Diagnosis of wetland ecosystem health in the Ain Skhouna wetland, Western of Algeria.

Wetlands are very important for maintaining the ecological balance and for animal and human well-being. This study applied the Rapid Assessment of Wetland Ecosystem Services approach to assess the ecosystem services provided by the Ain Skhouna wetland (Saida, Western Algeria). The wetland assessment was carried out in 2020-today (The diagnosis is still ongoing and permanent) and enabled ecosystem services to be classified into provisioning, cultural, regulating and supporting groups. The results showed that among the provisioning services, freshwater (++ = 13) and food (++ = 11) made significant positive contributions. Regulating services, particularly air quality (+ = 20) and climate regulation (+ = 22), made excellent (positive) contributions, while services such as pest control (- = 24), epidemic and disease control (0 = 0) and nutrient cycling made poor contributions (negative), mainly due to anthropogenic actions and salinity pollution. Cultural services such as eco-tourism (++ = 3) made positive contributions, while educational services had fairly limited benefits. Vegetation analysis showed the dominance of ecologically and culturally important tree species (rare and endemic and protected) such as, Spergularia salina, Arthrocnemum macrostachyum, Suaeda maritima, Salsola vermuculata, Tamarix articulata and Tamarix boveana.