Forest Cover Changes and Trajectories in a Typical Middle Mountain Watershed of Western Nepal

Pradeep Baral, Yali Wen and Nadia Nora Urriola
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Pradeep Baral: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, No. 35 Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China
Yali Wen: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, No. 35 Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China
Nadia Nora Urriola: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, No. 35 Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China

Land, 2018, vol. 7, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: There have been drastic changes in resource use practices and land-use patterns in the middle mountains of Nepal as a result of human transformation processes of the environment. This study aimed at assessing land-use and land-cover changes, especially those related to forest cover changes, in Phewa Lake watershed—a typical middle mountain watershed of western Nepal—using multi-temporal Landsat images from 1995, 2005 and 2017. Landsat images of each year were classified individually using object-based image classification into four land-use and land-cover types: agriculture and built-up, forest, waterbodies and other. Post-classification comparison was employed to quantify the extent and rate of changes, which was further extended to quantify the level of persistence, gains, losses, and swaps of forests. Furthermore, temporal trajectories of land-cover associated with forest cover changes were established, and their spatial pattern analyzed. The results show that, between 1995 and 2017, forest cover increased by 6.8% with a corresponding decrease in the extent of all other land-cover types. Dynamic transitions and internal trading among forest and agriculture and built-up category were observed, revealing more complex patterns than the commonly assumed linear and irreversible forest cover transformations in the mountains of Nepal. Our approach to assess major signals of forest cover transitions and change trajectories will help link patterns to the process of change including deforestation and forest regeneration. This would, in turn, form the basis for formulating practical conservation and management strategies for Phewa Lake watershed and other mountain watersheds of Nepal.

Keywords: forest cover change; swap change; change trajectory; Landsat; middle mountains; Phewa Lake watershed (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:7:y:2018:i:2:p:72-:d:150996

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