Abebaw is one of the three candidates being selected for an APPEAR scholarship in an internal competition process by the EduLand2 consortium. Since 2012, Abebaw is employed as a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Geography, Surveying and Land Administration at DMU. Prior to this he was also working at the Department of Population Studies at Gondar University and at the Central Statistical Agency in Addis Ababa. After finishing his PhD, he will continue his teaching and research activities at DMU. His PhD research is focused on the assessment of land information by means of remote sensing data to support rural land administration. “His findings will be an important contribution to meet the objectives of the EduLAND2 project in particular, and in general, to support sustainable land development in Ethiopia” says the project coordinator Reinfried Mansberger from BOKU. He furthermore stressed the importance of applied PhD research and locally undertaken field work “Abebaw collected ground truth data for the production of land cover maps, and he interviewed farmers and land administration experts about the strength and weak points of the in Ethiopia recently outlined land certification process, about their opinion on land consolidation, and about their needs on more detailed data about land”.
Currently, Abebaw is in his final year of his PhD studies and he recently published the following two articles:
- Analysis of Land Cover Change Detection in Gozamin District, Ethiopia: From Remote Sensing and DPSIR Perspectives” (Journal of Sustainability) Abstract: Land cover patterns in sub-Saharan Africa are changing rapidly. This study aims to quantify the land cover change and to identify its major determinants by using the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Responses (DPSIR) framework in the Ethiopian Gozamin District over a period of 32 years (1986 to 2018). Satellite images of Landsat 5 (1986), Landsat 7 (2003), and Sentinel-2 (2018) and a supervised image classification methodology were used to assess the dynamics of land cover change. Land cover maps of the three dates, focus group discussions (FGDs), interviews, and farmers’ lived experiences through a household survey were applied to identify the factors for changes based on the DPSIR framework. Results of the investigations revealed that during the last three decades the study area has undergone an extensive land cover change, primarily a shift from cropland and grassland into forests and built-up areas. The outputs from this study could be used to assure sustainability in resource utilization, proper land use planning, and proper decision-making by the concerned government authorities. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114534
- Effects of Land Certification for Rural Farm Households in Ethiopia: Evidence from Gozamin District, Ethiopia (Journal of Land) Abstract: Economic theory notes tenure security is a critical factor in agricultural investment and productivity. Therefore, several African countries’ development initiatives enabled land titling to enhance tenure security. This paper examines the effect of land certification on tenure security, land investment, crop productivity and land dispute in Gozamin District, Ethiopia. In addition, the impact of land certification on farm households’ perceptions and confidence in land tenure and land use rights is investigated. Face-to-face interviews with 343 randomly selected farm households, group discussions and expert panels are the sources of primary data. Quantitative data are analyzed using various statistical tools and complemented by qualitative data. According to the results, most farm households (56%) feel that their land use rights are secure after the certification process. The results should encourage policy makers to minimize the sources of insecurity, such as frustrations of future land redistribution and land taking without proper land compensation. Land certification is the right tool for creating tenure security, enhancing farmers’ confidence in their land rights and—supported by a proper land use planning system—improving land-related investments and crop productivity. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9110421
In 2017, Abebaw published the article "Farmers Willingness to Participate In Voluntary Land Consolidation in Gozamin District, Ethiopia" (Journal of Land), which was also selected as an issue cover of the journal.
Furthermore he got a scholarship from the Robert Bosch Foundation to participate at the European Forum Alpbach in 2017.
Abebaw Andarge Gedefaw is currently a PhD student in the Institute of Geomatics at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) in Austria. His research is linked to the EduLAND2 project, a cooperation between BOKU, Debre Markos University (DMU), Technical University Vienna (TUW) and Bahir Dar University. EduLAND2 aims to establish a Land Administration Competence Center at DMU, to conduct problem solving research and to train academic workforce. He got a bachelor’s degree in Geography from Bahir Dar University in 2003, a master’s degree in Population Studies from Addis Ababa University in 2008 and an MA degree in GIS, Remote Sensing and Digital Cartography from Addis Ababa University in 2012.
