The African coastline is bordered by highly valuable marine ecosystems, but the environmental degradation due to anthropogenic pressure alter the benefits that they render to people. Our paper aims at assessing the value of ecosystem services provided by mangroves, seagrass beds, coral reefs, and kelp forests present in the Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) of Africa. After the mapping of coastal marine habitats, our valuation relies on the transfer of value of all ecosystem services from reference monetary unit values, extracted from the literature. A habitat functionality index based on the assumption that a higher population density and a higher demographic growth rate lead to a decrease in the functionality and services of marine habitats was then defined and incorporated into the valuation. The surveyed coastal habitats cover about 117,000 km², with seagrass beds being by far the most extensive habitat. Present all along the coasts of Africa, their surface area represents about 62% of surveyed coastal habitats, followed by the mangroves (23%), coral reefs (15%). Kelp forests are only present in the southern Benguela Current LME. We estimated the annual value of the LME's coastal ecosystem services at 814 billion USD. Coral reefs have the highest value (588 billion USD/year), followed by seagrass beds (135 billion USD/year), mangroves (91 billion USD/year), and kelp forests (0.4 billion USD/year). The results show that ecosystem services from the four coastal habitat types had the highest value in the Agulhas Current LME, representing 38% of the total value, followed by the Red Sea LME (28%) and the Somali Coastal Current LME (10%). The three LMEs of the Atlantic side represent 15% of the total estimated value. Our paper highlighted many gaps that remain to be filled in terms of mapping and ecosystem services assessment in Africa. Nonetheless, our estimated values can facilitate dialogue between decision-makers and managers, and between countries sharing the same habitats and marine resources, toward better management of these ecosystems.

非洲海岸线的边界是非常有价值的海洋生态系统，但是由于人为压力造成的环境退化改变了它们为人们带来的利益。本文旨在评估非洲大型海洋生态系统（LME）中的红树林，海草床，珊瑚礁和海带森林所提供的生态系统服务的价值。在绘制沿海海洋生境图之后，我们的评估依赖于从文献中提取的参考货币单位价值对所有生态系统服务价值的转移。然后，基于一个假设，即较高的人口密度和较高的人口增长率导致海洋生境的功能和服务下降的生境功能指数，并将其纳入评估。被调查的沿海栖息地约117,000公里²，海草床是迄今为止最广泛的栖息地。目前存在于整个非洲沿海地区，其表面积约占所调查沿海生境的62％，其次是红树林（23％），珊瑚礁（15％）。海带森林仅存在于本格拉拉目前的LME南部。我们估计，LME沿海生态系统服务的年价值为8140亿美元。珊瑚礁的价值最高（5880亿美元/年），其次是海草床（1350亿美元/年），红树林（910亿美元/年）和海带森林（4亿美元/年）。结果表明，来自四种沿海生境类型的生态系统服务的价值最高，占阿格哈斯当前LME的38％，其次是红海LME（28％）和索马里沿海当前LME（10％） 。大西洋一侧的三个LME占总估算值的15％。我们的论文强调了非洲在测绘和生态系统服务评估方面仍有许多空白需要填补。尽管如此，我们的估计值仍可促进决策者与管理者之间以及共享相同栖息地和海洋资源的国家之间的对话，以更好地管理这些生态系统。