Ethiopia has an abundance of bamboo resources owing to its ideal environment for bamboo cultivation. However, a lack of comprehensive and accurate data on the status of bamboo resources and their socioeconomic and ecological functions has hampered the sustainable management of bamboo forests and limited their potential to provide far greater benefits. Therefore, this study intended to assess the status and role of the Oxytenanthera abyssinica (lowland bamboo) forests in the Lower Beles River Basin, Northwestern Ethiopia. To achieve this objective, datasets were collected from various sources, which include: satellite imageries, field observation and inventory, household survey questionnaire, focus group discussion and key informant interviews. Other datasets were collected from government reports, published literature and policy documents. A combination of pixel-based hybrid classification techniques and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was employed to analyze bamboo forest cover changes from 1985 – 2019. The drivers for bamboo forest cover change were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study findings indicate that bamboo has experienced significant spatio-temporal change over the study period in the study district. In the base year (1985), bamboo covered 5.1% (5,277.1 ha) of the study area. A significant decline in the bamboo forest had occurred in 2001 when the bamboo forests suffered the greatest devastation and shirked to 1.6%. In 2019, the bamboo had been rehabilitated from degradation and increased significantly. An interplay of multiple factors drove the observed changes in bamboo forest cover. Agricultural land expansion, wildfire, free grazing, lack of regulatory mechanisms, and expansion of settlement areas were the top five drivers. The dynamics of the bamboo forest was the reflection of local communities’ bamboo resource utilization and management practices. As a result, the perceived socioeconomic uses of bamboo and management practices were examined in this study. A combination of techniques: descriptive statistics, and qualitative analysis, were employed for data analysis. The results showed that a total of 10 services were identified as important socioeconomic uses of bamboo. Bamboo as construction material, traditional furniture, income, food, and medicine were the top five uses of bamboo as perceived by respondents and confirmed through quantitative analysis. Despite the wide range of benefits bamboo offers, bamboo forest resources are managed unsustainably and rudimentarily, impeding their sustainability and, in turn, the daily lives of the local people that rely on the resource. Aside from its socioeconomic role, this study estimated the carbon sequestration and storage capacity of O. abyssinica forests. To this end, a total of 54 circular plots, each measuring 100 m 2 with a radius of 5.64, were established to conduct the inventory in Assitsa and Eddida bamboo forests, the typical bamboo sites in Lower Beles River Basin. Biomass accumulation of bamboo was estimated using an allometric equation based on diameter at breast height (DBH) and age. To determine soil organic carbon, soil samples were taken from two different soil depths (0 – 15 and 15 – 30 cm). Results indicate that the mean biomass of the bamboo forests in the study area accounted for about 177.1 ± 3.1 Mg ha-1 . The mean biomass carbon and soil organic carbon stock of the bamboo forests were 83.2 ± 1.5 Mg ha-1 and 70 ± 1.7 Mg C ha-1 , respectively. The mean total carbon stock of the O. abyssinica bamboo forests was 152.5 ± 2.5 Mg C ha-1 with 559.8 ± 9.0 ton CO2 ha-1 . This study, in general, discloses the role of lowland bamboo forests in rural socioeconomics and climate change mitigation. In conclusion, bamboo forests deserve great attention, and the findings of this study point to the need for stakeholders to take steps to ensure the sustainable management of bamboo resources and enhance its socioeconomic and ecological function.