Dynamics of Land use Land Cover Change and Mapping of Tree Outside Forest (TOF) in Terai, Nepal

Abstract

Due to natural phenomena and various anthropogenic activities, rapid land-use/land-cover (LULC) is happening in the earth. The aim of this study was to evaluate and understand LULC including mapping of tree outside the forest (TOF) coverage in Terai region of Nepal over the period 1990 -2016. Supervised classification-maximum likelihood algorithm in Arc map software was used for detecting LULC dynamics by using multispectral satellite data obtained from Landsat 5, Global Land Survey Thematic mapper (TM) and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS. The study site was classified into four major LULC classes i.e. forest, sand, water bodies and others land. There was both increased and decreased of different LULC classes between1990-2016. Except forest, water, sand and others land cover were increased over twenty-six years between 1990-2016 in the study site. However, the rate of change in forest cover was lowered in the year 2000-2016. Increasing population and inward migration are the main reason behind the decreasing the forest coverage in the study site. However, the health of vegetation was improved between 2000 and 2016 compared to 1990 and 2000 due to contribution of TOF. Overall, anthropogenic activities play vital role in managing natural resources.

Trees on Farms to Improve Livelihoods and the Environment

“…TOF are increasingly being included in national forest and landscape inventory systems (Schnell et al 2015b; see Schnell 2015a for the contribution of TOF to national tree biomass and carbon stocks on three continents). The use of high-resolution satellite imagery and remote sensing, coupled with automated post-processing techniques, has improved the ability to map TOF at a large scale (Bolyn et al 2019;Yadav 2019;Kattenborn et al 2021). For example, a recently published study in Nature (Brandt et al 2020) mapped all trees (>3 m 2 crown size) in an area in Africa covering 1.3 million km² using machine learning applied to high-resolution (<1 m) satellite imagery.…”

“…The abundance of TonF and the important roles that they play in rural livelihoods and environmental management are increasingly being recognized (Yadav 2019;Schnell et al 2015a;Thapa et al 2021;Thomas et al 2021;Bolyn et al 2019). However, TonF are still largely absent from global initiatives (such as REDD+, FAO/FRA, UN conventions on biological diversity and on water) and in national agendas.…”

Land Cover Change Detection and Analysis of Mts. Palay-Palay Mataas-Na-Gulod Protected Landscape, Philippines using Satellite Imagery

“…Lastly, at the Allah Valley Protected Landscape in South Cotabato, trends in land cover change detected from 1989 to 2015 showed a decreasing forest area and increasing agricultural, grassland and built-up areas (Janiola and Puno, 2018). Changes in the physical characteristics of the land cover, including the distribution of vegetation, water, soil and other physical features catalyzed by natural or anthropogenic factors, result in land cover changes (Yadav et al, 2019). The impetus for land cover changes has been attributed to the direct drivers of deforestation including unsustainable forest product extraction, agricultural expansion and infrastructure construction (Carandang et al, 2013).…”

Historical and future dynamics of land use land cover and its drivers in Ajora‐Woybo watershed, Omo‐Gibe basin, Ethiopia

“…This is because modifications in land use system are a direct cause of changes in land cover (Amir Siddique et al, 2020;Dibaba et al, 2020a;Tadese et al, 2020Tadese et al, , 2021. As a consequence, changes in LULC have become a more significant research issue for national and local research plans alarmed with global environmental change (Hassan et al, 2016;Yadav, 2019).…”