Impact of wetland health and provisioning services on the livelihood of the fishing community

The present study aimed to explore the linkage between wetland health, provisioning service value (PsV) and livelihood vulnerability of the dependent fishermen community taking examples from the Moribund deltaic wetlands of India. Wetland health including hydrological strength, habitat state, and the water quality of the wetland was assessed using a random forest (RF) and XGBoosing machine learning approach, and the Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) was computed using balanced weighted approach. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression, correlation matrix, and rank correlation matrix were done to make the relationship between wetland health and LVI. Wetland health was found poor (28.38%) in the isolated, smaller, and peripheral parts of the wetland with agricultural and built-up area proximity. Hydrological strength (with r² of 0.67) was found as the most dominant health determinant followed by habitat state (with r² of 0.62). OLS reported that in most of the cases, the standard regression residual is low (0.5 to − 0.5) which indicates that there is a strong relation between wetland health and LVI. KDE plot and correlation matrix also figured out the same. From the field survey, it was found that the wetlands with good habitat health are promising for providing more provisioning services like fish which in turn supports the livelihood of the dependent communities. The findings of this study have a deeper insight into livelihood management through wetland management. Hence, it would inspire policymakers and stakeholders to conserve wetlands not only for the sake of ecology but also for society.