Conversion of land use land cover and its impact on ecosystem services in a tropical forest

Abstract

The tropical forest ecosystem provides society-wide range of ecosystem services, but increasing human activity changes the land use/land cover dynamics (LULC) with significant change of the ecosystem services values. The present study is considered to evaluate and monitoring of LULC change along with the ecosystem services of a tropical forest region in Jhargram block West Bengal in India during 1972–2019. LANDSAT satellite imageries (1972, 1987, 1992, 2002, 2012, and 2019) have been analyzed to identify the LULC change and to determine the ecosystem service values using the value transfer method. Based on the Maximum likelihood algorithm image classification techniques using Arc-GIS software v.10.3, the study area is divided into eight land use land cover (LULC) categories like forest, cultivated land, grassland, water bodies, settlement/built-up land, barren land, and sand. We found that forest land continuously decreased by 42.3% between 1972 and 2019 and cultivated land is also decreased by 31.6% from 1972 to 2019. Settlement and Barren land are increased progressively 1209.6%, 394.3% respectively between 1972 and 2019 respectively. The total ecosystem services in Jhargram block have been calculated as $30.52, $29.69, $27.03, $34.1, $29.2, and $21 million in the year of 1972, 1987, 1992, 2002, 2012 and 2019 respectively. The total ecosystem services have reduced by 31.2% due to deforestation. Variations can also be seen in the value of individual ecosystem service functions viz. food production, raw material, erosion control, nutrient cycling, recreation, and climate regulation, which are important contributions in total ecosystem services. The sensitivity analysis indicates that our estimated ecosystem service value for our present study is reasonable and robustness concerning the value coefficient. This information will be helpful for sustainable land use management strategies and policy-making processes in the tropical forest region.