Spatio-temporal monitoring of forest cover change, triggered by anthropogenic activities, in the Himalayan moist temperate forests of Pakistan using Landsat imagery

ABSTRACT

The depletion of forests has become a serious environmental issue in Pakistan. To ensure forest sustainability, a sound monitoring of deforestation is crucial. The current study was designed to quantify the change in Murree Forests, Pakistan using Landsat Imagery for time series of 2000, 2010 and 2019. The acquired images were inter-calibrated and classified using the maximum-likelihood classification. The findings revealed the distribution of the above classes in 2000, 2010 and 2019 as pine forests (45%, 38% and 35%), scrub vegetation (20%, 19% and 19%), rangelands (11%, 8% and 10%), settlements (8%, 20% and 17%), agricultural lands (10%, 13% and 12%), and barren lands (6%, 9% and 12%) respectively. This study identifies that extensive Forest cover changes have occurred in the study area due to pressure of anthropogenic activities. Current findings alarm that deforestation should be reduced through implementing appropriate forest conservation policies to ensure forest sustainability.

KEYWORDS:

• Deforestation
• climate change
• Himalayan temperate forests
• land use change
• Landsat imagery, remote sensing

Acknowledgments

The principal author would like to pay her special thanks to the Higher Education Commission Pakistan (HEC) for sponsoring a 6-month visit to the School of Forest Resources and Conservation GEOMATICS Program, University of Florida USA under the International Research Support Initiative Program (IRSIP) for Ph.Ds. Moreover, we acknowledge the Higher Education Commission Pakistan (HEC) for providing funds under the Indigenous Scholarship Program for PhDs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Higher Education Commision, Pakistan [HEC Indigenous Scholarship for PhD].