Remote Sensing Assessment of Multi-Decadal Land-Use Change and ESV Decline in Peri-Urban Highland Corridors: The Case of the Santa-Babadjou Corridor in Cameroon

Rapid peri-urbanization in agricultural highland corridors can erode natural capital and undermine water security, yet few studies provide spatially explicit, multi-decadal valuations of ecosystem services for such rurbanizing landscapes. Here, we quantified land-use/land-cover (LULC) dynamics and ecosystem service valuation (ESV) for the Santa-Babadjou corridor from 1980-2024 using multi-temporal Landsat imagery, rigorous preprocessing (radiometric correction), k-means classification into five LULC classes, and benefit-transfer valuation based on Costanza’s coefficients to estimate total ESV and 17 ecosystem functions. Results reveal significant landscape and value losses, with built-up expanding from 4,430 ha (6.1%) to 32,709.5 ha (44.9%) in 2024, while forest cover fell from 26,783 ha (36.7%) to 6,620.7 ha (9.1%) (−75.3%) and grasslands from 27,929.6 ha (38.3%) to 11,848.3 ha (16.2%) (−57.6%). Correspondingly, total ESV collapsed from US$220.12 million in 1980 to US$33.70 million in 2024 (−84.7%), with the steepest losses occurring in the period after 2010, in which forests and grasslands, which contributed ≈99% of ESV in 1980, dropped to US$2.20 M and US$9.97 M respectively by 2024. Functionally, provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural service totals all declined markedly, with provisioning services falling from US$108.2M to US$58.8 M; regulating from US$90.2 M to US$48.4 M. Cumulatively, these changes signal widespread degradation in hydrological regulation, soil retention, and biodiversity support. These spatially explicit, quantitative findings highlight that unplanned settlement and agricultural intensification are compromising the corridor’s natural capital and water-security functions. We therefore recommend immediate policy action to protect the remaining forest and recharge zones, restore degraded catchments using nature-based solutions, and integrate ESV metrics into land-use planning and participatory decision-making to arrest value loss and rebuild resilience.