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1.
Uudus Bayarsaikhan Bazartseren Boldgiv Kyung-Ryul Kim Kyung-Ae Park Donkoo Lee 《International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation》2009
Land cover types of Hustai National Park (HNP) in Mongolia, a hotspot area with rare species, were classified and their temporal changes were evaluated using Landsat MSS TM/ETM data between 1994 and 2000. Maximum-likelihood classification analysis showed an overall accuracy of 88.0% and 85.0% for the 1994 and 2000 images, respectively. Kappa coefficients associated with the classification were resulted to 0.85 for 1994 and 0.82 for 2000 image. Land cover types revealed significant temporal changes in the classification maps between 1994 and 2000. The area has increased considerably by 166.5 km2 for mountain steppe and by 12 km2 for a sand dune. By contrast, agricultural areas and degraded areas affected by human being activity were decreased by 46.1 km2 and 194.8 km2 over the 6-year span, respectively. These areas were replaced by mountain steppe area. Specifically, forest area was noticeably fragmented, accompanied by the decrease of ∼400 ha. The forest area revealed a pattern with systematic gain and loss associated with the specific phenomenon called as ‘forest free-south slope’. We discussed the potential environmental conditions responsible for the systematic pattern and addressed other biological impacts by outbreaks of forest pests and ungulates. 相似文献
2.
Land use and land cover change are of prime concern due to their impacts on CO2 emissions, climate change and ecological services. New global land cover products at 300 m resolution from the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative Land Cover (CCI LC) project for epochs centered around 2000, 2005 and 2010 were analyzed to investigate forest area change and land cover transitions. Plant functional types (PFTs) fractions were derived from these land cover products according to a conversion table. The gross global forest loss between 2000 and 2010 is 172,171 km2, accounting for 0.6% of the global forest area in year 2000. The forest changes are mainly distributed in tropical areas such as Brazil and Indonesia. Forest gains were only observed between 2005 and 2010 with a global area of 9844 km2, mostly from crops in Southeast Asia and South America. The predominant PFT transition is deforestation from forest to crop, accounting for four-fifths of the total increase of cropland area between 2000 and 2010. The transitions from forest to bare soil, shrub, and grass also contributed strongly to the total areal change in PFTs. Different PFT transition matrices and composition patterns were found in different regions. The highest fractions of forest to bare soil transitions were found in the United States and Canada, reflecting forest management practices. Most of the degradation from grassland and shrubland to bare soil occurred in boreal regions. The areal percentage of forest loss and land cover transitions generally decreased from 2000–2005 to 2005–2010. Different data sources and uncertainty in the conversion factors (converting from original LC classes to PFTs) contribute to the discrepancy in the values of change in absolute forest area. 相似文献
3.
遥感和GIS技术应用于伊拉克南部Basrah省土地利用/覆盖变化及城市扩张研究 总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2
In recent years, land use/cover dynamic change has become a key subject that needs to be dealt with in the study of global
environmental change. In this paper, remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) are integrated to monitor, map,
and quantify the land use/cover change in the southern part of Iraq (Basrah Province was taken as a case) by using a 1:250
000 mapping scale. Remote sensing and GIS software were used to classify Landsat TM in 1990 and Landsat ETM+ in 2003 imagery
into five land use and land cover (LULC) classes: vegetation, sand, urban area, unused land, and water bodies. Supervised
classification and normalized difference build-up index (NDBI) were used respectively to retrieve its urban boundary. An accuracy
assessment was performed on the 2003 LULC map to determine the reliability of the map. Finally, GIS software was used to quantify
and illustrate the various LULC conversions that took place over the 13-year span of time. Results showed that the urban area
had increased by the rate of 1.2% per year, with area expansion from 3 299.1 km2 in 1990 to 3 794.9 km2 in 2003. Large vegetation area in the north and southeast were converted into urban construction land. The land use/cover
changes of Basrah Province were mainly caused by rapid development of the urban economy and population immigration from the
countryside. In addition, the former government policy of “returning farmland to transportation and huge expansion in military
camps” was the major driving force for vegetation land change. The paper concludes that remote sensing and GIS can be used
to create LULC maps. It also notes that the maps generated can be used to delineate the changes that take place over time.
