Quantifying ecosystem service interactions to support environmental restoration in a tropical semi arid basin

Understanding the role of ecosystem services (ESs) within environmental management has become a critical issue of the twenty-first century. This is because scientific study of ES interactions can aid effective planning and management of ESs, thus curtailing degradation and enhancing restoration. In this study, ES interactions of the climate-sensitive West African Sokoto-Rima basin were quantified using land cover and a series of GIS-derived data as inputs into the InVEST model. Crop production (CP), seasonal water yield (SWY), habitat quality (HQ), and nutrient retention ratio (NRR) between 1992 and 2015 were assessed. Climate change assessment was based Mann–Kendall trend of precipitation and temperature for both past (1951–2017) and future (2018–2050) climates. The climate dynamics present a drying-warming trend with localized cooling–warming spells in some locations and a general future wetting–warming trend. Areas dominated by cropland and CP exert significant influence on the spatiotemporal dynamics of ES interactions contributing to the manifestation of substantial trade-offs and synergies across the past (2015) and the future (2050) climates. This also regulates the overbearing pattern of multiple ES interactions such that the relationship CP>SWY>HQ>EVI>NRR was observed over the study area. The persistence of these diverse relationships will stimulate the possible degradation of natural regulating ESs. Improvement of existing crop cultivation clusters, cultivation of food-resistant crop varieties, and agroforestry expansion were proposed as climate and ESs interaction-based restoration measures. When adopted, these measures will douse the increasing ES pressures within this semi-arid zone.