Fig 1.
Spatial biophysical inputs for hydrologic ecosystem services modeling.
Data sources are described in the main text.
Fig 2.
Land use/land cover map for Gabon used in the analysis.
Table 1.
Normalized land use / land cover coefficients for the RIOS modeling.
Based upon coefficients determined from literature review from [24, 25]. More land use / land cover categories are listed here than in Fig 2, which groups multiple similar categories for display purposes (e.g., Agriculture). Higher values represent a greater level of impact for that factor (e.g., the highest sediment export value corresponds to the highest relative level of export across all land use / land cover categories).
Fig 3.
Servicesheds for erosion control, nitrogen retention, and phosphorus retention weighted by downstream beneficiary population size.
(A) “All population” serviceshed. (B) “Rural-weighted” serviceshed. Pixel values represent the number of downstream people within each serviceshed that would benefit from a watershed conservation activity on that pixel. Therefore, pixels with the highest values are those with the largest downstream population.
Fig 4.
Priority areas of sub-watersheds (top 20% by area) for each hydrologic ecosystem service.
(A-C) Erosion control, nitrogen retention, and phosphorous retention for the “all population” scenario. (D-F) Erosion control, nitrogen retention, and phosphorous retention for the “rural-weighted” scenario. (G) Groundwater recharge for the single scenario (i.e., not weighted by population distribution). Grey lines show the boundary of all the sub-watershed polygons.
Fig 5.
The portfolio of combined hydrologic ecosystem services priority areas.
(A) “All population” scenario. (B) “Rural-weighted” scenario. (C) Overlap between these scenarios. For (A) and (B), percentage areas (of the total country area) are reported for each unique combination of the HES objectives. For (C), the percentage area of overlap and separation is reported across the two scenarios.
Fig 6.
Overlap of hydrologic ecosystem services priority areas with other indicators of conservation value.
Overlap with national parks (shown in black outline) for (A) “all population” and (B) “rural-weighted” scenarios. All other colors represent portfolio sub-watersheds as described in Fig 5. Overlap with forest carbon stocks below or equal to (orange color) or above (purple color) the average sub-watershed total carbon stock across the country (154 MgC ha-1) for (C) “all population” and (D) “rural-weighted” scenarios.
Fig 7.
Overlap of hydrologic ecosystem services priority areas with indicators of economic development activities.
(A) “All population” scenario with active mining concessions and roads. (B) “Rural-weighted” scenario with active mining concessions and roads. (C) “All population” scenario with forestry concessions. (D) “Rural-weighted” scenario with forestry concessions.