Ecosystem services trade-offs in a Miombo landscape

Abstract

Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from the ecosystems. The ability of the ecosystems to continue to deliver these services sustainably depends on humanity ability to ensure that the extraction rate for each service does not exceed the ability of the ecosystem to replenish the service. This was a desktop study based on an actual 10×10 km landscape near Kilombera in southern Tanzania, mapped and quantified by the Vital Sign Project, was explored using scenarios of future development. Three land use scenarios were mapped in addition to the current (baseline) landscape which were transformed to commercial agricultural landscape, transformed to smallholder agricultural landscape and the untransformed (protected) landscape. The current landscape was used a baseline study with the various identified land covered inferred to various land uses. The flows of the following ecosystem services were water yield, water quality, fuelwood production and biodiversity habitat provision quantified under each land use scenario. The flows of these services were quantified using -ExcelTM models. The monetary valuation of each ecosystem service was calculated using the Natural Capital Project where the value of each resource was calculated as the Net Present Value of future flows at a 3% discount rate. This valuation was conducted over a 25 years period as this was the assumed asset life. The analysis revealed trade-offs between water quality and crop production; crop production and biodiversity; crop production and fuelwood production; biodiversity and fuelwood production.