ASSESSING CHANGES IN ECOSYSTEM SERVICES, VALUES AND PERCEPTION IN SOKOTO-RIMA RIVER BASIN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Natural ecosystems provide services that contribute to human well-being such as food, medicines, fuel, wood, fresh water, and climate regulation. In spite of this, most natural ecosystems have been converted or modified into agricultural areas and other human land use to maximize single-purpose use. The study is to determined the spatio-temporal pattern of land cover change from 1984 to 2019 in Sokoto-Rima River Basin; assessed residents’ perception of changes in ecosystem service provision in the study area; and analyzed the impact of land cover change on ecosystem services in the study area. The research method used multi-temporal data (Landsat satellite images) to assessed the pattern of land use land cover, the information gathered from structured questionnaire ware used to assessed the changes in forest ecosystem services and types of services being used for their benefits and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) were used to analyzed the impact of land use land cover on forest ecosystem in the study area. The result shows that 1984 to 2019 forest area had decreased at the rates of 7.29% and 9.45% from 1984 to 2019, only 28% are more aware of ecosystem services. Also 55% of the respondents are aware of the forest area has been reduced. About 87.3%, 79.1% and 76.4% of the habitats were of a high quality found in 1984, 2002 and 2019. About 29.7% in 2019 having the highest percentage of habitats lost followed by 23.9% in 2002 and 13.7% in 1984 habitats lost. Human induced impacts resulted in loss of biodiversity services and degradation that negatively affected the delivery of other ecosystem services, there was trade-off between human induced land use and biodiversity conservation. Land uses such as farmland should find ways to accommodate biodiversity conservation