The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (2015) 18, 251–259

H O S T E D BY
National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences
The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space
Sciences
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RESEARCH PAPER

Land use change mapping and analysis using

Remote Sensing and GIS: A case study of Simly
watershed, Islamabad, Pakistan
Amna Butt, Rabia Shabbir, Sheikh Saeed Ahmad *, Neelam Aziz

Department of Environmental Sciences, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Received 21 March 2015; revised 19 June 2015; accepted 22 July 2015

Available online 8 August 2015

KEYWORDS Abstract Evaluation of watersheds and development of a management strategy require accurate
Change detection; measurement of the past and present land cover/land use parameters as changes observed in these
Land cover/use change; parameters determine the hydrological and ecological processes taking place in a watershed. This
Supervised classification; study applied supervised classification-maximum likelihood algorithm in ERDAS imagine to detect
Simly watershed land cover/land use changes observed in Simly watershed, Pakistan using multispectral satellite data
obtained from Landsat 5 and SPOT 5 for the years 1992 and 2012 respectively. The watershed was
classified into five major land cover/use classes viz. Agriculture, Bare soil/rocks, Settlements,
Vegetation and Water. Resultant land cover/land use and overlay maps generated in ArcGIS 10
indicated a significant shift from Vegetation and Water cover to Agriculture, Bare soil/rock and
Settlements cover, which shrank by 38.2% and 74.3% respectively. These land cover/use transfor-
mations posed a serious threat to watershed resources. Hence, proper management of the watershed
is required or else these resources will soon be lost and no longer be able to play their role in socio-
economic development of the area.
Ó 2015 Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This
is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/
4.0/).

