Valuing wetland ecosystem services in relation to the area and landscape dynamics of Rarh region of West Bengal, India

The current study seeks to quantify possible ecosystem services in the river wetland ecology of Murshidabad's Rarh region and predict ecosystem services based on that assessment. The effects of landscape shape and fragmentation on ecosystem services are considerable, with the general view being that fragmentation effects reduce ecosystem service supply. Wetlands map for past 30 years were created using supervised classification. A Fragmentation study in ArcGIS software produced six hierarchical landscape units: patch, edge, perforated, small core, medium core, and largecore. A Cellular Automata-based Artificial Neural Network was used to forecast a wetland map for 2030. According to a time series study of total ecosystem services, ESV (Ecosystem Service Value) has decreased from $170.2*107 to $20.1*107 from 1990 to 2020, and will further fall to $11.7*107 in 2030.Fragmentation also has a detrimental impact on ESV, as core groupings experience ESV loss over time and will continue to do so in the future. It has also been noted that core wetlands experienced a loss of total ESV from $75*107 in 1990 to $25.14*107 in 2020 and may decrease by $1.95*107 in 2030.Anthropogenic influences have a critical role in land use change, fragmentation, and ESV change in a natural environment. It is critical to maintain the ES of wetland hydrology management, notably the flow management of stream and riparian wetlands.