Local Residents' Preferences for the Delivery of Ecosystem Services of Urban Freshwater Ecosystems in Developing Countries; A Case Study of Ngerengere River, Morogoro

Effective management and future restoration efforts of urban riverine ecosystems require a deep understanding of how various residents prefer and rely on different types of ecosystem services (ES). We used both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods including a household-level questionnaire (n=502) with a set of structured and semi-structured questions administered through face-to-face interviews with local residents and field observations. To avoid bias, the local residents involved in the survey were selected randomly from households of Morogoro Municipality to understand their social preferences for ecosystem services (ES) of the urban watershed of Ngerengere River and key threats that affect the delivery of ES. Four categories of ES include provisioning services (PS), regulating services (RS), cultural services (CS) and supporting services (SS). The study revealed that a significant proportion of respondents perceived the role of urban rivers in provisioning services such as urban water supply (37.60%), in regulating services, respondents acknowledged the role of urban rivers in groundwater recharge (52.3%) while in supporting services respondents preferred key services such as biodiversity of fish (39.5%) and the fertility of soil (21.4%), furthermore for cultural services respondents preferred recreation services of urban rivers of (42.5%). Based on the binary logistic regression, the study revealed that personal and residential factors influence preference heterogeneity on ES. Assessment of the existing threats to ES of urban rivers stems from urbanization and human activities, adversely affecting regulatory, cultural, and supporting services, which in turn lowers residents' preferences for these ecosystem services. The study concludes that incorporating local resident perceptions of ES into decision-making can support future management and restoration initiatives on urban rivers to enhance their potential in ES provisioning.