Evolving approaches and data availability for understanding the impact of land-use change on ecosystem services

Understanding how land-use change alters the flow of ecosystem services is critical for sustainability policy and planning. We conducted a systematic review of 459 peer-reviewed articles published between 2001 and March 2024 to (a) catalogue which ecosystem services have been studied and their geographic distribution, (b) trace methodological innovations in mapping, and (c) assess the integration of emerging data streams. Our analysis identified 23 ecosystem services spanning provisioning (food, water, raw materials), regulating (climate regulation, erosion control, flood protection), and cultural (recreation, aesthetics), with provisioning services most often mapped individually but regulating services dominating in category-level assessments. Regionally, Asia (especially China) contributed over half (51 %) of the case studies, while case studies in Europe, Africa, and the Americas are also increasing, aided by international collaborations in nearly 30 % of the studies. Biophysical modeling (98 % of papers) and economic valuation (55 %) remain foundational, supplemented by scenario analysis (11 %), participatory mapping (8 %), and a growing adoption of machine-learning techniques (27 %). Data diversity has expanded beyond Landsat (used in 90 % of studies) and land-cover products (84 %) to include Sentinel, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS), elevation and topographic data, climate grids, soil moisture, and citizen-science platforms. Despite advances, persistent uncertainties arise from scale mismatches, data proxies, and model rigidity. We highlight emerging ensemble and hybrid approaches that blend advanced analytics with local knowledge, and call for capacity building in data-scarce regions. These directions promise more accurate, equitable, and actionable assessments to guide nature-based land-use decisions-makings.