Inventory of agroecosystem services and perceptions of potential implications due to climate change: A case study from Benin in West Africa

Abstract

Agricultural and Agroforestry play an important role in the economy of West African countries. They contribute to nearly 40% of the GDP and provide a large variety of ecosystem services to the local populations. However, the sustainability of agricultural and agroforestry systems in these countries is gradually jeopardised by climate change since these ecosystems are still predominantly rain-fed and therefore at the mercy of climatic hazards. For a developing country like Benin, there is still a lot of data gap in other to quantify the impact of climate change on agro-ecosystems. Thus, the current study focused on providing an inventory of the evolution and the monetary value of agro-ecosystem services in Benin with an analysis of the perceptions of the impact of climate change on these services. The data analysed showed, from 1975 to 2015, a reduction in forests and savannahs in favour of an increase in cultivated land. The areas of water bodies, swamps and floodplains have increased by almost 500% in the subequatorial climate regions and have remained almost unchanged in the tropical climate regions. The main uses of agroecosystems were agriculture, fishing, energy production, timber trade, and cultural rituals. A monetary estimate reveals that the value of agroecosystems services provided in the subequatorial regions (USD 3700/ha) is 2–3 times greater than that of the value of these services in the tropical regions (USD 1600/ha). The local population didn’t perceive see climate hazards as a threat to community forests and planted forests. However, they felt that the establishment of sustainable management of agroecosystems through good agricul- tural practices and sustainable management of the landscape, would allow better regulation of the climate, conservation of specific and genetic biodiversity, and solve the problems of erosion and silting up of rivers.