Application of Remote Sensing Technologies to detect the vegetation changes during past two decades in Islamabad, Pakistan

Authors

  • Nusrat Shaheen National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Muhammad Anwar Baig, Dr. National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Muhammad Ahsan Mahboob National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Saeed Akbar WWF-Pakistan, Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Muhammad Fahim Khokar, Dr. National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25255/jss.2015.4.3.886.900

Keywords:

Remote sensing, Normalized Difference Vegetation index (NDVI), Islamabad, Satellite images, Development activities

Abstract

Islamabad was built in 1960 as a capital of Pakistan. It is a city famous for its beauty, greenery, and beautiful trees. The total area of Islamabad is 906 km2. With increasing population, a lot of development projects have been initiated within the city, which had a huge impact on the vegetation. Awareness of urban vegetation, environmental quality and knowledge is really important for conservation of natural resource, management and improvement of ecosystem of urban resources. The impact of these development activities on vegetation was assessed for the last twenty years within Islamabad using remote sensing techniques. For this purpose, satellite images of Landsat were acquired for 1992, 2000, and 2013. Supervised classification and NDVI analysis were done to calculate the area under vegetation and other classes of all the images. Analysis of these satellite images revealed that vegetation was very dense in the past, but with the passage of time the vegetation loss became significantly prominent.  Sector wise analysis was done to find out the most vulnerable area with respect to vegetation loss. The included H-10, G-13, G-5, and D-13. Although, some initiatives are being introduced to control vegetation area, but they do not match the pace of vegetation loss. Necessary measures need to be taken to maintain and improve vegetation to the desired level.

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Author Biography

Nusrat Shaheen, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan

Nusrat Shaheen is working as a Senior Conservation Officer at WWF-Pakistan Islamabad. She has a working experience of around 3 years in the field of Environmental Science. She received her BS Hons Degree in Environmental Science from Punjab University Lahore and MS degrees in Environmental Science from the National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad in 2012 and 2015, respectively.

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Published

2015-07-01

How to Cite

Shaheen, N., Baig, M. A., Mahboob, M. A., Akbar, S., & Khokar, M. F. (2015). Application of Remote Sensing Technologies to detect the vegetation changes during past two decades in Islamabad, Pakistan. Journal of Social Sciences (COES&Amp;RJ-JSS), 4(3), 886–900. https://doi.org/10.25255/jss.2015.4.3.886.900

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