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Forest fire is one of the key drivers of forest degradation in Nepal
. Most of the forest fires are human-induced and occur during the dry season, with ~89% occurring in March, April and May. The inaccessible mountainous terrain and narrow time window of occurrence complicate suppression efforts. In this paper, forest fire patterns are analysed based on historical fire incidence data to explore the spatial and temporal patterns of forest fires in Nepal. Three main factors are involved in the ignition and spread of forest fires, namely fuel availability, temperature and ignition potential. Using these factors a spatially distributed fire risk index was calculated for Nepal based on a linear model using weights and ratings. The input parameters for the risk assessment model were generated using remote sensing based land cover, temperature and active fire data, and topographic data. A relative risk ranking was also calculated for districts and village development committees (VDCs). In total, 18 out of 75 districts were found with high risk of forest fires. The district and VDC level fire risk ranking could be utilised by the Department of Forest for prioritisation, preparedness and resource allocation for fire control and mitigation
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Heavy rainfall (480 mm) on 16 July 2015 triggered a huge landslide (DGSE and GDKU, 2016) that dammed the Tui Lam Lui River approximately 52 km upstream of Yazagyo Dam near Hangken Village, Falam District in the Upper Chin hill region in northwestern Myanmar The Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry of Myanmar requested ICIMOD to assess the landslide dam and develop a comprehensive management plan to tackle the problem
. The Director of the Forest Department of Chin State organized a short field trip to the landslide dam and lake area in May 2016 and the ICIMOD team led the investigation group. The team used remote sensing data and field data to be analyzed in a geographic information systems environment. Based on collected data, the ICIMOD team concluded there was a strong probability this landslide dam would breach
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Three dimensional models (3D) are particularly suitable for working in local communities, because they allow people to easily understand the location of different elements in the landscape: how rivers, roads, slopes, villages and other features are placed
. When working in the area of natural resource management, these models can help local communities make more informed planning decisions in terms of village, forestry, and agricultural development
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The Himalayan mountain forest ecosystem has been degrading since the British ruled the area in the 1850s
. Local understanding of the patterns and processes of degradation is desperately required to devise management strategies to halt this degradation and provide long-term sustainability. This work comprises a satellite image based study in combination with national expert validation to generate sub-district level statistics for forest cover over the Western Himalaya, Pakistan, which accounts for approximately 67% of the total forest cover of the country. The time series of forest cover maps (1990, 2000, 2010) reveal extensive deforestation in the area. Indeed, approximately 170,684 ha of forest has been lost, which amounts to 0.38% per year clear cut or severely degraded during the last 20 years. A significant increase in the rate of deforestation is observed in the second half of the study period, where much of the loss occurs at the western borders along with Afghanistan. The current study is the first systematic and comprehensive effort to map changes to forest cover in Northern Pakistan. Deforestation hotspots identified at the sub-district level provide important insight into deforestation patterns, which may facilitate the development of appropriate forest conservation and management strategies in the country
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Murthy, M. S. R.; Gurung, D. R.; Qamer, F. M.; Bajracharya, S.; Gilani, H.; Uddin, K.; Matin, M.; Bajracharya, B.; Anderson, E.; Limaye, A.
The Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) region with 210 million people living in the region poses significant scientific and technological challenges for livelihood improvement due to subsistence economy, livelihood insecurity, poverty, and climate change
. The inaccessibility and complex mountain environmental settings carved special niche for Earth Observation (EO) science and significant contributions were made in the food security and disaster risk reduction sectors. The differentiated capacities of users to develop and use EO capabilities, challenges in outreaching the EO products to last mile users call for innovative ways of packaging EO products into actionable knowledge and services. This calls for great degree of reformation on EO community to tailor-made region specific EO sensors and models, mechanisms of synergizing EO knowledge with local traditional systems in addressing multiscale, and integrated end-to-end solutions. The paper addresses prospects and challenges of 2015–2030 to achieve success in three critical livelihood support themes viz food security, floods, and forest-based carbon mitigation. Different improvements in EO sensor and models to extend less than a day, all-weather imaging, improved hydro-meteorological forecasts, vegetation stress, and community carbon monitoring models are identified as priority areas of improvement. We envisage and propose mechanisms on how these EO advances could amalgamate into Essential HKH Variables (EHVs) on the lines of global Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) to provide turnkey-based actionable knowledge and services through global and regional cooperation. The complex web of users and orienting them toward adoption of EO services through multi-tier awareness, expertise development, policy advocacy, and institutionalization is also discussed. The paper concludes that the EO community needs to reform significantly in blending their science and applications with user-driven, need-based domains to provide better societal services and HKH livelihood transformation
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The forests of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region play a major role in maintaining the mountain ecosystem and supporting people’s livelihoods