1. Introduction nature of the environment of interest (Verburg et al., 2004).

Ecologists pay considerable attention to the land use change
Changes in land use can be categorized by the complex inter- impacts predominantly with respect to its effects on biodiver-
action of structural and behavioral factors associated with sity and aquatic ecosystems (Turner et al., 2001). Changes in
technological capacity, demand, and social relations that affect the land use in a watershed can affect water quality and sup-
both environmental capacity and the demand, along with the ply. For instance, land use patterns change due to watershed
development frequently resulting in increased surface runoff,
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +92 321 5167726; fax: +92 51
reduced groundwater recharge and transfer of pollutants
(Turner et al., 2001). Thus, the assessment of land use patterns
9271168.
E-mail address: drsaeed@fjwu.edu.pk (S.S. Ahmad).
and their changes at the watershed level is crucial to planning
Peer review under responsibility of National Authority for Remote
and management of water resources and land use of the partic-
Sensing and Space Sciences. ular watershed.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrs.2015.07.003
1110-9823 Ó 2015 Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
252
Analysis of detected change is the measure of the distinct
data framework and thematic change information that can
lead to more tangible discernment to underlying process
involved in upbringing of land cover and land use changes
(Ahmad, 2012). Change analysis of features of Earth’s surface
is essential for better understanding of interactions and
relationships between human activities and natural phenomena.
This understanding is necessary for improved resource man-
agement and improved decision making (Lu et al., 2004; Seif
and Mokarram, 2012). Change detection involves applying
multi-temporal Remote Sensing information to analyze the
historical effects of an occurrence quantitatively and thus helps
in determining the changes associated with land cover and land
use properties with reference to the multi-temporal datasets
(Ahmad, 2012; Seif and Mokarram, 2012; Zoran, 2006).
Various studies have been conducted all over the world
regarding the change analysis of watersheds through different
methods. They are important to develop effective management
strategies for watersheds worldwide (Ashraf, 2013; Bazgeera
et al., 2008; Caruso et al., 2005; Dietzel et al., 2005; Fortin
et al., 2003; Gajbhiye and Sharma, 2012; Hu et al., 2012;
Kearns et al., 2005; Parker and Meretsky, 2004; Stewart
et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2004). Watershed management is
necessary because a watershed is not merely a hydrological
unit (Singh et al., 2014) but also socio-ecological being which
plays a vital role in determining economical, food and social
security and provision of life support services to local residents
(Wani et al., 2008). Changes in land cover/land use in water-
shed area including urbanization and de(/re)forestation contin-
uously affect the water availability as well as the nature and
extent of surface and subsurface water interactions thus influ-
encing watershed ecosystems and the services provided by
them. With proper understanding of the spatial and temporal
variations occurring in a watershed over time and the interac-
tion of the hydrological components of a watershed with each
other, better water conservation strategies can be formulated
(Ashraf, 2013).
Remote Sensing (RS) has been used to classify and map
land cover and land use changes with different techniques
and data sets. Landsat images in particular have served a great
deal in the classification of different landscape components at
a larger scale (Ozesmi and Bauer, 2002). Recently several
change detection techniques have been developed that make
use of remotely sensed images. A variety of change detection
techniques and algorithms have been developed and reviewed
for their advantages and disadvantages. Among these
Unsupervised classification or clustering, Supervised classifica-
tion, PCA, Hybrid classification and Fuzzy classification are
the most commonly applied techniques used in classification
(Lu et al., 2004; Rundquist et al., 2001; Zhang et al., 2000).
A variety of supervised classification methods have been
applied extensively for the land use change analysis through-
out the world. This technique depends on a combination of
background knowledge and personal experience with the study
area to a greater extent than other areas. Thus per-pixel signa-
tures are taken and stored in signature files by using this
knowledge and the raw digital numbers (DN) of each pixel
in the scene are therefore converted to radiance values
(Jensen, 2005; SCGE, 2011). Similar technique was used to
detect changes observed in a nearby watershed (Rawal water-
shed, Islamabad, Pakistan) and achieved up to 95% accurate
results (Butt et al., 2015). Several other researchers have
A. Butt et al.
employed the same technique and achieved highly satisfactory
results including Rawat and Kumar (2015), who applied the
same technique to monitor land use/land cover change in
Hawalbagh block, district Almora, Uttarakhand, India.
Boori et al. (2015) analyzed the land use/land cover distur-
bance caused by tourism using a number of Remote Sensing
and GIS based techniques including supervised classification.
Rawat et al. (2013) also applied the same technique for
Ramnagar town area, Uttarakhand, India to track the changes
observed in the area between the time period of 1990 and 2010.
The study area was selected for change detection because of
being subjected to urbanization, sewage discharges without
treatment, active water and soil erosion, over grazing, cutting
of trees, non-existence of any cooperative communal structure
and reduced livelihood opportunities. Along with these, rapid
discharge of pesticide residues and poultry discharge in the
streams is also one of the major concerns faced by the Simly
watershed due to the rapidly increasing agricultural activities
and number of poultry farms in the study area (IUCN, 2005;
Mangrio et al., 2011). The rapid urban development taking
place in the study area has led to environmental problems as
well, encompassing, fragmentation of aquatic habitats, soil
erosion, and water pollution due to deforestation and dis-
charge of municipal garbage and industrial waste (Hagler
Bailly, 2007; Tanvir et al., 2006).
Therefore, the main objective of the present research was to
utilize GIS and Remote Sensing applications to discern the
extent of changes occurred in Simly watershed, Islamabad,
Pakistan over 20 years’ time period. However the specific
objectives included (i) to identify and delineate different
LULC categories and pattern of land use change in watershed
from 1992 to 2012 (ii) to examine the potential of integrating
GIS with RS in studying the spatial distribution of different
LULC changes (iii) to determine the shift in LULC categories
through spatial comparison of the LULC maps produced.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
Situated in Pothwar Plateau, the study area is geologically com-
posed of Tertiary sandstone, limestone and alluvial deposits.
These sandstones apparently belong to the Sirmar and Siwalik
series of the sub Himalayan system. Climate of the area is humid
subtropical. May, June, and July are the warmest months with
average temperature ranging from 36 °C to 42 °C with extremes
sometimes as high as 48 °C. While the coldest months are
December and January, with mean minimum temperatures
ranging from 3 °C to 5.5 °C. Simly watershed starts at Simly
lake which is around 40 km north-east of Islamabad (at latitude
33°430 N and longitude 73°190 E), near Bhara Kahu. It stores the
perennial water flow from Murree springs/Patriata mountain
aquifer and a substantial amount of flood water of the Soan
River. It is the largest drinking water reservoir for the residents
of Islamabad and is recognized mostly as Simly Dam. Two main
streams feed the Simly Dam catchment namely the Soan Nullah
and the Khad Nullah. The area surrounding the Dam has
esthetic value and attracts tourists by the beautifully planted
ornamental trees, resort, and picnic points (Daaira, 2012;
Groupin, 2011; Hagler Bailly, 2007; IUCN, 2005). The map
of the study area is shown in Fig. 1.
Land use change mapping and analysis using Remote Sensing and GIS 253

