Title : Community-valued ecosystem services in a forest-mining landscape: Remote sensing and spatial multi-criteria evidence from West Singhbhum, India
Abstract:
Forest-rich mineral landscapes concentrate ecosystem services in places that local people often cannot use, yet planning tools rarely capture this gap. This study analysed and mapped ecosystem services in West Singhbhum district, Jharkhand, India (721,263 ha), a tribal-majority, iron-ore-producing district. Land cover was derived from the Copernicus CGLS-LC100 dataset in Google Earth Engine. Community values were collected through a questionnaire survey of 450 respondents and a ten-clip allocation exercise, and were translated into criterion maps using a spatial multi-criteria evaluation adapted from Hein et al. (2006). Forests cover 59.2% of the district (closed forest 41.8%, open forest 17.4%) and croplands 38.0%. About half of the district is reserved forest closed to local use. Respondents relied mainly on wild fruits, medicinal plants, fuelwood and building material. Most reported deteriorating soil quality (84.2%) and a worsening local climate (81.6%), and 89.5% reported livelihood impacts from industrial activity, including dust deposition, water shortage and reduced yields. Valuation maps show that provisioning value falls mainly on cropland, which people can access, whereas regulating, supporting and cultural value concentrates in reserved forests, which they cannot. Weekly use of natural areas and the sacred places of the Ho, Munda and Sarna communities show that cultural services remain an active part of community life. The results reveal an access-driven mismatch between where services are supplied and where communities obtain them. We discuss how community-based service maps can guide restoration, the siting of mining and industrial activity, biodiversity-sensitive ESG practice, and equitable benefit-sharing with forest-dependent communities. The workflow, built on open satellite data and participatory valuation, is replicable in other resource-dependent landscapes and supports SDG 15.
Keywords: ecosystem services; community valuation; spatial multi-criteria evaluation; Google Earth Engine; nature-based solutions; SDG 15
