Modelling Land Use Change Impacts on Ecosystem Services Under Changing Climate Scenarios

Abstract

Understanding how future land use change (LUC) interacts with climate change to influence ecosystem service (ES) supply is critical for sustainable land management in Pakistan. This study models the impacts of projected LUC under multiple climate scenarios on key regulating and provisioning ecosystem services across three ecological regions of Pakistan. We applied a combination of Cellular Automata Markov (CA Markov) and InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) models to simulate land use patterns up to 2050 under three scenarios: Business as Usual (BAU), Sustainable Management (SM), and High Development (HD). Our results show significant differences in ecosystem service outcomes across scenarios, particularly for carbon sequestration, water yield, and soil retention. Spatial distribution maps reveal areas vulnerable to ES degradation under HD, while SM scenarios mitigate losses and enhance services. The findings underscore the importance of integrating climate smart land use planning for sustainable ES delivery in Pakistan.Ecosystem services