Land cover change analysis and impacts of deforestation on the climate of District Mansehra, Pakistan
Paper Details
Land cover change analysis and impacts of deforestation on the climate of District Mansehra, Pakistan
Abstract
In this study, district Mansehra, Pakistan was chosen as the study area. The main objectives of this research are to assess the extent and the changes in the rate of deforestation in Mansehra since past 20 years. It also examine the impacts of deforestation on the Climate by establishing and mapping the magnitude and rates of land cover changes that had occurred in the study area. Landsat satellite images were taken as secondary data and they were foremost for the classification process. Remote sensing data together with GIS techniques have made it conceivable to display and oversee remotely detected information in various scales. The images taken for classification are Landsat 5 TM for the year 1998 and 2008 and from Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS TM for the year 2017. Climatic data from 1988 to 2017 was collected from Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) of Mansehra District. The Forest Cover was 14% (601 Sq. Km) in 1998, 15% (668 Sq. Km) in 2008 and 5% (194 Sq. Km) in 2017. Taking everything together, anyway the results exhibit that some land cover types experienced extending rates and sizes of changes however in the others the inverse is legitimate, results revealed that the size and the rates of land cover changes for forest areas experienced an exceptional fluctuations in these 20 years. Maximum temperature of Mansehra increased at an alarming rate from 25.82°C in 1988 and 24.8°C in 1998 to 25.667°C in 2008 and 27.304°C in 2016 and 26.739°C in the year 2017. Mean minimum temperature showed fluctuation of 1° during these 30 years. In some years mean minimum temperature showed decrease from 12° to 11° and this change is not confined to a specific year. The rainfall was 5.129mm in 1988 and then rainfall increased from 3.6 mm in the year 1998 when there was 14% forest Cover to 4.8mm in 2008 when there was 15% Forest Cover but declined to 2.9mm in the year 2017 when there was only 5% forest left in Mansehra.
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