Assessment of Deforestation of Riverine Forests of Nawabshah & Hyderabad Divisions Using Landsat Data

The large scale deterioration of forests and natural resources are threatening ecosystem of forests. The deforestation contributes to regional climate change and environmental and social problem such as flood, ecology, health, and economy. It was necessary to carry out land cover such as (forests cover). The scientific studies have been focusing on the past and present conditions of Nawabshah and Hyderabad divisions, to extent of forests cover and other related objects using (RS) remote sensing technologies. The Riverine forests of Nawabshah and Hyderabad divisions are disappearing very rapidly due to construction of dams/barrages on the upper streams to produce hydroelectric power and irrigation works significantly reducing the discharge of fresh water into the lower Indus basin. The anthropogenic activities and livestock population increased grazing and illegal tree cutting have been contributing to depletion process. The landsat advance data MSS and TM to analyze forest cover from 1979 to January - 2010 has been used to calculate the deforestation area of Nawabshah and Hyderabad division. The results show significant changes in sub tropical forests cover, continuously monitored from 1979 to 2010. Overall forests cover in 1979 was 42.67%, 1992 37.62%, 1998 11.74%, 2000 9.52%, 2006 10.69%, 2009 4.71%, 2009-12 2.50%, and 2010 0.722%.

Keywords:

Analysis deforestation , Land use/Land cover remote sensing , supervised classification method , Landsat , Riverine Forests Sindh