors which influence income diversification for livelihood of households in the study area. Result: The result depicts that the major causes of land degradation are both natural and anthropogenic. Land degradation and livelihood are negatively interlinked with each other. The livelihood of the majority of the population in the study area is dependent on subsistence agriculture both farming and animal husbandry with low diversification. The survey result showed that more than half (69%) of the sample households have farm size of less than 2 ha, nearly one third (31%) have 2.0-2.5 ha, and insignificant number of farmers have more than 2.5 ha. More than 80% of the respondents pointed out that land degradation has impacts both on crop yield and livestock production. Most of the explanatory variables such as gender, age, education level, farmland size, and family size have statistical significant influence (at P less than .01 and P less than .05 levels) for income diversification of households, while marital status on the other hand is not statistically significant though it has positive relation with income diversification in this study. Conclusions: Our results suggest awareness should be created in the community about the livelihood diversification mechanisms which enabled them to engage in different income-generating activities and comprehensive watershed management should be implemented.