Consequences of Temporal Land Cover Changes on Ecosystem Services in Babile Elephant Sanctuary, Eastern Ethiopia
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Land cover (LC) change has been identified as one of the leading drivers of change
in the ecosystem and its services. However, information on the impact of temporal land cover
change on the ecosystem and ecosystem services in Ethiopia is largely unknown. Thus, this
study examined the impacts of temporal LC changes on the ecosystem and ecosystem services
(ESs) provision in Babile Elephant Sanctuary (BES) during the period of 1977 to 2017 using a
landsat image analysis and questionnaire survey. In BES, woodland covered the largest area in
the year 1977, 1997 and 2017, followed by bushland and agricultural land. However, there was
a consistent decline in woodland and bushland from 56.5% and 31.1% coverage in the year
1977 to 45.3 and 27.2% in the year 2017, respectively. Agricultural land and settlements
increased from the year 1977, when they covered about 3.5 and 0.1%, respectively to 2017,
when they covered 17.3 and 3.4%, respectively. We found significant (p<0.05) differences in
the social perception of the positive and negative impacts of land cover change on ecosystem
services. The respondents recognized the negative impact of agricultural land expansion and
settlement on the ecosystem such as the provision of wild food, livestock feed, medicinal
plants, fresh water, fuel-wood, raw materials and climate regulation leading to an increase in
food shortage and vulnerability to frequent drought and flood. Therefore, it is necessary to
take urgent measures to prevent the losses in ecosystem and ecosystem services as a result of
land cover change that occurs because of human activities.
Copyright (c) 2020 Dejene W. Sintayehu, Awol S. Ebrahim
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