Impact of Land Use/Cover Change on Ecosystem Service Values in the Kilombero Valley Floodplain, Southeastern Tanzania

Abstract

Land use/cover change (LUCC) attributed to natural factors and human activities has led to the loss of ecosystem services, making the quantitative valuation of ecosystem services the scientific focal pointfor sustainable development. This study assessed changes in the ecosystem services values (ESVs) due to LUCC during the period 1990–2016 in the Kilombero Valley floodplain, located in southeastern Tanzania. Moderate resolution Landsat images from 1990, 2010 and 2016 were obtained and analyzed using a random forest (RF) algorithm for classification, and ArcGIS Desktop software (version 10.2, Esri, Redlands, CA, USA) for mapping to assess the LUCC. The ESVs were estimated based on the benefit transfer approach using adopted global value coefficients and modified local value coefficients. The results revealed that the aggregated ESVs of the forests, bushlands, wetlands, and water had decreased, consequently leading to a total loss of US$ 811.5 million (26.6%) in ESVs over the past 26 years when calculated with the modified local value coefficients to US$ 3000.7 million (42.3%) when calculated with global value coefficients. Moreover, the loss in the ESV was attributed to the decreased values of water regulation, climate regulation, erosion control, nutrient cyclying, habitat/refugia, and water supply, with the exception of the values of food production and biological control, which gradually increased during the study period. This study provided minimum estimates of the ecosystem service values, which willcontribute to the formulation of policy actions and strategies for sustainable management of the Kilombero Valley floodplain and inform various stakeholders on the tradeoffs involved in the use of land resources.

Spatio-Temporal Changes of Land-Use/Land Cover Change and the Effects on Ecosystem Service Values in Derong County, China, from 1992–2018

“…Optimizing land-use structure and protecting natural ecosystems will help increase the ESV. Ecological protection projects are critical to increase the ESV [23]. In this study, deforestation has been shown to have a gigantic impact on the ESV, during 1992-1995, the forestland decreased by 38782.36 hm 2 and ESV decreased by 14.36 × 10 8 yuan.…”

Long-Term Land Use/Land Cover Change Assessment of the Kilombero Catchment in Tanzania Using Random Forest Classification and Robust Change Vector Analysis

“…Our LULC maps are integral part of it, and continuous monitoring may support those efforts [20]. LULC often results in extensive loss of ecosystem services [23,109]. Hence, our LULC change assessment may serve to quantifying related ecosystem services.…”

“…Catchment-wide studies are rare, in particular in East Africa. LULC change in the Kilombero valley was addressed in several case studies [6,12,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Only a few of these studies explored the whole catchment and only few provided an exhaustive evaluation of the generated LULC change maps.…”

Analysis and Prediction of Ecosystem Service Values Based on Land Use/Cover Change in the Yiluo River Basin

“…One is based on primary data, the ecological processes and functions that constitute ES are quantified by the ecological model, and then evaluates the economic values of ES. Such a method is performed on one or a few kinds of services rather than the comprehensive ESVs [19][20][21]. The other is the equivalent coefficient method, where ESVs are estimated based on the equivalent coefficient of various ecosystem services and combined with the unit area of the ecosystem [16,22,23].…”