Although enriched biodiversity and ecological services, most of Ethiopia’s protected areas currently operate at minimum functionality status with terrible biodiversity loss due to anthropogenic‑driven land use change(LUC) and degradation. Despite efforts made to quantify a few aspects, there is no full information regarding the entire LUC patterns and processes which are vital for better understanding and feasible interventions. This study quantified the LUC characteristics compressively at interval, category and transition levels(1986 to 2002 and 2002 to 2020) in Nechsar National Park(NNP) using intensity analysis model, based on the area coverage data of six land types extracted from Landsat imageries. Results revealed ≈78% of the study area exhibited LUC, of which 50.41% was net change during the last 34 years. The change intensity was faster(1.8%) in 2^nd time interval than 1^st (1.7%). Besides >82% persistent land, net gain was observed in bush/shrub(147%), cultivated(127%) and water(15%) at the cost of 39%(10435ha) net loss from woodland, forest and grassland. The most active gain of cultivated and bush/shrub was intensively targeted forest and woodland, respectively, and avoided others. Beyond losing ≈50% of land, woodland followed by forest experienced the most active loss, profoundly attributed to the intensiveness of the drivers rather than area proportion, while its gain was dormant. Generally, the study indicates NNP has been under serious transition processes with negative implications for biodiversity and ecosystem services. It also provides adequate evidence regarding stationarities, highly vulnerable ecosystems and targeted interventions to sustain and scale up the parks’ functionality.

Abstract: Severe land degradation is the principal environmental problem in Ethiopian highlands in the form of soil erosion, and soil fertility loss, which is caused by human intervention for food, shelter, and energy demands. Soil erosion contributes to the loss of precious soil and water resources which are the basis of agricultural production and provide numerous other eco-system services. The Ethiopian highlands are one of the most degraded regions in the world. To combat such problems, the government of Ethiopia has been implementing massive soil and water conservation works at the watershed scale since 2010 to conserve soil and water resources. Mount Yewel is one of the highlands in Northeastern Ethiopia where intensive soil and water conserva-tion has been implemented. Despite the massive investment in soil and water conservation measures, most of the rivers in the highlands of Ethiopia carry huge amounts of sediment with high flood risks in the wet season and streams are dried up in the dry period. Nonetheless, the impact of soil and water conservation measures on flood reduction and dry season flow en-hancement has not yet been quantified and evaluated. This research was then conducted on paired micro-catchments of Mount Yewel with the main objective of evaluating the impact of soil and water conservation measures on base flow modification. Stream flow and rainfall data were col-lected from 22/11/2020 to 8/11/2022 on paired micro-catchments of Mount Yewel at their outlets and centers respectively. Base flow separation was done from the stream hydrograph using Sp. Hydro base flow separation tool and SPSS Ver.21 statistical software were employed for data analysis. Flow duration curves (FDC) for both watersheds were developed to compare the stream flow patterns between treated and untreated micro-catchments of Mount Yewel. The FDC indi-cated that the base flow from treated micro-catchment is higher and sustained in the dry season while it is low and unsustained in untreated micro-catchment. From statistical analysis, there is a significant (P