RESUMO
The National Biogas Policy of Ethiopia introduces plans for the implementation of biogas technologies in rural areas. However, rural households' decision to adopt biogas energy technology has been influenced by different socio-economic and institutional factors. This research was therefore undertaken to determine the actual energy consumption status and factors impacting the adoption of biogas technology by rural households in northwestern Ethiopia. Primary data from 182 randomly chosen households and 15 key informants were obtained. Different databases, such as journal articles, annual accounts, and unpublished papers, were used to gather secondary data. The data were analyzed using social science statistical package (SPSS 21st edition) tools using descriptive statistics, chi-square test, and independent-sample t-test. The results indicated that about 84.2% of the households have been using traditional biomass fuels (fuelwood, agricultural crop residue, dung cake, and charcoal) for baking Enjera and heating while the remaining 17.6% of the households have been using biogas energy. The kerosene lamp, battery cell, small size solar panel, and biogas were energy sources for lighting. The higher installation costs, inadequate water availability, shortage of cow dung, and lack of awareness were the main factors that hinder biogas installation in the study site. An independent sample t-test result revealed a statistically significant mean difference of the average time spent (in hours) to collect fuelwood per week between biogas technology adopters (M = 9.563, SD = 4.697) and non-adopters (M = 11.887, SD = 4.703; t (180) = 2.539, p = 0.012). In addition, findings of the binary logistic regression showed that education, access to markets, heads of cattle, and electronic media were the principal factors affecting biogas technology adoption significantly in the study area.
RESUMO
Most rural communities in developing countries, rely heavily on traditional biomass for cooking and lighting. Furthermore, a large area of forest land has been changed to other land-use types like agricultural land is becoming a serious problem in Wondo Genet district. This situation largely contributed to deforestation and forest degradation. Hence, assessing the efficiency of adopting an alternative source of energy was found to be very important. This study was carried out to examine the role of biogas technology in fuelwood saving and carbon emission reduction in Wondo Genet district, southern Ethiopia. The multi-stage sampling procedure was followed to select sample households. A total of 152 households (54 adopters and 98 non-adopters) were involved in the household survey. Moreover, 25 test subjects were taken randomly from both adoption categories to conduct Kitchen Performance Test. Descriptive statistics and independent-sample t-test were used to analyze the data. Results showed that the major fuel sources for domestic use were plantation forest, natural forest, crop residue, and animal dung, accounting 46.71 %, 30.92 %, 15.13 %, and 7.24 %, respectively. Among the 54 sampled biogas plants, 32 (59.26 %) were a digester size of 6 m3 whereas the remaining 22 (40.74 %) were of 8 m3. The annual fuelwood saving potential of the technology was found to be 1423.06 kg with an emission reduction potential of 2.1 tons of CO2 e per biogas plant annually. Accordingly, all functional biogas plants were estimated to reduce about 91.63 tons of carbon emission annually. Generally, the biogas was found to be a promising technology in combating the pressure on forest resources and mitigating climate change. Therefore, the energy sector of the country should encourage households to adopt biogas plants that have more than 8 m3 digester size to improve the fuelwood and carbon emission reduction potential.
RESUMO
Climate change is a major environmental and socioeconomic challenge in Ethiopia in recent decades. The study site is one of the climate change prone areas affected by climate variability and extreme events. Therefore, a better understanding of area-specific and adaptation is crucial to develop and implement proper adaptation strategies that can alleviate the adverse effects of climate change. Therefore, this work was aimed to identify determinants of farmers' adoption of climate change adaptation strategies in Gondar Zuria District of northwestern Ethiopia. Primary data were collected through semi-structured questionnaires, observation, and interviews. Besides, the secondary data were also obtained from journal articles, reports, governmental offices, and the internet. The Multinomial and Binary logistic regression models with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) (21th edition) were used to analyze the data. The multinomial logistic regression model was used to estimate the influence of the socioeconomic characteristics of sample households on the farmer's decision to choose climate change adaptation strategies. The result showed that age, gender, family size, farm income, and farm size had a significant influence on the farmers' choice of climate change adaptation strategies. The result also revealed that crop failure, severe soil erosion and shortages of water are major climate change-related problems than others. In order to alleviate these problems, farmers have implemented mixed farming, mixed cropping, early and late planting (changing sowing period), use of drought-resistant crop varieties, application of soil and water conservation techniques, shifting to non-farm income activities and use of irrigation. In contrast, access to climate information, total annual farm income, and market access variables are significant adoption determinants of climate change adaptation strategies by farmers' in the study site. Therefore, we recommend future adaptation-related plans should focus on improving climate change information access, improving market access and enhancing research on the use of rainwater harvesting technology.
RESUMO
The study was conducted in Wof-Washa Forest in the central highlands of Ethiopia, aiming at determining the impact of altitude and anthropogenic disturbance on plant species composition, structure, and diversity of the forest. Eighteen transect lines with 632 meters apart from each other were established from top to bottom. A total of 115 main plots for all communities with 20 × 20 m, were established along transect lines from the upper part of the forest to the river's edge. To collect data on seedlings and saplings, 5 m × 5 m and 10 m × 10 m subplots were laid respectively within the main sampling plots. For each plot the plant species were counted, diameter at breast height and height of trees and shrubs were measured. The human disturbance data were visually estimated for each plot in each community. Plant community classification was made following Ethiopia agro-ecological zones. Plant species diversity and richness were found related to human disturbance and altitude. A total of 108 species belonging to 99 genera and 57 families were identified. The results revealed that Asteraceae was the most diverse higher plant family with nine species (8.3%) followed by Fabaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and Rosaceae with six (5.5%) species each. The overall Shannon diversity and evenness index of the forest were 4.02 and 0.86 respectively. Tree/shrub, sapling and seedling densities were 664.4, 757.2 and 805.7 individual's ha-1 respectively. The total basal area of the forest was 55.99 m2ha-1. About 25.7% of the importance values index was contributed by four species, Juniperus procera, Podocarpus falcatus, Ilex mitis, and Erica arborea. The similarity in species composition within the forest was low, indicating that the different parts of the forest had different floras. The presence of strong human disturbance indicates the need for immediate conservation in order to ensure sustainable utilization and management of the forest.
