Dynamics of ecosystem services (ESs) in response to land use land cover (LU/LC) changes in the lower Gangetic plain of India

Abstract

• Grid wise analysis have been done to minimize the generalization of ESV. • ESV from agricultural land and vegetation cover increased during first decade. • ESV from vegetation cover and agricultural land decreased during the later decade. • The elasticity of ESV change with respect to LU/LC change. The ecosystems provide a range of material as well as non-material services that contribute to human well-being as well as supply necessary resources for the organisms. The land use/ land cover (LU/LC) changes have been taken place due to several natural and anthropogenic reasons, which significantly influence the ecosystem services. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore the minor variations of ecosystem services provided by the particular land use types of the study area. Therefore, we have divided the study area into nine grids. The land use land cover classifications have been performed using support vector machine techniques (SVM) for 1999–2019. Based on the multi-temporal land use land cover maps, we have used the global coefficient value of 1997 and 2003 for valuation of ecosystem services for different land use types. Then we have employed elasticity techniques to analyse the response of land use land cover changes over the ecosystem service valuation. The findings showed that the overall built-up area has increased by 29.14% since 1999, while the overall water-body has decreased by 15.81%. Therefore, the ecosystem services provided by water-body have been decreased correspondingly and the 29.14% areas that converted to built-up area from others land use types do not able to provide any ecosystem services and the ecosystem service values become nil, which is not suitable for good health ecosystem. Therefore, the study can be the foundation to the planners and scientists to prepare sustainable plans for the management of local ecosystem based on minorly study on the impact of LULC changes on the ecosystem services.