The Cost of Land Degradation in Ethiopia : A Review of Past Studies

This paper reviews past studies on the
costs of land degradation in Ethiopia, with a view to
drawing implications for policies, programs, and future
research on sustainable land management (SLM). Given the
wide range of methods and assumptions used in the studies,
their findings concerning annual costs of land degradation
relative to agricultural gross domestic product (AGDP) are
of remarkably similar magnitude. The minimum estimated
annual costs of land degradation in Ethiopia range from 2 to
3 percent of AGDP. This estimate does not take into account
downstream effects such as flooding, suggesting that actual
total costs are possibly much higher than the 2-3 percent
range. A onetime occurrence of a 2-3 percent reduction in
AGDP might be manageable, but the cumulative losses to land
degradation over time are very serious for an agriculturally
based economy. Such cumulative losses represent a
significant drag on rural growth and poverty reduction and
jeopardize long-term, sustainable development.