Supported by the Al-Basrah University, Iraq, the Geo-information Science and Technology Program (No. IRT 0438)China). 相似文献
4.
K. Meusburger N. KonzM. Schaub C. Alewell 《International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation》2010
The focus of soil erosion research in the Alps has been in two categories: (i) on-site measurements, which are rather small scale point measurements on selected plots often constrained to irrigation experiments or (ii) off-site quantification of sediment delivery at the outlet of the catchment. Results of both categories pointed towards the importance of an intact vegetation cover to prevent soil loss. With the recent availability of high-resolution satellites such as IKONOS and QuickBird options for detecting and monitoring vegetation parameters in heterogeneous terrain have increased. The aim of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of QuickBird derived vegetation parameters in soil erosion models for alpine sites by comparison to Cesium-137 (Cs-137) derived soil erosion estimates. The study site (67 km2) is located in the Central Swiss Alps (Urseren Valley) and is characterised by scarce forest cover and strong anthropogenic influences due to grassland farming for centuries. A fractional vegetation cover (FVC) map for grassland and detailed land-cover maps are available from linear spectral unmixing and supervised classification of QuickBird imagery. The maps were introduced to the Pan-European Soil Erosion Risk Assessment (PESERA) model as well as to the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). Regarding the latter model, the FVC was indirectly incorporated by adapting the C factor. Both models show an increase in absolute soil erosion values when FVC is considered. In contrast to USLE and the Cs-137 soil erosion rates, PESERA estimates are low. For the USLE model also the spatial patterns improved and showed “hotspots” of high erosion of up to 16 t ha−1 a−1. In conclusion field measurements of Cs-137 confirmed the improvement of soil erosion estimates using the satellite-derived vegetation data. 相似文献
5.
Zongming Wang Ni Huang Ling Luo Xiaoyan Li Chunying Ren Kaishan Song Jing Ming Chen 《International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation》2011
Agricultural development under climatic variations has resulted in substantial loss of marshes in the West Songnen Plain in the past decades. In this paper, the shrinkage and fragmentation process of marshes and its possible causes in the West Songnen Plain from 1954 to 2008 were explored using historical topographic maps and remote sensing data. Results indicated that the West Songnen Plain underwent considerable shrinkage and fragmentation of marshes in that same period. Marshes occupied 6404 km2 in 1954, but this area has decreased by 74% in the past 54 years. The average annual decrease rate of marshes was 88 km2 per year. Meanwhile, the number of marsh patches decreased from 1411 to 514, and the mean patch size decreased from 454 to 320 ha. Cropland and salinized wasteland were the two main land use types into which marshes were converted. During the same period, grassland decreased by 54%, cropland increased by 22%, and salinized wasteland expanded by 612%. A significant increase in air temperature and index of dryness was found in the study region, along with decreased precipitation, thereby affecting the marsh systems through the changing hydrological regimes. On the other hand, population, gross domestic product, and livestock number increased considerably as marshes shrank and became fragmented. Governmental policy changes played a key role in land use transformations in the study region. 相似文献
6.
George Xian Collin Homer Brett Bunde Patrick Danielson Jon Dewitz Joyce Fry 《国际地球制图》2013,28(6):479-497
We estimated urbanization rates (2001–2006) in the Gulf of Mexico region using the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001 and 2006 impervious surface products. An improved method was used to update the NLCD impervious surface product in 2006 and associated land cover transition between 2001 and 2006. Our estimation reveals that impervious surface increased 416 km2 with a growth rate of 5.8% between 2001 and 2006. Approximately 1110.1 km2 of non-urban lands were converted into urban land, resulting in a 3.2% increase in the region. Hay/pasture, woody wetland, and evergreen forest represented the three most common land cover classes that transitioned to urban. Among these land cover transitions, more than 50% of the urbanization occurred within 50 km of the coast. Our analysis shows that the close-to-coast land cover transition trend, especially within 10 km off the coast, potentially imposes substantial long-term impacts on regional landscape and ecological conditions. 相似文献
7.
