Significant decline of ecosystem service valuation and carbon stocks
through changing land use patterns of Ayodhya hill range (extended part
of Chhota Nagpur Plateau), India
Abstract
Environment or natural capitals provide multiple ecosystem services
(ESs) and benefits to people. The approach of ecosystem service values
(ESVs) describes the market values of the ecosystem products or
services. The changes of ecosystem service valuation and carbon stocks
significantly dropped in Ayodhya hill range (extended part of Chhota
Nagpur plateau of India) due to rapid land use modification. The
principal objectives of this research are (i) to determine the
spatiotemporal changing pattern of ESVs through different unit values
(for the year 1975, 2000 and 2021) (ii) to analyze the carbon
sequestration through InVEST carbon model and (iii) to assess gross
primary product (GPP) using MOD17 model. The ESVs result shows that
total ESVs over Ayodhya hill range are 256.67, 258.60 and 239.78 million
USD for 1975, 2000 and 2021 respectively. Total 16.90 million USD loss
has been observed over the study area during the overall study period.
Cropland has the highest ESVs due to its high unit values along with
high proportion of area. Total 1000759 mg reduction of stored carbon has
been estimated whereas a sharp decline of GPP (97.03 gC m-2 year-1) has
also been observed during the research period (1975-2021). So, various
integrated sustainable environmental management techniques should
immediately apply over this nature based economic region for the
benefits of local tribal people.