Quantitative remote sensing of forest ecosystem services in sub-Saharan Africa's urban landscapes: a review

Abstract

A dearth of information on urban ecosystem services in the past decades has led to little consolidation of such information for informed planning, decision-making and policy development in sub-Saharan African cities. However, the increasing recognition of the value of urban ecological processes and services as well as their contribution to climate change adaptation and mitigation has recently become an area of great research interest. Specifically, the emerging geospatial analytical approaches like remote sensing have led to an increase in the number of studies that seek to quantify and map urban ecosystem services at varying scales. Hence, this study sought to review the current remote sensing trends, challenges and prospects in quantifying urban ecosystem services in sub-Saharan Africa cities. Literature shows that consistent modelling and understanding of urban ecosystem services using remotely sensed approaches began in the 1990s, with an average of five publications per year after around 2010. This is mainly attributed to the approach's ability to provide fast, accurate and repeated spatial information necessary for optimal and timely quantification and mapping of urban ecosystem services. Although commercially available high spatial resolution sensors (e.g. the Worldview series, Quickbird and RapidEye) with higher spatial and spectral properties have been valuable in providing highly accurate and reliable data for quantification of urban ecosystem services, their adoption has been limited by high image acquisition cost and small spatial coverage that limits regional assessment. Thus, the newly launched sensors that provide freely and readily available data (i.e. Landsat 8 and 9 OLI, Sentinel-2) are increasingly becoming popular. These sensors provide data with improved spatial and spectral properties, hence valuable for past, current and future urban ecosystem service assessment, especially in developing countries. Therefore, the study provides guidance for future studies to continuously assess urban ecosystem services in order to achieve the objectives of Kyoto Protocol and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD +) of promoting climate-resilient and sustainable cities, especially in developing world.

Keywords: Cultural; Provisioning; Reforestation; Regulating; Supporting.