Assessing the Impacts of Population Growth and Roads on Forest Cover: A Temporal Approach to Reconstruct the Deforestation Process in District Kurram, Pakistan, since 1972

Deforestation in remote mountainous regions is considered to be one of the fundamental elements for triggering changes in the biophysical environment driven by various socioeconomic parameters, particularly population growth and road construction in a previously inaccessible environment. A sudden in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLand (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 6; p. 810
Main Authors Hussain, Kamal, Rahman, Fazlur, Ullah, Ihsan, Ahmad, Zahir, Schickhoff, Udo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.06.2022
Subjects
Accessibility
Afghan refugees
Analysis
Biomass
Climate change
Deforestation
Focus groups
Forecasts and trends
Forest resources
Forests
Forests and forestry
GIS and remote sensing
global environmental change
Growth
Influence
Koh-e-Safid Mountains
Land degradation
Methods
Mountains
Natural resources
Pakistan
Pattern analysis
Population
Population growth
Population studies
Precipitation
Rain
Remote sensing
Road construction
Satellite imagery
Satellite observation
Seasons
Snow
Wood
Pakistan
Afghanistan
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Summary:Deforestation in remote mountainous regions is considered to be one of the fundamental elements for triggering changes in the biophysical environment driven by various socioeconomic parameters, particularly population growth and road construction in a previously inaccessible environment. A sudden increase in population exerts adverse impacts on the local natural resources, specifically forests. The present study is conducted in Tribal District Kurram, located in the northwestern mountainous belt of Pakistan. This study is aimed to analyze the temporal pattern of deforestation and to explore the impacts of population growth and accessibility on forest cover. It is based on remotely sensed data, focused group discussions, interviews and field observations. The satellite images were processed and classified using ArcGIS and ERDAS IMAGINE. The time span of this study is 1972 to 2019, which is further divided into three periods. The results revealed that almost half (48%) of the forest cover was reduced in ca. five decades. However, considerable variation has been observed in the deforestation rate during the study period. The results of this study revealed that both population change and accessibility have played a vital role in the deforestation process.
ISSN:2073-445X
2073-445X
DOI:10.3390/land11060810