Urban land cover mapping has lately attracted a vast amount of attention as it closely relates to a broad scope of scientific and management applications. Late methodological and technological advancements facilitate the development of datasets with improved accuracy. However, thematic resolution of urban land cover has received much less attention so far, a fact that hampers the produced datasets utility. This paper seeks to provide insights towards the improvement of thematic resolution of urban land cover classification. We integrate existing, readily available and with acceptable accuracies datasets from multiple sources, with remote sensing techniques. The study site is Greece and the urban land cover is classified nationwide into five classes, using the RandomForests algorithm. Results allowed us to quantify, for the first time with a good accuracy, the proportion that is occupied by each different urban land cover class. The total area covered by urban land cover is 2280 km2 (1.76% of total terrestrial area), the dominant class is discontinuous dense urban fabric (50.71% of urban land cover) and the least occurring class is discontinuous very low density urban fabric (2.06% of urban land cover). 相似文献
8.
Yunjun Yao Shunlin Liang Qiming Qin Kaicun Wang Shaohua Zhao 《International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation》2011
The latent heat of evapotranspiration (ET) plays an important role in the assessment of drought severity as one sensitive indicator of land drought status. A simple and accurate method of estimating global ET for the monitoring of global land surface droughts from remote sensing data is essential. The objective of this research is to develop a hybrid ET model by introducing empirical coefficients based on a simple linear two-source land ET model, and to then use this model to calculate the Evaporative Drought Index (EDI) based on the actual estimated ET and the potential ET in order to characterize global surface drought conditions. This is done using the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) products, AVHRR-NDVI products from the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) group, and National Centers for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis-2 (NCEP-2) datasets. We randomly divided 22 flux towers into two groups and performed a series of cross-validations using ground measurements collected from the corresponding flux towers. The validation results from the second group of flux towers using the data from the first group for calibration show that the daily bias varies from −6.72 W/m2 to 12.95 W/m2 and the average monthly bias is −1.73 W/m2. Similarly, the validation results of the first group of flux towers using data from second group for calibration show that the daily bias varies from −12.91 W/m2 to 10.26 W/m2 and the average monthly bias is −3.59 W/m2. To evaluate the reliability of the hybrid ET model on a global scale, we compared the estimated ET from the GEWEX, AVHRR-GIMMS-NDVI, and NECP-2 datasets with the latent heat flux from the Global Soil Wetness Project-2 (GSWP-2) datasets. We found both of them to be in good agreement, which further supports the validity of our model's global ET estimation. Significantly, the patterns of monthly EDI anomalies have a good spatial and temporal correlation with the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) anomalies from January 1984 to December 2002, which indicates that the method can be used to accurately monitor long-term global land surface drought. 相似文献
9.
K. Meusburger D. BänningerC. Alewell 《International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation》2010
Soil erosion rates in alpine regions are related to high spatial variability complicating assessment of risk and damages. A crucial parameter triggering soil erosion that can be derived from satellite imagery is fractional vegetation cover (FVC). The objective of this study is to assess the applicability of normalized differenced vegetation index (NDVI), linear spectral unmixing (LSU) and mixture tuned matched filtering (MTMF) in estimating abundance of vegetation cover in alpine terrain. To account for the small scale heterogeneity of the alpine landscape we used high resolved multispectral QuickBird imagery (pixel resolution = 2.4 m) of a site in the Urseren Valley, Central Swiss Alps (67 km2). A supervised land-cover classification was applied (total accuracy 93.3%) prior to the analysis in order to stratify the image. The regression between ground truth FVC assessment and NDVI as well as MTMF-derived vegetation abundance was significant (r2 = 0.64, r2 = 0.71, respectively). Best results were achieved for LSU (r2 = 0.85). For both spectral unmixing approaches failed to estimate bare soil abundance (r2 = 0.39 for LSU, r2 = 0.28 for MTMF) due to the high spectral variability of bare soil at the study site and the low spectral resolution of the QuickBird imagery. The LSU-derived FVC map successfully identified erosion features (e.g. landslides) and areas prone to soil erosion. FVC represents an important but often neglected parameter for soil erosion risk assessment in alpine grasslands. 相似文献
10.