. On a global scale, the important role of forests as sinks and sources of carbon is gaining increasing recognition as a major issue for climate change. However, notwithstanding their crucial role, forests across the region remain under threat from overexploitation and conversion of land to other uses. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism offers a promising approach for protecting and enhancing the world’s forests. But implementing REDD+ will only be possible if appropriate cost-effective ways can be developed to measure forests and accurately assess changes in forest area and biomass. This publication presents the findings of the geospatial component of a three-year study on the design and establishment of a governance and payment system for Nepal’s community forest management under REDD. The publication describes the development and testing of a method for delineating forest area using a participatory GIS approach with high resolution satellite images in three watersheds: Kayar Khola in Chitwan District, Ludi Khola in Gorkha District, and Charnawati in Dolakha District, representing the three regions of plains, hills, and mountains. This study provides baseline data for comparison in future studies as well as a method for delineating permanent representative sample plots. It also shows that biomass and carbon stocks can be assessed from satellite images with integration of only a small amount of data from the sample plots. Comparison with results from field-based measurements showed that optical remote sensing can provide usable values for forest biomass over a large area and in a timely and cost-effective manner
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The Himalayan mountain ecosystem is under severe stress due to population pressure and overexploitation, which is now being further compounded by climate change
. Particularly the Himalayan mountain forests has been degrading since the 1850s, in the early years of British administration. Consistent country-wide and local level data are needed to show the patterns and processes of degradation as a basis for developing management strategies to halt degradation and ensure long-term sustainability. Realizing the need for developing consistent national and regional databases in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region, with adequate spatial and temporal resolutions to be used by resource managers for informed decision making, time series land cover maps were developed for 1990, 2000, and 2010 based on the Landsat images. Considering forest sector as a primary user, a special attention was given to forest cover interpretation and relevant professional from national forestry institutions of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan were closely engaged in developing standardized data products. With the use of consistent datasets and interpretation methods, this study provides first systematic assessment on forest cover distribution and change patterns during last two decades in these countries. At the same time, the results compiled at sub-district administrative unit, may facilitate institutions in developing appropriate forest conservation strategies, ecosystem vulnerability assessment and ecosystem services valuation at local level. To promote such usages, national forestry institutions are being closely engaged in a number of capacity building activities at national and regional level. In context of Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) initiatives, these datasets are also being evaluated to be considered as baseline for deforestation and degradation rates in the respective countries. To promote easy and open access, a web system was developed which provides functions to understand land cover dynamics in relations to country's ecological distribution and administrative structure
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The Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, established as a protected area under IUCN category IV in 1976, is significantly rich in biodiversity and provides a vast array of ecosystem services
. The reserve was also declared as a Ramsar site in 1987 because of its unique wetland characteristics of international significance. The Koshi River, the largest river in Nepal, is the source of life for resources of the reserve. However, changes in river course of the river coupled with human pressure are leading to rapid changes in its land cover, and capacity to deliver ecosystem services. The paper examines the human dependency on the resources of the reserve, land use and cover change over 34-years (1976-2010) and its impact on ecosystem services. Remote sensing data, primary and secondary information on human dependency on ecosystem services to understand capacity of ecosystem to provide ecosystem services, land cover change, human dependency, and implications of ecosystem changes on ecosystem services. Results revealed river/lake, swamp/marshes and forest ecosystems as the most productive ecosystems for provisioning services, where as swamps/marshes, and forest for regulating, cultural, and supporting services. There has been significant lateral shift on river course inducing changes on ecosystems. Capacities of some of the critical ecosystems have been decreasing with changes in area, with negative impacts on ecosystem services and dependency of people. There is an urgent need to address the changing patterns of ecosystems to sustain the flow of ecosystem services as well as biodiversity of the reserve
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Land cover and its change analysis across the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is realized as an urgent need to support diverse issues of environmental conservation
. This study presents the first and most complete national land cover database of Nepal prepared using public domain Landsat TM data of 2010 and replicable methodology. The study estimated that 39.1% of Nepal is covered by forests and 29.83% by agriculture. Patch and edge forests constituting 23.4% of national forest cover revealed proximate biotic interferences over the forests. Core forests constituted 79.3% of forests of Protected areas where as 63% of area was under core forests in the outside protected area. Physiographic regions wise forest fragmentation analysis revealed specific conservation requirements for productive hill and mid mountain regions. Comparative analysis with Landsat TM based global land cover product showed difference of the order of 30–60% among different land cover classes stressing the need for significant improvements for national level adoption. The online web based land cover validation tool is developed for continual improvement of land cover product. The potential use of the data set for national and regional level sustainable land use planning strategies and meeting several global commitments also highlighted
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