Forest Cover and Sustainable Development in the Lumbini Province, Nepal: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

The analysis of forest cover change at different scales is an increasingly important research topic in environmental studies. Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) is an integrated approach to manage and restore forests across various landscapes and environments. Such restoration helps to meet the targets of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)–15, as outlined in the UN Environment’s sixth Global Outlook, which includes the sustainable management of forests, the control of desertification, reducing degradation, biodiversity loss, and the conservation of mountain ecosystems. Here, we have used time series Landsat images from 1996 to 2016 to see how land use, and in particular forest cover, have changed between 1996 and 2016 in the Lumbini Province of Nepal. In addition, we simulated projections of land cover (LC) and forest cover change for the years 2026 and 2036 using a hybrid cellular automata Markov chain (CA–Markov) model. We found that the overall forest area increased by 199 km2 (2.1%), from a 9491 km2 (49.3%) area in 1996 to 9691 km2 (50.3%) area in 2016. Our modeling suggests that forest area will increase by 81 km2 (9691 to 9772 km2) in 2026 and by 195 km2 (9772 km2 to 9966 km2) in 2036. They are policy, planning, management factors and further strategies to aid forest regeneration. Clear legal frameworks and coherent policies are required to support sustainable forest management programs. This research may support the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the land degradation neutral world (LDN), and the UN decade 2021–2031 for ecosystem restoration.