Support the valuation of mountain forests and mangroves in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The main objective of this project is to support a core team in the World Bank to develop a set of technical activities in order to deliver the following outputs: (i) assessment of the costs of deforestation and degradation, in the mountain forests and mangroves; and (ii) ecosystem valuation of the mountain forests, as well as the assessment of the provisioning of key ecosystem services.  

The specific objectives include the support to the World Bank team to implement the following main areas:

• Conduct an analysis of the past land use transitions, actual land use trends, and future scenarios of land use change, based on the analysis of high-resolution multispectral satellite images (RapidEye and Landsat) and remote sensing techniques in the southwestern mountain region.
• Analyze available national and global published datasets of biophysical and socioeconomic factors affecting degradation and deforestation of forest, as well as those influencing the provision of ecosystem services.  
• Identify, quantify, and prioritize areas of high value in the provisioning of multiple ecosystem services, as well as analyzing the relationships with their ecological and socioeconomic driving factors.  
• Assist in determining the effects and costs of forest degradation and estimate the economic value of forest ecosystem services in the southwestern mountain region.
• Assess current trends of forest degradation and map the provision of ecosystem service to develop future scenarios that describe possible future changes in service provisioning and impact of land use change and forest degradation.