The economic valuation of selected ecosystem services derived from lubigi wetland, Kampala,Uganda

Lubigi wetland is currently being converted to other developments deemed more profitable with no regard to the wetland’s contribution to the community. The objectives of this research therefore, focused on mapping ecosystem services within and around the wetland, quantifying the financial value of selected services and assessing the community dependency on the wetland. Crop cultivation, papyrus harvesting, water provision and waste water treatment were selected for valuation. The valuation methods used include; the market price method which was used to quantify crop production and papyrus harvesting, while the avoided cost and replacement cost methods were applied to quantify commercial water provision and waste water treatment services respectively. The cost of a subsurface flow constructed wetland was considered as the replacement cost of the natural wetland. The estimated value added by the wetland to cultivation was estimated at 954 U.S.$/ha/yrwhilepapyrusharvestingandcommercialwaterprovisionwerevaluedat784U.S.$/ha/yr and 355 U.S.$/ha/yr respectively. Waste water treatment service was roughly estimated at 8,756,155 U.S. $/yr. These values reflect the economic cost of Lubigi wetland conversion to the community. 83%, 76%, 58% and 57% of the households obtained over 80% of their monthly incomes from washing bays, papyrus harvesting, farming and nursery tree sales respectively. This implies that majority of the population falls within the heavily dependent category making poor communities most vulnerable to resource depletion. The results are useful in that they serve as a bottom line estimate and they represent a first effort that can be expanded.