Environmental Risk Assessment in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Mountains of Northern Pakistan: Palas Valley, Kohistan

Noor Ul Haq (), George Kontakiotis, Hammad Tariq Janjuhah, Fazlur Rahman, Iffat Tabassum, Usman Khan, Jamil Khan, Zahir Ahmad and Naveed Jamal
Additional contact information
Noor Ul Haq: Department of Geography, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25100, KP, Pakistan
George Kontakiotis: Department of Historical Geology-Paleontology, Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, School of Earth Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, Zografou, 15784 Athens, Greece
Hammad Tariq Janjuhah: Department of Geology, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sheringal 18050, KP, Pakistan
Fazlur Rahman: Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25100, KP, Pakistan
Iffat Tabassum: Department of Geography, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25100, KP, Pakistan
Usman Khan: Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest Systems (DIBAF), University of Tuscia, Via SanCamillo de Lellis s.n.c., 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Jamil Khan: Department of Geography, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25100, KP, Pakistan
Zahir Ahmad: Department of Geography, Islamia University Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63100, PB, Pakistan
Naveed Jamal: Department of Geography, University of Peshawar, Peshawar 25100, KP, Pakistan

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-14

Abstract: Forest cover in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) mountains of northern Pakistan has changed dramatically due to community dynamics such as population growth, household dynamics, and intensive economic activity for people’s livelihoods. Demographic development is one of the major factors influencing forest cover change in a previously sparsely populated environment. An abrupt upsurge in population exerts adverse effects on the local natural resources, specifically forests. The present research shows an increase in population from 1980 to 2017, the development of human settlements, and a long-term decline in forest cover. This study was conducted in the Palas valley in the HKH mountains using GIS and remote sensing (RS) technology. Analysis of the changes between 1980, 2000, and 2017 was done using ArcGIS and the maximum likelihood algorithm for supervised classification of Landsat MSS TM ETM+ and Sentinel 2A satellite images. We used Euclidean distances and buffer analysis techniques to identify that most changes occurred within 1 to 3 km of the settlement’s proximity in each period. We also found changes in forest cover to be much greater near settlements than elsewhere in the study area. According to the findings of the study, population explosion and other socio-economic factors have imposed excessive pressure on vegetation cover, resulting in the loss of 17,076 ha of forests in the remote Palas valley.

Keywords: population growth; forest cover changes; Hindu Kush-Himalayan Mountains; Deforestation in Palas valley Kohistan; environmental risk; northern Pakistan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/24/16679/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/24/16679/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:24:p:16679-:d:1001794

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().