Quantifying ecosystem service fluctuations in response to land cover
conversion and climate extremes as an index of ecosystem degradation and
restoration.
Abstract
Changes in key ecosystem service parameters (Water balance residual
(eWBR), Carbon storage (CS) and carbon sequestration (C.Seq)),and their
response to land cover conversions and climate variability as an index
of ecosystem restoration and degradation, in arid and semi-arid
endorheic inland basins, vis-à-vis the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) remained underexplored. Thus, this study used the multi-layer
perceptron model to simulate and predict land cover changes (LCC), the
CASA-GRAMI, the InVEST, and Hargreaves-Sumani models estimated the
ecosystem services. Whereas, the Ordinary Least Square Regression
predicted changes in ecosystem services from anthropo-climatic factors
while the Theil-Sen slopes, pixel correlations, and the advanced
geostatistical methods examined the trends and responses of ecosystem
services to land conversions and climate extremes. The results revealed
degraded baseline condition in C.Seq and CS coefficients for LCB and ASB
(1.858 and -0.025 and -0.002). In LCB, temperature and NDVI predicted a
decreased eWBR, while, precipitation and LCC predicted a decreased CS.
Also, the depletion of shrublands occasioned by its conversion to
cropland degraded CS and C.Seq, opposing the SDGS. Furthermore,
increased precipitation restored CS and C.Seq and vice versa.
Contrastingly, in ASB, the temperature and precipitation predicted an
increase eWBR, while the temperature predicted a decrease in CS.
Furthermore, the conversion of bareland and grassland to cropland
restored CS and C.Seq, as well as, reduced precipitation restored CS due
to snowmelt and temperature increase. Temperature increases in LCB
degrades CS and eWBR, while in ASB, it restores CS and carbon sink. The
findings underscore the importance of adaptive and sustainable land and
water management, climate strategies, and continuous monitoring of land
cover changes to enhance ecosystem services and health to meet the SDGs
through Inter-regional cooperation and knowledge sharing.