A new version of this entry is available:

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Article
2022

Land use land/cover change reduces woody plant diversity and carbon stocks in a lowland coastal forest ecosystem, Tanzania

Abstract (English)

The East-African lowland coastal forest (LCF) is one of Africa’s centres of species endemism, representing an important biodiversity hotspot. However, deforestation and forest degradation due to the high demand for fuelwood has reduced forest cover and diversity, with unknown consequences for associated terrestrial carbon stocks in this LCF system. Our study assessed spatio-temporal land use and land cover changes (LULC) in 1998, 2008, 2018 in the LCF ecosystem, Tanzania. In addition, we conducted a forest inventory survey and calculated associated carbon storage for this LCF ecosystem. Using methods of land use change evaluation plug-in in QGIS based on historical land use data, we modelled carbon stock trends post-2018 in associated LULC for the future 30 years. We found that agriculture and grassland combined increased substantially by 21.5% between the year 1998 and 2018 while forest cover declined by 29%. Furthermore, forest above-ground live biomass carbon (AGC) was 2.4 times higher in forest than in the bushland, 5.8 times in the agriculture with scattered settlement and 14.8 times higher than in the grassland. The estimated average soil organic carbon (SOC) was 76.03 ± 6.26 t/ha across the entire study area. Our study helps to identify land use impacts on ecosystem services, supporting decision-makers in future land-use planning.

File is subject to an embargo until

This is a correction to:

A correction to this entry is available:

This is a new version of:

Notes

Publication license

Publication series

Published in

Sustainability, 14 (2022), 14, 8551. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148551. ISSN: 2071-1050
Faculty
Institute

Examination date

Supervisor

Edition / version

Citation

DOI

ISSN

ISBN

Language
English

Publisher

Publisher place

Classification (DDC)
330 Economics

Original object

Standardized keywords (GND)

BibTeX

@article{Ntukey2022, url = {https://hohpublica.uni-hohenheim.de/handle/123456789/16822}, doi = {10.3390/su14148551}, author = {Ntukey, Lucas Theodori and Munishi, Linus Kasian and Treydte, Anna Christina et al.}, title = {Land Use Land/Cover Change Reduces Woody Plant Diversity and Carbon Stocks in a Lowland Coastal Forest Ecosystem, Tanzania}, journal = {Sustainability}, year = {2022}, volume = {14}, number = {14}, }