scholarly journals Mapping the Loss of Ecosystem Services in a Region Under Intensive Land Use Along the Southern Coast of South Africa

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanlie Malherbe ◽  
Stephan Pauleit ◽  
Carsten Lorz
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Southern Coast ◽  
Quality Maintenance ◽  
Scoring Matrices ◽  
Intensive Land Use

Intensive land use activities worldwide have caused considerable loss to many ecosystem services. The dynamics of these threats must be quickly investigated to ensure timely update of management strategies and policies. Compared with complex models, mapping approaches that use scoring matrices to link land use/land cover and landscape properties with ecosystem services are relatively efficient and easier to apply. In this study, scoring matrices are developed and spatially explicit assessments of five ecosystem services, such as erosion control, water flow regulation, water quality maintenance, soil quality maintenance, and biodiversity maintenance, are conducted for a region under intense land use along the southern coast of South Africa. The complex interaction of land use/land cover and ecosystem services within a particular landscape is further elucidated by performing a spatial overview of the high-risk areas that contribute to the loss of ecosystem services. Results indicate that both agricultural activities and urban development contribute to the loss of ecosystem services. This study reveals that with sufficient knowledge from previous literature and inputs from experts, the use of scoring matrices can be adapted to different regional characteristics. This approach can be improved by adding additional landscape properties and/or adapting the matrix values as new data become available.

The impacts of land use/land cover changes on the supply-demand budget of urban ecosystem services

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Atif Bokhari ◽  
Zafeer Saqib ◽  
Amjad Ali ◽  
Arif Mahmud ◽  
Nadia Akhtar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Urban Ecosystem ◽  
Land Cover Changes ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Urban Ecosystem Services

scholarly journals Impact of Land-Use/Land-Cover Change on Drinking Water Ecosystem Services in Wami River Basin, Tanzania

Resources ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sekela Twisa ◽  
Mohamed Mwabumba ◽  
Mathew Kurian ◽  
Manfred F. Buchroithner
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Quality Of Water ◽  
Water Point ◽  
Water Ecosystem ◽  
Domestic Use

Land-use/land-cover changes are considered the dominant form of anthropogenic pressure on the environment, causing changes in ecosystem service patterns and affecting water supply services. Using the spatial econometric technique, we analysed the impact of land-use/land-cover change on water ecosystem services for domestic use upstream and downstream of the Wami River Basin. The results in terms of land-use/land-cover classes during the study period (2011–2016) indicate that cultivated land showed maximum positive changes in both sub-catchments, while bushland and woodland showed maximum negative changes upstream and downstream. The results showed that bushland, woodland, cultivated land, and grassland were significantly correlated with water point characteristics in both sub-catchments. For functionality characteristics, a significant effect was observed in bushland and grassland upstream and downstream, respectively, while sufficient water was found in woodland upstream and grassland downstream. Moreover, bushland was observed to have a significant number of water points with poor quality of water upstream, and a substantial number of water points with good quality of water were found in grassland downstream. We found that all measured land-use/land-cover changes and water point characteristic correlations were statistically significant; therefore, we concluded that land-use/land-cover change affects the water ecosystem in the basin. These results could facilitate decision-making and development of related policies and might support finding sustainable strategies for water ecosystem services for domestic use.

scholarly journals Ecosystem Service Values Changes in Response to Land-Use/Land-Cover Dynamics in Dry Afromontane Forest in Northern Ethiopia

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (23) ◽  
pp. 4653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Negasi Solomon ◽  
Alcade C. Segnon ◽  
Emiru Birhane
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
Northern Ethiopia ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Afromontane Forest ◽  
Land Cover Dynamics ◽  
Dry Afromontane Forest

Despite their importance as sources of ecosystem services supporting the livelihoods of millions of people, forest ecosystems have been changing into other land use systems over the past decades across the world. While forest cover change dynamics have been widely documented in various ecological systems, how these changes affect ecosystem service values has received limited attention. In this study we assessed the impact of land-use/land-cover dynamics on ecosystem service values in dry Afromontane forest in Northern Ethiopia. We estimated ecosystem service values and their changes based on the benefit transfer method using land cover data of the years 1985, 2000, and 2016 with their corresponding locally valid value coefficients and from the Ecosystem service valuation database. The total ecosystem service values of the whole study area were about USD 16.6, 19.0, and 18.1 million in 1985, 2000, and 2016, respectively. The analyses indicated an increase in ecosystem service values from 1985 to 2000 and a decrease in ecosystem service values from 2000 to 2016. Similarly, the contribution of specific ecosystem services increased in the first study period and decreased in the second study period. The findings highlight how forest cover dynamics can be translated into changes in ecosystem service values in dry Afromontane forest ecosystems in Northern Ethiopia and showed how specific ecosystem services contributed to the observed trends. The findings also illustrated the temporal heterogeneity in the impacts of land-use/land-cover dynamics on values of ecosystem services. The findings can serve as crucial inputs for policy and strategy formulations for the sustainable use and management of forest resources and can also guide the allocation of limited resources among competing demands to safeguard the ecosystems that offer the best-valued services.

