Impacts of forest cover change on carbon stock, carbon emission and land surface temperature in Sor watershed, Baro Akobo Basin, Western Ethiopia Mitiku Badasa Moisa a, *, Indale Niguse Dejene b , Kiros Tsegay Deribew c , Mengistu Muleta Gurmessa d and Dessalegn Obsi Gemeda e a Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Wollega University Shambu campus, Shambu, Ethiopia b Department of Earth Sciences, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Wollega University Nekemte Campus, Nekemte, Ethiopia c Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Raya University, Maichew, Ethiopia d Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Wollega University Shambu campus, Shambu, Ethiopia e Department of Natural Resource Management, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia *Corresponding author. E-mail: mitikubadasa10@gmail.com MBM, 0000-0003-1788-0035 ABSTRACT Human-induced actions aggravate forest degradation and result in carbon emissions. Increment of carbon emission raises land surface temp- erature (LST) and contributes to climate change. The aim of this study was to assess the impacts of forest cover change on carbon stocks, carbon emissions and LST over the period 1992–2022 using geospatial techniques in the Sor watershed, Western Ethiopia. The results revealed that forest land declined by 336.6 km 2 due to the expansion of agricultural land with an area of 274.9 km 2 . Results show a decline in carbon stock of 58,883.4 tons/km 2 while annual carbon emission exhibited an increasing trend of 2,418,083.91 tons to the atmosphere over the past three decades. As vegetation declined, LST increased by an average of 3.7 °C over the past three decades. All actors, including government and non-governmental organizations, should contribute to tree planting and reafforestation programmes to minimize the increasing trend of LST and carbon emissions. Furthermore, we need to build a climate-resilient green economy to protect people from the negative impacts of climate change. Key words: carbon emission, carbon stock, LST, LULC, Sor watershed HIGHLIGHTS • Geospatial technology is used to evaluate the effects of forest cover change on carbon stock degradation. • Forest land declined by 336.6 km 2 due to the expansion of agricultural land with an area of 274.9 km 2 . • Carbon stock declined by 58,883.4 tons/km 2 while annual carbon emission exhibited an increasing trend of 2,418,083.91 tons. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits copying, adaptation and redistribution, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). © 2023 The Authors Journal of Water and Climate Change Vol 00 No 0, 1 doi: 10.2166/wcc.2023.208 Corrected Proof Downloaded from http://iwaponline.com/jwcc/article-pdf/doi/10.2166/wcc.2023.208/1272379/jwc2023208.pdf by guest on 15 August 2023