Soil erosion is a major environmental and economic concern affecting all continents around the world. Soil loss facilitates land degradation, threatening both agricultural and natural environments. This problem is severe in Ethiopia due to its topographic features. To evaluate the effect of land use and land cover changes on soil erosion, we studied land use changes of the Hanger River watershed, NW Ethiopia, from 2005 to 2017, using remote sensing and estimating soil erosion using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation. The results of land-cover changes have revealed a decrease in open forest areas, grazing land, shrub land and grass land by 33.16%, 9.20 %, 3.22 %, and 7.62 %, respectively in a fourteen years period. In the same period, there was an increase in agricultural areas by 48.73 % and dense forest by 4.74 %. The estimated mean soil erosion potential in Hanger River watershed, between 2005 and 2017, was about 55.5 and 70.5 t ha-1 year-1, respectively. For the High and Very high classes, the values increased from 33.40% to 35.74% and 6.36% to 12.81%, respectively from 2005 to 2017. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is an increasing tendency for soil erosion in the area due to changes in land cover, particularly deforestation due to agricultural land expansion. This trend should receive attention aiming to keep the stability and sustainability of this ecosystem in the future. Management interventions are necessary to improve the status and utilization of watershed resources by applying sustainable land management practices for sustainable livelihood of the local people.