Two-decade Spatio-temporal Land Use and Cover Changes in District Shangla of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan | [Sarhad Journal of Agriculture • 2021]

Author(s):

1. Shakeel Ahmad: School of Environment, Tsinghua University,Beijing,China

2. Muhammad Israr: Department of Rural Development, Faculty of Rural Social Sciences AMKC, Mardan, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

3. Muhammad Amin: Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad,Abbottabad Campus, Abbottabad, 22060,Pakistan

4. Muhammad Sadiq Hashmi: Department of Economics, University of Malakand, Pakistan

5. Nafees Ahmad: Department of Soil and Climate Sciences, The University of Haripur, Pakistan

6. Rasheed Ahmad: Department of Soil and Climate Sciences, The University of Haripur, Pakistan

Abstract:

Changes in land use land cover (LULC) play a vital role in developing and sustainable management of natural resources. The northern mountains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan are rich in biodiversity and provide fragmented and fragile ecosystem services while vulnerability to the rapid changes in LULC with irreversible impacts on ecosystems, especially in district Shangla. Real-time monitoring and assessment are essential to understand such changes in LULC. In the current study, spatio-temporal changes of LULC were obtained from MODIS (MCD12Q1) product from 2001-2018 to examine LULC in the district Shangla of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan. LULC types were classified into seven major classes: evergreen forest, savannas, grasslands, permanent wetlands, croplands, natural vegetation, and barren land.The result indicated that grasslands (17.04-12.84%) and cropland (34.73-18.12%) decreased significantly due to over population pressure coupled by natural hazards, while savannas (40.63-49.25%), permanent wetlands (0.03-0.07%), and natural vegetation (3.13-14.96%), were increased significantly as a result of the different internations for the conservations in the area. As a result, the development of LULC maps will play a vital role in sustainable management of LULC in northern Pakistan due to the lack of ground and reliable data towards the targets of sustainable development goals in the area.

Page(s): 1230-1237

DOI: DOI not available

Published: Journal: Sarhad Journal of Agriculture, Volume: 37, Issue: 4, Year: 2021

Keywords:

Remote Sensing , change detection , HinduKush Karakoram , LULC , Spatiotemporal changes , and Himalayan

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