Ross S. Lunetta Yang Shao Jayantha Ediriwickrema John G. Lyon 《International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation》2010
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) 16-day composite data product (MOD12Q) was used to develop annual cropland and crop-specific map products (corn, soybeans, and wheat) for the Laurentian Great Lakes Basin (GLB). The crop area distributions and changes in crop rotations were characterized by comparing annual crop map products for 2005, 2006, and 2007. The total acreages for corn and soybeans were relatively balanced for calendar years 2005 (31,462 km2 and 31,283 km2, respectively) and 2006 (30,766 km2 and 30,972 km2, respectively). Conversely, corn acreage increased approximately 21% from 2006 to 2007, while soybean and wheat acreage decreased approximately 9% and 21%, respectively. Two-year crop rotational change analyses were conducted for the 2005–2006 and 2006–2007 time periods. The large increase in corn acreages for 2007 introduced crop rotation changes across the GLB. Compared to 2005–2006, crop rotation patterns for 2006–2007 resulted in increased corn–corn, soybean–corn, and wheat–corn rotations. The increased corn acreages could have potential negative impacts on nutrient loadings, pesticide exposures, and sediment-mediated habitat degradation. Increased in US corn acreages in 2007 were related to new biofuel mandates, while Canadian increases were attributed to higher world-wide corn prices. Additional study is needed to determine the potential impacts of increases in corn-based ethanol agricultural production on watershed ecosystems and receiving waters. 相似文献
11.
Pasture land occupies extensive areas and is increasingly of interest for sustainable intensification, land use diversification, greenhouse gas emission mitigation, and bioenergy expansion. Accurate maps of pasture and other managed land covers are needed for monitoring, intercomparison, assessing potential uses, and planning. Yet, land maps can be generated from different types of classification datasets – i.e. as a land use or land cover type – as well as different sources. In this study our aim was to assess and compare land use and land cover definitions for pasture, and examine variability in the resulting pasture land classification maps. First, we conducted a review of pasture definitions in commonly used mapping databases. We then performed a case study involving Brazil, a dominant global producer of pasture-based livestock. Six geospatial databases were harmonized and compared to each other and to MODIS land cover for Brazil including the Cerrado and Amazon biomes, which are internationally recognized for their ecological value. Total pasture area estimates for Brazil ranged by a factor greater than four, from about 430,000 km2 to over 1.7 million km2. Our analysis showed high variability in pasture land maps depending on the definitions, methods and underlying datasets used to generate them. The results are illustrative of a symptomatic problem for all manage land datasets, demonstrating the need for land categories studies and geospatial data resources that fully define land terms and describe measurable management attributes. Additionally, the suitability of individual geospatial datasets for different types of land mapping must be better described and reported. These recommendations would help bring more consistency in the consideration of managed lands in research, reporting, and policy development, as demonstrated here for pasture land using six case study datasets from multiple sources. 相似文献
12.
Ramesh Sivanpillai Steven D. Prager Thomas O. Storey 《International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation》2009
Sagebrush ecosystems of the western US provide important habitat for several ungulate and vertebrate species. As a consequence of energy development, these ecosystems in Wyoming have been subjected to a variety of anthropogenic disturbances. Land managers require methodology that will allow them to consistently catalog sagebrush ecosystems and evaluate potential impact of proposed anthropogenic activities. This study addresses the utility of remotely sensed and ancillary geospatial data to estimate sagebrush cover using ordinal logistic regression. We demonstrate statistically significant prediction of ordinal sagebrush cover categories using spectral (χ2 = 113; p < 0.0001) and transformed indices (χ2 = 117; p < 0.0001). Both Landsat spectral bands (c-value = 0.88) and transformed indices (c-value = 0.89) can distinguish sites with closed, moderate and open cover sagebrush cover categories from no cover. The techniques described in this study can be used for estimating categories of sagebrush cover in arid ecosystems. 相似文献
13.
