Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 Environ Monit Assess (2022) 194:311 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09912-x Investigating the spatiotemporal changes of land use/ land cover and its implications for ecosystem services between 1972 and 2015 in Yuvacık Raymond SAUTI  · Uzay KARAHALİL Received: 25 January 2021 / Accepted: 25 February 2022 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 there was an increase by 0.3 and 0.2 successively. Biodiversity parameters such as tree density jumped from 18 to 46 ha −1 in thicker development classes (more than 36 cm dbh) and positive developments in biodiversity chain noticed. Afterward, Yuvacık PU was classed in 2nd class of high wildfre vulnerability due to range of fre sensitivity index (5.22–6.88). Keywords Spatiotemporal change · Ecosystem services · Carbon storage · Soil loss · Fire sensitivity index · Biodiversity Introduction Forests play a vital role within the economic, envi- ronmental, and social landscape of the planet. In addition to being commonly considered as key economic drivers and providing substantial quan- tities of employment, forests host a rich variety of fora and fauna species and conserve biodiversity. However, forest ecosystem structure and composi- tion have changed due to diferent factors such as forest management exercises, human movements, or other common incidents like fres. These altera- tions in land use/land cover have been reported by diferent researchers (Bewket, 2002; Pavon et al., 2003; Gautam et al., 2003; Wakeel et al., 2005; Upadhyay et al., 2005; Cayuela et al., 2006; Keleş & Başkent, 2007; Sivrikaya et al., 2007; Çakır et al., 2008; Kadıoğulları et al., 2008; Günlü et al., 2009; Abstract This study aims to determine the spati- otemporal changes of land use/land cover and eco- system services in a 12,092.1 ha of Yuvacık plan- ning unit (PU), by focusing on carbon storage, soil loss, water production, biodiversity, and forest fre vulnerability. Stand type maps and forest manage- ment plans designed in 1972, 2004, and 2015 were used to reveal the changes over 43 years. The results pointed out obvious changes in terms of the occur- rence of private and cadastral forests as new types of land use, disappearance of coppice and pure oak stands, and the transformation of 99% of open lands into residential areas. Furthermore, degraded for- ests decreased considerably and mixed forests rose sharply by 117.2%. The outputs were highly related to the increase by 42% (5194.9 ha) of dense forest and shifting of 2548 ha from thinner development stage to mature stages during the period. With respect to ecosystem services, carbon storage in forest ecosys- tems went up by 19.3 Gg over 43 years. Moreover, soil loss declined signifcantly from 1.1 billion tons year −1 to 108,549 tons year −1 , and water production decreased considerably from 1.8 billion to 2.7 million m 3 year −1 . According to the Shannon evenness index, R. SAUTI (*) · U. KARAHALİL  Department of Forest Engineering, Faculty of Forestry, Karadeniz Technical University, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey e-mail: raymondsauti@ktu.edu.tr U. KARAHALİL  e-mail: uzay@ktu.edu.tr