District-wise Forest Cover Assessment of Pakistan

Project Category: Forest

Summary

GIS and Remote Sensing based tools and technologies are in use to assess forest cover for the last two decades in Pakistan. The national level forest cover studies based upon satellite images include the Forestry Sector Master Plan (1992) and National Forest & Range Resources Study (2004). Aim of these mapping activities conducted at 1:250,000 scale was to estimate national forest cover disintegrated at province level. The results of such, relatively coarser detail, studies provide concise baseline information for policy level awareness and decision making. However, no systematic baseline data disintegrated at local administration boundaries (e.g., District and Tehsil), is available to accurately measure either the current extent of forest cover or the deforestation rate of a particular district (Qamer et al., 2010).

In this context, it is realized to develop a comprehensive forest cover inventory primarily focused at district level, ultimately leading towards national scale mapping of forest resources in Pakistan. Also, the information generated through the study should be readily available and easily replicable for the future monitoring of the forest resources.

This Project will contribute towards the overall goal of increasing forest cover in Pakistan according to the targets set in the Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF, 2005).

Specific objectives will be:

To assess the current status of forest cover in forested districts of Pakistan.

To devise a mechanism to assess district-wise historic deforestation rate and regular monitoring of the forest resources in future with a particular focus on monitoring and verification system to report on REDD.

National Workshop on Development & Harmonization of Land Cover Classification and District-wise Forest Cover Assessment of Pakistan   Adobe Acrobat Document 1.43 MB