Soil erosion prediction based on land cover dynamics at the Semenyih watershed in Malaysia using LTM and USLE models 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
This study attempts to identify and forecast future land cover (LC) by using the Land Transformation Model (LTM), which considers pixel changes in the past and makes predictions using influential spatial features. LTM applies the Artificial Neural Networks algorithm) in conducting the analysis. In line with these objectives, two satellite images (Spot 5 acquired in 2004 and 2010) were classified using the Maximum Likelihood method for the change detection analysis. Consequently, LC maps from 2004 to 2010 with six classes (forest, agriculture, oil palm cultivations, open area, urban, and water bodies) were generated from the test area. A prediction was made on the actual soil erosion and the soil erosion rate using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) combined with remote sensing and GIS in the Semenyih watershed for 2004 and 2010 and projected to 2016. Actual and potential soil erosion maps from 2004 to 2010 and projected to 2016 were eventually generated. The results of the LC change detections indicated that three major changes were predicted from 2004 to 2016 (a period of 12 years): (1) forest cover and open area significantly decreased at rates of almost 30 and 8 km2, respectively; (2) cultivated land and oil palm have shown an increment in sizes at rates of 25.02 and 5.77 km2, respectively; and, (3) settlement and Urbanization has intensified also by almost 5 km2. Soil erosion risk analysis results also showed that the Semenyih basin exhibited an average annual soil erosion between 143.35 ton ha?1 year?1 in 2004 and 151 in 2010, followed by the expected 162.24 ton ha?1 year?1. These results indicated that Semenyih is prone to water erosion by 2016. The wide range of erosion classes were estimated at a very low level (0–1 t/ha/year) and mainly located on steep lands and forest areas. This study has shown that using both LTM and USLE in combination with remote sensing and GIS is a suitable method for forecasting LC and accurately measuring the amount of soil losses in the future. 相似文献
14.
The green cover of the earth exhibits various spatial gradients that represent gradual changes in space of vegetation density and/or in species composition. To date, land cover mapping methods differentiate at best, mapping units with different cover densities and/or species compositions, but typically fail to express such differences as gradients. Present interpretation techniques still make insufficient use of freely available spatial-temporal Earth Observation (EO) data that allow detection of existing land cover gradients. This study explores the use of hyper-temporal NDVI imagery to detect and delineate land cover gradients analyzing the temporal behavior of NDVI values. MODIS-Terra MVC-images (250 m, 16-day) of Crete, Greece, from February 2000 to July 2009 are used. The analysis approach uses an ISODATA unsupervised classification in combination with a Hierarchical Clustering Analysis (HCA). Clustering of class-specific temporal NDVI profiles through HCA resulted in the identification of gradients in landcover vegetation growth patterns. The detected gradients were arranged in a relational diagram, and mapped. Three groups of NDVI-classes were evaluated by correlating their class-specific annual average NDVI values with the field data (tree, shrub, grass, bare soil, stone, litter fraction covers). Multiple regression analysis showed that within each NDVI group, the fraction cover data were linearly related with the NDVI data, while NDVI groups were significantly different with respect to tree cover (adj. R2 = 0.96), shrub cover (adj. R2 = 0.83), grass cover (adj. R2 = 0.71), bare soil (adj. R2 = 0.88), stone cover (adj. R2 = 0.83) and litter cover (adj. R2 = 0.69) fractions. Similarly, the mean Sorenson dissimilarity values were found high and significant at confidence interval of 95% in all pairs of three NDVI groups. The study demonstrates that hyper-temporal NDVI imagery can successfully detect and map land cover gradients. The results may improve land cover assessment and aid in agricultural and ecological studies. 相似文献
15.
准确及时地了解黑土型退化草地的时空分布特点,对祁连山地区草地退化修复治理具有重要意义。本文选取祁连县野牛沟乡西北部区域作为研究区,基于Landsat 8 OLI影像,结合地理国情监测成果,尝试利用分场景的决策树分类方法提取黑土型退化草地范围,并对比分析2014-2019年黑土型退化草地的时空变化特征。结果表明,多场景的决策树分类方法对黑土型退化草地监测具有很好的适用性;2014-2019年,研究区北部部分区域缓坡地和中部滩地黑土型退化问题有所好转,西部和西北部缓坡地黑土型退化问题有进一步恶化的趋势;好转草地主要以人工干预为主,恶化草地可能是受水热空洞效应、鼠害等多种因素的影响。 相似文献
16.
