Urban expansion-induced land use land cover changes and the subsequent changes in ecosystem service and land surface temperature in the central highland of Ethiopia

Human activities that impact the environment are recognized as major contributors to climate change and alterations in ecosystem services. However, the ecological and socioeconomic impacts resulting from such human-induced changes are rarely examined at the current study site. Therefore, this study aims to examine human-induced pressure on the normal functioning of vital environmental services like ecosystem service values (ESV) and selected climatic variables like Land Surface Temperature (LST) using the most fragile and dynamic Central Ethiopian highland as a case study site. Geospatial analysis was mainly used to analyze data obtained from Landsat imageries and field investigation. The result shows that during 1990–2000, water bodies, built-up area, forest land, and farmland gained about 164.7%, 130.9%, 27.6%, and 25.5% of their area in 1990, respectively, whereas grassland exhibited the highest loss (77.3%) of its area during the same period. For the entire study landscape, the total estimated ESVs were 691.4, 731.5, and 704.6 million US$ha-1year-1 for 1990, 2000, and 2020, respectively, and these values changed with changes in the areas of each land use/cover class. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has shown positive values for vegetation-related land use/cover classes, whereas it has shown negative values for non-vegetation-related classes, and LST decreased with an increase in NDVI values. In general, there have been significant changes in land use/cover in the central highland of Ethiopia over the past three decades, and this in turn has brought significant impacts on ESVs and LST. Therefore, appropriate policies need to be devised soon to regulate LUCCs for the sustainable use of vital environmental services. • Urban expansion is the main driver of land use/cover changes over space and time. • Changes in land use/cover affect ecosystem service values and land surface temperature. • Estimated ecosystem service values slightly vary when using local and global coefficients. • Urban sprawl and farmland expansion lead to ecosystem service degradation. • Land Surface Temperature increases with decrease in Normalized Difference Vegetation index values.