Land Use Changes and Their Effects on Urban Ecosystem Services Value: A Study of Khulna City, Bangladesh

The rapid growth of urbanization has altered the urban surfaces posing serious threats to natural ecosystems in the urban area worldwide. Landscape changes have a negative impact on urban ecosystem services. In this paper, we estimated the changes in ecosystem services value (ESV) in terms of land use land cover (LULC) for the 2014-2019 period in the Khulna City of Bangladesh. Landsat-8 images were used to estimate land use land cover changes over the study periods. The changes of ESV were calculated by following the previously published global value coefficient. The results show that the water body and vegetation significantly decreased in the study area. The net decline of ESV from 2014-2019 was US$ 2.4 million. The highest contribution of change in total ESV was the loss to the water body. We suggest formulating a sustainable land use policy to ensure ecological balance with urban growth.