Transhumance and landscape dynamics in northern Ethiopia

Transhumance between the Afar pastoralists and agro-pastoralist highlanders has been a common practice in northern Ethiopia. Despite its long history and direct effect on the interaction between the highlanders and lowlanders, no detail study has been undertaken on the impact of transhumance on landscape change in the marginal grabens of northern Ethiopia. Hence, this study has been carried out with the objective of examining the pattern and impact of transhumance on landscape change in the marginal grabens of northern Ethiopia. Spatio-temporal landscape change has been mapped and analyzed from aerial photographs of 1994 and Google Earth Imageries of 2011 and 2015 using ArcGIS 10.1. Perceptions of local communities on landscape change and the major driving factors have been collected using semi-structured interview and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and were analysed using Nvivo 10 software. Preliminary results reveal that transhumance has been increasing more in the Afar pastoralists region, mainly due to the recent drought. This triggered conflicts between the Afar pastoralists and agro-pastoralist highlanders, which resulted in displacement of people from their original settlement and led to the establishments of new settlements. Consequently, several land use and land cover changes have been observed in the area. Overall, the study indicates that increasing transhumance practices caused landscape changes in the marginal grabens of northern Ethiopia.