Abstract
The movement of rural households from remote uplands to valley floors and to semiurban and urban areas (internal migration) is a common phenomenon in the middle mountain districts of Nepal. Understanding the causes and effects of internal migration is critical to the development and implementation of policies that promote land use planning and sustainable resource management. Using geospatial information technologies and social research methods, we investigated the causes and effects of internal migration on land use and land cover patterns in a western mountain district of Nepal between 1998 and 2013. The results show a decreasing number of households at high elevations (above 1400 m), where an increase in forest cover has been observed with a consequent decrease in agricultural land and shrub- or grassland. At lower elevations (below 1400 m), forest cover has remained constant over the last 25 years, and the agricultural land area has increased but has become geometrically complex to meet the diverse needs and living requirements of the growing population. Our findings indicate that internal migration plays an important role in shaping land use and land cover change in the middle mountains of Nepal and largely determines the resource management, utilization, and distribution patterns within a small geographic unit. Therefore, land use planning must take an integrated and interdisciplinary approach rather than considering social, environmental, and demographic information in isolation.
Highlights
Environmental issues in Nepal have been much discussed since Eckholm (1975) proposed the theory of Himalayan environmental degradation
Our research has shown that there is an increasing trend toward migration from upland areas to valley floors and roadheads and that these population movements are playing an important role in land use and land cover (LULC) change in the middle mountains of Nepal
Motivation for migration was found to be higher among young men, which resulted in an increase in the proportion of older people, women, and children in the villages
Summary
Environmental issues in Nepal have been much discussed since Eckholm (1975) proposed the theory of Himalayan environmental degradation. This suggests that population growth in the hills and mountains leads to deforestation and environmental degradation associated with soil erosion, downstream flooding, and silting of rivers and streams. Other studies have shown that forest cover in the hills and mountains of Nepal has increased since the launch of. Resource assessment conducted between 2010 and 2014 showed that the forest occupied 40.36% of the total area of Nepal and that the middle mountain regions have greater forest cover (37.8%) (DFRS 2015)
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