Human modified landscape structure and its implication on ecosystem services at Guder watershed in Ethiopia

Abstract

We investigated the impacts of landscape structure changes on ecosystem services for Guder watershed. We first analyzed remotely sensed data of four decades (1973–2015). The raster data sets of land uses were used as an input in FRAGSTAT to analyze the magnitude of fragmentation. Furthermore, the locally modified ecosystem service values to estimate the ESVs for the watershed were used. Results indicated that grasslands, shrub land, and forest lands reduced by 83.5%, 48.5%, and 37.5%, whereas the corresponding increase was recorded for settlement and cultivated land by 572.2% and 7.1%. Fragmentation analysis showed an increase in class area (CA) for cultivated land and settlement, whereas number of patches (NP) rose for forest land, shrub land, grassland, settlement, and cultivated land signifying the extent of fragmentation. The overall ESVs of the watershed decreased due to the changes in landscape structure. We recommend the need to take in to account landscape-level watershed conservation to enhance ecosystem services.