Abstract:
Forest provide essential ecosystem services including sustaining biodiversity, preserving water and soil, and purifying the air. Imbalance and extensive use of forest contribute to environmental damage. Forests, particularly along the banks of river Indus (riverine forests) are under constant pressure and are being depleted at a very high rate. The objective of this study is to analyze the spatial-temporal change of riverine forest using geospatial techniques along the Indus River in Sindh province. Random Forest (RF) classifier, a machine learning method, is used to estimate the land use land cover in study area. Landsat TM and OLI & TIRS satellite images for years 1990, 2000, 2011, and 2021 are used to collect training samples and perform classification by using Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. Forest is extracted from the land use land cover classification results. Post-classification methods are used to study the variation in riverine forests. Further, change of land use land cover from forest is analyzed. GIS maps are prepared to assist locational information about the current extent of riverine forests grown on the banks of Indus River in Sindh province and deforestation due to river meandering and other land use land covers. The overall condition observed that decrease in forest is much higher than the increase in the study area. During 1990 to 2021 deforestation is calculated as 142,561 ha area (67 %.). Forest land is influenced mostly by extension of agriculture activities (59%) and river meandering (7%) during last thirty years. The study revealed alarming situation of deforestation in riverine forests along river Indus and recommends immediate remedial measures by the local authorities and concerned departments.
