Abstract
The forests of Pakistan replicate plentiful climatic, physiographic and edaphic differences in the country and these forests face a serious problem of deforestation. Geographic information system (GIS) techniques and remote sensing (RS) from satellite platforms offer a best way to identify those areas of deforestation, and thus a GIS and RS based study was conducted in tehsil Barawal, district Dir (U) to analyze forest cover change. The main objectives of the study were to: 1) identify different classes of land use and land cover, and its spatial distribution in the study area; 2) determine the trend, nature, location and magnitude of forest cover change; and 3) prepare maps of forest-cover change in different time periods in the study area. To assess the objectives remote sensing and GIS techniques were utilized. A supervised image classification technique was applied on Landsat 5 satellite images of 2000 and 2012. Five main classes such as agriculture, forest, barren land, snow and water were identified. The results showed that the area of forest, barren land, agriculture, water and snow in year 2000 was 49.54%, 43.38%, 5.19%, 1.40% and 0.49% and the area in 2012 was 37.17%, 41.36%, 12.69%, 5.05% and 3.72% respectively. Furthermore 2.02% decrease in barren land, 12.37% decrease in forest and 7.5% increase in agriculture land were identified. Due to high deforestation rate and increased agricultural activities, it is recommended that awareness campaign should be launched in the study area to protect and conserve this forest from further deforestation.
Highlights
In Pakistan forest area is only 4.8 million hectare out of its total geographical land [1] [2]. 1.96 million hectare area (43% of the total forests) is coniferous hill forests; 1.72 million hectare area (37.2% of the total forests) is scrub or foot hill forests; 0.234 million hectare area is irrigated plantations; 0.297 million hectare area is riverain and 0.35 million hectare area is mangroves in the delta of Indus river [3]
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the forests are mostly spread over the Korakoram, Hindukush and Himalayas mountains and Scrub, and coniferous forests are mostly found in the upper slopes of district Dir, Swat, Mansehra and Chitral while the alpine pastures are found on the ridges of the mountains
The classification result of satellite image of year 2000 showed that the percent area of forest, agriculture, barren land, snow and water bodies were 49.54%, 5.19%, 43.38%, 0.49% and 1.4% respectively (Table 1 and Figure 2)
Summary
In Pakistan forest area is only 4.8 million hectare out of its total geographical land [1] [2]. 1.96 million hectare area (43% of the total forests) is coniferous hill forests; 1.72 million hectare area (37.2% of the total forests) is scrub or foot hill forests; 0.234 million hectare area is irrigated plantations; 0.297 million hectare area is riverain and 0.35 million hectare area is mangroves in the delta of Indus river [3]. In Pakistan forest area is only 4.8 million hectare out of its total geographical land [1] [2]. The forest resources of Pakistan are mostly found in the northern parts (15.7% in Gilgit Baltistan, 6.5% in Azad Kashmir and 40% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the forests are mostly spread over the Korakoram, Hindukush and Himalayas mountains and Scrub, and coniferous forests are mostly found in the upper slopes of district Dir, Swat, Mansehra and Chitral while the alpine pastures are found on the ridges of the mountains. Forest helps in providing habitat for wildlife and improves land degradation and desertification [4]. Trees and forest resources in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have a vital role in the rural livelihood. Most people depend on forest resources and obtain for fodder for maintenances, wood for houses and fuel wood for fire. Local people gather various NTFPs from forests for household use and cash income [5]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
