Social and Ecological Assessment of Mangrove Ecosystem Services and Temporal Change: Case Study of Maputo Bay, Mozambique.

Sammanfattning

This study aims to assess the performance and importance of mangrove ecosystem services, focusing on supporting, provisioning, and regulating, and to investigate temporal changes in mangrove cover in Maputo Bay, Mozambique. It also examines the drivers behind these changes. The research questions address stakeholder perceptions of ecosystem services and their potential trade-offs, temporal changes in mangrove cover, and threats. A mixed-methods approach was employed, where the random forest classification was used to map changes in mangrove cover between years 2017 and 2025, followed by 15 stakeholder interviews. The results showed contradictions in both the temporal change and ecosystem services. While the model showed a decrease of 1862 hectares, most stakeholders perceived an overall increase. Similarly, most experts highlighted mangroves’ biophysical characteristics when discussing ecosystem services, whereas most residents highlighted the social perspective. Regulating and supporting services were frequently highlighted, with an overall decline in provisional services. The drivers affecting mangroves were site-specific and included anthropogenic factors like implementation challenges and urban expansion, as well as natural factors like storms, all contributing to ecosystem services trade-offs. While stakeholders highlighted the existence of ecosystem services, their values and use depended on socioeconomic factors. Likewise, the quality of ecosystem services depended on biophysical structures, human pressures, and geographical locations, indicating dynamic variation. These variations cannot be captured solely through large-scale observations, creating a risk of overgeneralizing local realities. Thus, more site-specific analyses, where different stakeholders share their multifaceted insights, are required to fully capture the dynamics of mangroves and their ecosystem services.