GIS/RS - A tool for forest covers change assessment in district Abbottabad (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Pakistan
GIS/RS - A tool for forest covers change assessment in district Abbottabad (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Pakistan
Tariq Mahmood
ABSTRACT
Pakistan has a great variety of landscapes with a diversified relief, having total forest area of 4.2 million hectares (4.8%). Khyber Pakhtunkhwa occupies around 1.3 million hectares (30%). Land use and land cover change using Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) has become a central component in current strategies for managing natural resources. Therefore, an attempt was made in this study to map out the status of land cover of District Abbottabad using RS and GIS. The total land cover area calculated was about 4, 41,408 acres. Forest (30.12%) was found to be the major land use followed by rangelands (23.80%), shrubs & bushes (22.32%) and agricultural land (19.94%).The change detection result shows that there is a considerable increase in Shrub & Bushes (21.33%), followed by Forests (9.76%). It also indicates a considerable decrease in land cover class agriculture land (28.34%), followed by the Rangeland land cover class (4.83%).
Key words: GIS/RS, Forest covers change assessment, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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