[Paper Review] Effects of green revolution led agricultural expansion on net ecosystem service values in India

Srikanta Sannigrahi, Suman Chakraborti+12 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Sep 24, 2019

Land Use and Ecosystem Services79 references35 citations

TL;DR

This study quantifies the impact of Green Revolution-driven agricultural expansion on ecosystem service values (ESVs) in India from 1985 to 2005 using remote sensing, crop statistics, and value transfer methods. It finds that cropland ESV increased by $13.22 billion due to expanded cultivation and irrigation, with Total Crop Area and Net Irrigated Area being the strongest drivers, while forest and wetland losses pose significant ecological risks.

ABSTRACT

Ecosystem Services are a bundle of natural processes and functions that are essential for human well-being, subsistence, and livelihood. The expansion of cultivation and cropland, which is the backbone of the Indian economy, is one of the main drivers of rapid Land Use Land Cover changes in India. To assess the impact of the Green Revolution led agrarian expansion on the total ecosystem service values, we first estimated the ESVs from 1985 to 2005 for eight ecoregions in India using several value transfer approaches. Five explanatory factors such as Total Crop Area, Crop Production, Crop Yield, Net Irrigated Area, and Cropping Intensity representing the cropping scenarios in the country were used in constructing local Geographical Weighted Regression model to explore the cumulative and individual effects on ESVs. A Multi-Layer Perceptron based Artificial Neural Network algorithm was employed to estimate the normalized importance of these explanatory factors. During the observation periods, cropland, forestland, and water bodies have contributed the most and form a significant proportion of ESVs, followed by grassland, mangrove, wetland, and urban builtup. In all three years, among the nine ESs, the highest ESV accounts for water regulation, followed by soil formation and soilwater retention, biodiversity maintenance, waste treatment, climate regulation, and gas regulation. Among the five explanatory factors, TCA, NIA, CP showed a strong positive association with ESVs, while the CI exhibited a negative association. The study reveals a strong association between GR led agricultural expansion and ESVs in India.

Motivation & Objective

• To quantify changes in ecosystem service values (ESVs) across India’s eight ecoregions from 1985 to 2005.
• To assess the impact of Green Revolution-led agricultural expansion on total ESVs using land use and crop production data.
• To identify the relative influence of key agricultural drivers—Total Crop Area, Crop Production, Crop Yield, Net Irrigated Area, and Cropping Intensity—on ESVs.
• To evaluate the cumulative and individual effects of these drivers using Geographical Weighted Regression (GWR) and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural networks.
• To inform ecosystem management policies by identifying trade-offs between agricultural intensification and natural ecosystem preservation.

Proposed method

• Utilized 100m-resolution LULC data (1985, 1995, 2005) derived from Landsat imagery and reclassified into eight biomes: cropland, forest, water bodies, urban, grassland, wetland, mangrove, and fallow land.
• Applied multiple value transfer approaches (Costanza et al., 1997; 2014; de Groot et al., 2012; Xie et al., 2008) to estimate per-unit ecosystem service values for nine ecosystem services.
• Constructed a Local Geographical Weighted Regression (GWR) model to analyze spatially varying relationships between five agricultural drivers and ESVs.
• Employed a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) based Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to estimate the normalized importance of explanatory factors in predicting ESVs.
• Validated model performance using classification accuracy (94.4%) and adjusted mangrove class in the Sundarbans based on field validation.
• Integrated crop production statistics and irrigation data to represent agricultural intensification and expansion dynamics across ecoregions.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How did Green Revolution-driven agricultural expansion affect total ecosystem service values (ESVs) in India between 1985 and 2005?
• RQ2 Which agricultural drivers—Total Crop Area, Crop Production, Crop Yield, Net Irrigated Area, and Cropping Intensity—most significantly influence ESVs across Indian ecoregions?
• RQ3 What is the relative contribution of each ecosystem type (e.g., cropland, forest, water bodies) to the total ESVs in India during the study period?
• RQ4 How do the cumulative and individual effects of agricultural drivers vary spatially across India’s ecoregions?
• RQ5 What are the trade-offs between agricultural intensification and the preservation of high-value natural ecosystems such as forests and wetlands?

Key findings

• Total ecosystem service value (ESV) in India increased from $829 billion in 1985 to $845 billion in 2005, reflecting a net rise of $16 billion over 20 years.
• Cropland contributed the highest share of ESV, increasing from $389.32 billion in 1985 to $402.54 billion in 2005—a net increase of $13.22 billion due to agricultural expansion.
• Total Crop Area (TCA) explained the highest proportion of model variance in ESV prediction, followed by Net Irrigated Area (NIA), Crop Production (CP), Crop Yield (CY), and Cropping Intensity (CI).
• TCA, NIA, and CP showed strong positive associations with ESVs, while Crop Yield (CY) exhibited a negative association, suggesting diminishing returns or ecological costs at high yields.
• Cropping Intensity (CI) showed no significant correlation with ESVs, indicating that increased frequency of cropping does not necessarily enhance ecosystem service delivery.
• Water regulation, soil formation, and biodiversity maintenance were the top three ecosystem services in terms of monetary value, collectively contributing over 50% of total ESVs.