Awassa Region Soil Biophysical Measurements Following 2015-2016 Drought

Biophysical measurements from Ethiopia's Awassa region contain soil data collected after the 2015-2016 drought and floods. The dataset includes mineral nitrogen, percent carbon, percent nitrogen, percent soil moisture, particle size analysis, and aggregate stability from 18 farms across four kebeles. It was collected by the NERC-funded BREAD project and managed by the Environmental Information Data Centre.

Use Cases

• Analyze percent soil moisture and mineral nitrogen levels across 'home', 'near', and 'far' field classes to assess drought resilience.
• Model relationships between percent carbon, percent nitrogen, and aggregate stability for soil fertility zone mapping.
• Compare particle size analysis results from two sampling depths (0-20cm and 20-50cm) to study erosion or compaction effects.

Strengths

• Data captures a specific climatic event, sampling soil after the El Niño drought of 2015/16.
• Structured sampling design covers 18 farms from four distinct kebeles (Asore, Lay Arisho, Konicha, 1st Choroko).
• Measurements include multiple biophysical variables like mineral nitrogen and aggregate stability.
• Samples were taken from three field classes ('home', 'near', 'far') and two soil depths for spatial and depth analysis.

Limitations

• Sample size is limited to 18 farms, which may not be statistically representative of the broader region.
• Data is temporally specific to the post-drought period of 2015-2016 and lacks a longitudinal time series.
• Geographic scope is restricted to the Halaba district in Ethiopia's SNNPR region.

Provenance

Source

Environmental Information Data Centre

Collection Method

Soil cores collected from farmers' fields after the 2015/16 El Niño event.

Time Range

2015-2016

Freshness

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Geography

Halaba district, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR), Ethiopia