Landholders’ Choice to Adopt Improved Watershed Management in the Lower Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

Watersheds are tremendously degraded worldwide, largely in developing countries especially in the Blue Nile Basin in Ethiopia. The degradation is due to several factors including pressure from land use and economic development. The degradation might be characterized by poor water quality, irregularity in water quantity, heavy floods that destroy life and property, sediment deposition in streams and irrigation canals; and sediment deposition on dams etc. Several researchers have suggested different watershed management interventions to end these problems, especially in developing countries. They include reforestation; construction of stone terrace; soil bunds; water harvesting technologies; and crop residue management. However, most landholders are not adopting these recommended technologies mainly due to socio-economic, institutional and policy-related issues. This paper empirically examines existing factors that are perceived to affect landholders’ decisions for adopting improved watershed management intervention technologies in the Blue Nile Basin in Ethiopia. A multi-stage probability sampling techniques was used to sample 300 respondents and a binary Logit model was applied to the data. Results indicate that education, farm size, fertilizer, tropical livestock unit, traditional local institutions, land security and distance to nearest market are found to be significant factors that influence downstream landholders’ decision to adopt improved watershed management technologies.