Forest degradation, driven by agricultural expansion, overgrazing, and settlement dynamics, is a major global environmental challenge. The Lake Haramaya watershed in eastern Ethiopia has faced similar pressures. In response, multiple restoration initiatives have been introduced to enhance forest cover, ecological function, and biodiversity. This study applied geospatial technologies to evaluate land use land cover changes from 2013 to 2024, to assess the relationship between forest cover dynamics and the revival of Lake Haramaya. A hybrid classification approach was employed to analyze LANDSAT imagery (USGS Earth Explorer) alongside 2024 field data, supported by GPS ground-truthing and processed using ArcGIS 10.8. Between 2013 and 2024, water bodies of Lake Haramaya expanded from 179.7 ha (1.3%) to 245.7 ha (1.8%), while forest cover increased markedly from 1,318.2 ha (9.7%) to 3,023.7 ha (22.1%), and notably, although the lake dried up in 2017, its revival from 2020 coincided with the surge in forest regeneration. The findings highlight the critical significance of forest restoration in maintaining watershed health and ecosystem balance. Based on the geospatial analysis, forest restoration enhances biodiversity, stabilizes soils, reduces sedimentation, and supports Lake Haramaya’s ecological revival, ensuring sustainable regeneration of the lake ecosystem. These findings confirm the effectiveness of reforestation initiatives in restoring ecological integrity and assisting with lake recovery, while emphasizing the significance of targeted interventions and sustainable land management for long-term watershed resilience.
Gebremichael et al. (Thu,) studied this question.