Impacts of landscape restoration and long-term land use change on ecosystem services: Evidence from a case study in Ethiopia

TI  - Impacts of landscape restoration and long-term land use change on ecosystem services: Evidence from a case study in Ethiopia 
AU  - Mokria, M. 
AU  - Hagazi, N. 
AU  - Hailemariam, G. 
AU  - Abiyu, A. 
AU  - Mekuria, W. 
AU  - Kassa, H. 
AU  - Tadele, M. 
AU  - Gedle, A. 
AU  - Minang, P.A. 
AB  - Land degradation threatens food security, water resources, and biodiversity by eroding soil health and productivity. In Ethiopia, restoration initiatives like exclosures are widely implemented, yet most studies fail to integrate plot-level ecological evidence with landscape-scale land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics. Furthermore, few studies combine these biophysical trends with long-term economic valuation of ecosystem services (ES) and local knowledge to quantify ES trade-offs. Using the Sire-Dodota district of Ethiopia, as a case study, we (i) evaluated the localized ecological performances of communal exclosures relative to LULC-driven ecosystem service (ES) changes, (ii) quantified spatial and temporal (22 years) LULC impacts on ecosystem service values (ESVs), and (iii) assessed community perceptions of restoration outcomes. We combined vegetation inventories, spatial analysis, household surveys, focus group discussions, and value transfer methods across plot and landscape scales. Our results reveal a clear socio-ecological paradox across scales. At the plot-scale, community-managed exclosures significantly enhanced biomass accumulation and biodiversity, establishing a robust empirical baseline for ecological recovery. At the landscape scale, however, LULC-based ESVs increased over 22 years, driven by gains of US$80.6 million from agricultural lands and US$1.3 million from forest lands, alongside a US$3.4 million decline in shrubland ESVs. These increases are potential values rather than realized ecosystem service flows, masking systemic losses in regulating and supporting services as short-term agricultural expansion dominates valuation outcomes. Social data from 393 households strongly corroborate these patterns. While communities consistently recognized localized ecological recovery, they favored agroforestry integration over static exclosures to offset high opportunity costs of restricted access. Together, these findings caution against reliance on uncontextualized macro-scale economic indicators and underscore the need for integrated, multifunctional landscape strategies that align ecological recovery with livelihood needs. We, therefore, recommend establishing a national, open-access ESV meta-database linked to Ethiopia's Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets, alongside future multi-decadal monitoring of below-ground carbon and soil biodiversity, and the cost-benefit performance of blended finance restoration models. 
PY  - 2026 
UR  - https://www.cifor-icraf.org/knowledge/publication/47265/ 
DO  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2026.101900 
KW  - aboveground biomass, agroforestry, biodiversity conservation, carbon sinks, community involvement, ecosystem services, land degradation, land management, land use, land use change, restoration, soil health 
ER  -