Impact Assessment of Land Use Change on Ecosystem Services and Livelihood Security of Rural Highland Communities in Saysathan District, Sayaboury Province, Lao PDR

Abstract

It is widely recognized that land use changes are affecting provision of ecosystem services as well as people’s livelihoods, especially in rural areas where people are highly dependent on local ecosystem services. This study developed an integrated methodological framework by combining a diversity of corresponding frameworks and concept, such as Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR), Ecosystem Services (ES), Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) and Agro-Ecosystem Analysis (AEA). This integrated framework was used together with a combination of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method and spatiotemporal analysis. The objectives of this study aimed at detecting land use change and identifying its drivers; and assessing the impact on provisioning ES and livelihood security of rural highland communities in Saysathan district, Sayaboury province, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Land use change analysis highlighted a large decrease in forest areas during the past decade. The reduction of forest cover was associated with significant decline of provisioning ES, and the decline in provisioning ecosystem services also influenced the state of livelihood security of the local communities, especially natural capital. By taking the trajectory of forest cover change and the importance of provisioning ES into account, it is essential for stakeholders to integrate ES indicators into land use management planning as well as socio-economic development to maximize benefits from natural resources to the communities.