The effect of land use/land cover changes on ecosystem services valuation of Winike watershed, Omo Gibe basin, Ethiopia

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) are fundamental to sustaining life on earth, although they are under pressure due to anthropogenic activities. The aim of this study is to investigate the trend of ES valuation (ESV) associated with land use/land cover (LULC) change. LULC datasets from 1988 to 2018 and the global ESV coefficient were used to conduct the estimation of ESVs and their changes through ArcGIS. The agricultural provisioning ESVs were also collected from the field to compare with the global ESV data. The total ESV decreased from US$481.85 million in 1988 to US$445.5 million in 2018, with a decreasing rate of US$1.21 million per year. Within this period, the largest ESV increment was observed in cultivated land with an increasing of US$33.47 million, and the largest decreasing was observed in grazing land with a decreasing of US$47.35 million. Based on local and global data, the agriculture land ESV were US$8,610.34 and US$1.34 million ha⁻¹ year⁻¹, respectively. This indicates a significance difference between local study and global ESV data. Overall, the decreasing of ESVs indicated that the environment is degrading due to the land conversion and this suggest sustainable development projects as intervention are required.

Keywords:

• ecosystem service valuation
• land use/land cover change
• Omo Gibe basin
• Winike watershed

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Center for Environmental Science, Addis Ababa University for their contribution.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Benefit CASCAPE project in Ethiopia for field data collection.