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Changes in Ecosystem Service Values in Response to Changes in Landscape Composition in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia

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Abstract

Land use/land cover (LU/LC) changes are pervasive having impacts on the total ecosystem service valuation (ESV) at the landscape as the conversion of near natural environments bring about drastic changes in certain ecosystem services. In this study, we first analyzed LU/LC changes over four decades by the use of GIS. LU/LC values were used along with global data sets developed for biomes to estimate the amount of total and individual ESV change for the study landscape and period. Sensitivity analysis was used to test the reliability of our estimation for the use of proxies. We found that, natural forests reduced by 40.21% whereas cultivated land increased by 32.42%. Other land use changes ranged within these two extremes. The increase in shrub land (9.44%), bare land (8.32%) and settlement (3.49%) were also enormous. We found a decrease in grass land (7.11%) and wetland (6.74%) followed by natural forest. Due to the change in land uses at the landscape scale, a total of $ 43.7 million/ha/yr ESV declined in the period 1973–2017. In terms of individual ecosystem services, the regulating services were substantially reduced, with climate regulation (3.15%) and water regulation (1.79%) contributing the highest value, while food production (3.03%) and soil formation (0.77%) increased. Sensitivity analysis of the use of proxies revealed that our estimation is robust and inelastic to the estimation technique used. The decrease in total and individual ESV in the study area and period calls for urgent action to be made to enhance the sustainability of ecosystem service provision at the landscape level with appropriate land management practices.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank and Wondo-Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resource for offering a scholarship to the second author and Ambo University for assistance rendered in the write up process of the manuscript to the first author. We also appreciate the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments on the article for further improvement of the publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College Institute of Cooperative and Development Studies, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia

    Terefe Tolessa

  2. Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources, Hawassa University, Awasa, Ethiopia

    Hailu Gessese & Motuma Tolera

  3. Collge of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia

    Moges Kidane

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  1. Terefe Tolessa
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  2. Hailu Gessese
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Correspondence to Terefe Tolessa.

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Tolessa, T., Gessese, H., Tolera, M. et al. Changes in Ecosystem Service Values in Response to Changes in Landscape Composition in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia. Environ. Process. 5, 483–501 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40710-018-0326-3

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