Assessment of groundwater potential zones using GIS technique 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
A case study was conducted to find out the groundwater potential zones in Kattakulathur block, Tamil Nadu, India with an aerial
extent of 360.60 km2. The thematic maps such as geology, geomorphology, soil hydrological group, land use / land cover and drainage map were prepared
for the study area. The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) has been generated from the 10 m interval contour lines (which is derived
from SOI, Toposheet 1:25000 scale) and obtained the slope (%) of the study area. The groundwater potential zones were obtained
by overlaying all the thematic maps in terms of weighted overlay methods using the spatial analysis tool in ArcGIS 9.2. During
weighted overlay analysis, the ranking has been given for each individual parameter of each thematic map and weights were
assigned according to the influence such as soil −25%, geomorphology − 25%, land use/land cover −25%, slope − 15%, lineament
− 5% and drainage / streams − 5% and find out the potential zones in terms of good, moderate and poor zones with the area
of 49.70 km2, 261.61 km2 and 46.04 km2 respectively. The potential zone wise study area was overlaid with village boundary map and the village wise groundwater
potential zones with three categories such as good, moderate and poor zones were obtained. This GIS based output result was
validated by conducting field survey by randomly selecting wells in different villages using GPS instruments. The coordinates
of each well location were obtained by GPS and plotted in the GIS platform and it was clearly shown that the well coordinates
were exactly seated with the classified zones. 相似文献
17.
Assessing changes in the above ground biomass and carbon stocks of Lidder valley,Kashmir Himalaya,India 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
The changes in the land use and land cover (LULC), above ground biomass (AGB) and the associated above ground carbon (AGC) stocks were assessed in Lidder Valley, Kashmir Himalaya using satellite data (1980–2013), allometric equations and phytosociological data. Change detection analysis of LULC, comprising of eight vegetation and five non-vegetation types, indicated that 6% (74.5 km2) of the dense evergreen forest has degraded. Degraded forest and settlement increased by 20 and 52.8 km2, respectively. Normalized difference vegetation index was assessed and correlated with the field-based biomass estimates to arrive at best-fit models for remotely sensed AGB estimates for 2005 and 2013. Total loss of 1.018 Megatons of AGB and 0.5 Megatons of AGC was estimated from the area during 33-year period which would have an adverse effect on the carbon sequestration potential of the area which is already facing the brunt of climate change. 相似文献
18.
Reshma M. Ramachandran C. Sudhakar Reddy 《Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing》2017,45(1):163-170
The studies on forest cover change can reveal the status of forests and facilitate for its conservation planning. Idukki is the largest district in the state of Kerala having a total geographical area of 5019 km2. The objectives of the present study are to map forest cover in Idukki district using multi-temporal remote sensing data (1975, 1990, 2001 and 2012) and topographical maps (1925), to analyze the trends in deforestation and land use changes. Overall statistics for the period of 1925 indicate that about 4675.7 km2 (93.2 %) of the landscape was under forest. The forest cover in 2012 was estimated as 2613.4 km2 (52.1 %). Recently, due to the implementation of policies and protection efforts, the rate of deforestation was greatly reduced. The commencement of hydroelectric projects during 1925–1990 responsible for an increase of area under water bodies by inundating other land uses. The long term analysis shows agricultural area been decreasing and commercial plantations been increasing in the district. There has been a significant increase in the area of plantations from 1236.2 km2 (1975) to 1317.3 km2 (2012). 相似文献
19.
Gopal Krishan S. P. S. Kushwaha A. Velmurugan 《Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing》2009,37(1):119-128
A study on land degradation in the upper catchment of river Tons, a tributary of Yamuna river, in Uttarkashi district of the
Uttarakhand state, was carried out using on-screen visual interpretation of IRS LISS-III + PAN merged data. The study area,
which is largely mountainous, includes Govind Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park. Vegetation cover, slope and erosion status
were used as criteria for the delineation of four major land degradation categories viz., undegraded, moderately degraded, degraded and severely degraded. More than 50 per cent of the study area is reported to be covered with snow and grassland. The moderate to severely degraded
area worked out to be 42.4 per cent of the total area. The 32.8 per cent of area was found to be moderately degraded, followed by degraded (6.63%) and severely degraded (2.88%) areas. The depletion of vegetation cover on mountainous terrain and subsequent cultivation without proper protection
measures is the reason for severe soil erosion and land degradation. In view of the existing land degradation situation, the
catchment requires immediate treatment on priority for the sustenance of agriculture and wild life. It is expected that these
measures will reduce the silt load in the river Tons and eventually, in river Yamuna. 相似文献