scholarly journals The response and simulation of ecosystem services value to land use/land cover in an oasis, Northwest China

2020 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
pp. 106711
Author(s):  
Zhe Tan ◽  
Qingyu Guan ◽  
Jinkuo Lin ◽  
Liqin Yang ◽  
Haiping Luo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Northwest China ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Ecosystem Services Value

scholarly journals Quantifying Land Use Land Cover Changes in the Lake Victoria Basin Using Satellite Remote Sensing: The Trends and Drivers between 1985 and 2014

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 2829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robinson Mugo ◽  
Rose Waswa ◽  
James W. Nyaga ◽  
Antony Ndubi ◽  
Emily C. Adams ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Lake Victoria ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Land Cover Changes ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Lake Victoria Basin ◽  
Basin Scale

The Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) is a significant resource for five states within East Africa, which faces major land use land cover changes that threaten ecosystem integrity and ecosystem services derived from the basin’s resources. To assess land use land cover changes between 1985 and 2014, and subsequently determine the trends and drivers of these changes, we used a series of Landsat images and field data obtained from the LVB. Landsat image pre-processing and band combinations were done in ENVI 5.1. A supervised classification was applied on 118 Landsat scenes using the maximum likelihood classifier in ENVI 5.1. The overall accuracy of classified images was computed for the 2014 images using 124 reference data points collected through stratified random sampling. Computations of area under various land cover classes were calculated between the 1985 and 2014 images. We also correlated the area from natural vegetation classes to farmlands and settlements (urban areas) to explore relationships between land use land cover conversions among these classes. Based on our land cover classifications, we obtained overall accuracy of 71% and a moderate Kappa statistic of 0.56. Our results indicate that the LVB has undergone drastic changes in land use land cover, mainly driven by human activities that led to the conversion of forests, woodlands, grasslands, and wetlands to either farmlands or settlements. We conclude that information from this work is useful not only for basin-scale assessments and monitoring of land cover changes but also for targeting, prioritizing, and monitoring of small scale, community led efforts to restore degraded and fragmented areas in the basin. Such efforts could mitigate the loss of ecosystem services previously derived from large contiguous land covers which are no longer tenable to restore. We recommend adoption of a basin scale, operational, Earth observation-based, land use change monitoring framework. Such a framework can facilitate rapid and frequent assessments of gains and losses in specific land cover classes and thus focus strategic interventions in areas experiencing major losses, through mitigation and compensatory approaches.

scholarly journals Assessing Impacts of Land Use/Land Cover Conversion on Changes in Ecosystem Services Value on the Loess Plateau, China

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 7128
Author(s):  
Wei Jiang ◽  
Bojie Fu ◽  
Yihe Lü
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Loess Plateau ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Land Cover Changes ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
The Loess Plateau ◽  
Average Value ◽  
Value Changes

The Loess Plateau is not only a critical region that suffers from ecological threats but also a valuable region that provides various fundamental ecosystem services, including provisioning, regulating and cultural services to about 8% of the Chinese population. The specific natural environment and extensive human activities have led to substantial land use/land cover changes between 1990 and 2015, such as the decrease in cropland with the increase in forests and grasslands due to the implementation of the Grain for Green Program since 2000 and the expansion of built-up areas with economic development and population growth. However, the effects of these changes on ecosystem service values have not yet been considered. In this study, the approach based on a combination of land use/land cover proxies and benefit transfer is applied to assess ecosystem service value changes resulting from land use/land cover changes in the 1990–2000, 2000–2010 and 2010–2015 periods. The results reveal that the total value of ecosystem services has been reduced by $6.787 million from 1990 to 2000 and increased by $4.6 million from 2000 to 2015. The elasticity analysis shows that a 1% area conversion has induced average value changes of 1.03%, 0.38% and 0.05% in the three periods, respectively. Elasticity is developed as an indicator for locating unusual changes among different regions and identifying specific needs for ecosystem management.

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