Land use and Land cover change in the Churia-Tarai Region, Nepal Submitted to: Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation Rastrapati Churia Conservation program (RCCP) Coordination Unit Babarmahal, Kathmandu by Motilal Ghimire, Ph.D Acknowledgements At the very outset, we express my heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Megh Bahadur Pandey, Joint Secretary/Coordinator, Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Rastrapati Churia Conservation Programme (RCCP) Coordination Unit for granting us an opportunity to carry out this Project ―Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Churia-Tarai region‖. Also we sincerely extend out heartfelt thanks to Dr. Prem Paudel, for his initiative and sincere efforts in development of the project, arranging all logistic matters and giving valuable feedbacks at several stages of this Project. Our sincere gratitude goes to all staff of the RCCP for their cooperation and support in various ways to accomplish the Project. We also extend our heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Gokarna Jung Thapa, GIS officer, WWF, Nepal for providing us the satellite imageries as well printing maps and report for this Project. Last but not the least, we sincerely express our thanks to all the local people, who provided us information and various support during the field work. Authors Motilal Ghimire, Ph.D Laxmi Basnet Table of contents Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 4 1. Background ................................................................................................................. 4 1.2. Objectives of the Study ............................................................................................ 4 Chapter 2: Methods and Tools ............................................................................................ 5 2.1. Imageries and map layers......................................................................................... 5 2.2. Application of RS and GIS ...................................................................................... 5 2.3. Land use and land cover mapping ........................................................................... 7 2.3.1. Definitions......................................................................................................... 8 2.3.2. Land use and land cover classification scheme ................................................ 8 2.3.3. Image classification for land use and land cover delineation. .......................... 9 2.4. Field visit and ground truthing ............................................................................... 10 2.5. Definition of the Churia hills ................................................................................. 10 2.6. Study area............................................................................................................... 11 2.6.1. Physiography................................................................................................... 11 2.6.2. Geology of the Churia hills ............................................................................. 14 2.6.3. Climate ............................................................................................................ 14 2.6.4 Demography ..................................................................................................... 15 2.6.5. Churia hills and the administrative unit .......................................................... 15 Chapter 3: Land use and land cover pattern and change .................................................. 19 3.1. Land use land cover pattern, 1990/91 and 2010 .................................................... 19 3.2. Pathways of land use and land cover change (1990/91-2010). .............................. 24 3.3. Land use and land cover (2010) by slope .............................................................. 26 3.4. Land use and land cover change (1990/91-2010) by slope .................................... 27 3.5. Land use and land cover by districts, 2010 ............................................................ 28 3.6. Land use and land cover change by districts ......................................................... 28 Chapter 4: Drivers of land use and land cover change ..................................................... 32 Chapter 5: Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 38 References ......................................................................................................................... 39 APPENDIX-1 ................................................................................................................... 40 APPENDIX-2 ................................................................................................................... 49 APPENDIX-3 ................................................................................................................... 50 APPENDIX-3 ................................................................................................................... 51 APPENDIX-4 ................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter 1: Introduction 1. Background Land use and land cover changes are widespread, accelerating, and significant processes driven by human actions but also producing changes that impact humans. These dynamics alter the availability of different biophysical resources including soil, vegetation, water, animal feed and others. Such phenomenon is no exception in the Churia-Tarai region of Nepal. Human activities have altered the surface environment of Churia Hill and adjoining Indo-Gangetic parts of Nepal during the last five decades which witnessed multitude of events and developments like migration, deforestation, growth of infrastructures and settlement, urbanization and so on. One of the obvious manifestations is land use and land cover change, which affect the various ecosystems’ structure and function greatly. In recent years, plenty of serious resources, ecological and environmental problems have occurred in the Churia -Tarai region (here covers Churia Hills, Dun valleys, and Tarai). Churia hills are the most recent mountain system of the Himalayan orogeny and tectonically one of the most active mountains in the world (Gansser, 1964) Churia hills characterize steep and dissected topography, which is underlain by highly deformed and complicated structure of sedimentary rocks (sandstone, mudstone, and conglomerates) (DMG, 2007). These hills receive greater amount and intensity of rainfall and experience frequent earthquake waves. Such biophysical conditions make watersheds of Churia-Tarai region extremely fragile and sensitive ecological environment to human disturbance. At this backdrop, the impact of land use and land cover changes and use pattern of land resources in the Churia hills and adjoining Tarai has serious implications on the hazards and land degradation, and resource availability which have synergetic relationship with livelihood of the people living in the region. Land use and land cover change in Churia-Tarai region will play a pivotal role in the sustainability of the livelihood and future development and in explaining human response to development activities. Yet it is still unclear to what extend land use and cover changes have occurred in the entire region over the last 20 years, and how these changes are driven by the socio-economic processes and what are the major pathways of these changes. In this context it is necessary to achieve the following objectives. 1.2. Objectives of the Study The general objective of the study is to examine land use and land cover change in the Churia-Tarai region in the last two decades, i.e., 1990/91-2010. Specific objectives of study are to: establish historic and current information of land use and land cover to track the evolution of the major land use changes over the last 20 years; examine land use and land cover dynamics and their driving forces. Chapter 2: Methods and Tools 2.1. Imageries and map layers Landsat imageries of 1990/91 and 2010s procured from the WWW.Landsat.org in digital format were used for interpreting land use and land cover of the Churia – Tarai region (Figure 1). These imageries are described in detail in Table 2.1. Similarly, the topographic maps published between 1993 and 1998 at the scale of 1:25,000 by Department of Survey, GoN were used to verify and support the interpretation of land use and land cover types from the imageries. In addition, recent high resolution imageries covering the study area provided by the Google Earth was also used for the purpose of ground truthing of the interpreted land use and covers types from the imageries. Contour and spot height layers in GIS format digitized from the topographic maps (1: 25, 000, published in1993-1996) were procured from the Survey Department, Nepal. Digital elevation model was produced from these elevation layers and subsequently topographic parameter such as slope map was generated. A general physiographic division of the Churia-Tarai region was adapted from the LRMP’s physiographic map of Nepal, with little modification done by Ghimire et al (2007). Geological maps at the scale of 1:125,000 produced by the Department of Mines and Geology, GoN in 2007 were scanned and digitized. These maps were used to describe the geological condition of the study area and examine the land use and land cover relationship. Boundaries