2.2. Data collection

Table 1 Satellite data specifications.
Data Year of Bands/color Resolution Source
The data used in this research were divided into satellite data
acquisition (m)
and ancillary data. Ancillary data included ground truth data
for the land cover/use classes, aerial imagery of watershed and Landsat 5 1992 Multi- 250 USGS
TM spectral glovis
its surrounding area, topographic maps. The ground truth
imagery
data were in the form of reference data points collected using
SPOT 2012 Multi- 2.5 SUPARCO
Geographical Positioning System (GPS) from March to imagery spectral
October 2012 for 2012 image analysis, used for image classifi-
cation and overall accuracy assessment of the classification
results. Satellite data for 2 years on the other hand consisted
of multi-spectral data acquired by Landsat satellite for the signatures and differentiating the watershed into five classes
month of September provided by USGS glovis. on the bases of the specific Digital Number (DN) value of dif-
Specifications of the satellite data acquired for change analysis ferent landscape elements. The delineated classes were
are given in Table 1. Agriculture, Bare soil/rocks, Settlements, Vegetation and
Water class (Table 2). For each of the predetermined land
2.3. Image pre-processing and classification cover/use type, training samples were selected by delimiting
polygons around representative sites. Spectral signatures for the
Satellite image re-processing prior to the detection of change is respective land cover types derived from the satellite imagery
immensely needed and has a primary unique objective of estab- were recorded by using the pixels enclosed by these polygons.
lishing a more direct affiliation between the acquired data and A satisfactory spectral signature is the one ensuring that there
biophysical phenomena (Coppin et al., 2004). Data were pre- is ‘minimal confusion’ among the land covers to be mapped
processed in ERDAS imagine 12 for geo-referencing, mosaick- (Gao and Liu, 2010). After that maximum likelihood algo-
ing and subsetting of the image on the basis of Area of Interest rithm was used for supervised classification of the images. It
(AOI). All satellite data were studied by assigning per-pixel is the type of image classification which is mainly controlled

Figure 1 Study area map showing Simly watershed.

254
Table 2 Classes delineated on the basis of supervised
classification.
Sr. Class name Description
No.
1 Agriculture Crop fields and fallow lands
2 Settlements Residential, commercial, industrial,
transportation, roads, mixed urban
3 Bare soil/ Land areas of exposed soil and barren area
rock influenced by human influence
4 Vegetation Mixed forest lands
5 Water River, open water, lakes, ponds and
reservoirs
by the analyst as the analyst selects the pixels that are represen-
tative of the desired classes.
To improve classification accuracy and reduction of mis-
classifications, post-classification refinement was therefore
used for simplicity and effectiveness of the method (Harris
and Ventura, 1995). Moreover, using data having medium-
spatial resolution such as that of Landsat mixed pixels are a
common problem (Lu and Weng, 2005); especially for the
urban surfaces that are a heterogeneous mixture of features
mainly including buildings, grass, roads, soil, trees, water
(Jensen and Im, 2007). The problem of mixed pixels was
addressed by visual interpretation. For the enhancement of
classification accuracy and therefore the quality of the land
cover/land use maps produced, visual interpretation was very
important. Thus, visual analysis, reference data, as well as
local knowledge, considerably improved the results obtained
using the supervised algorithm.
2.4. Accuracy assessment
Assessment of classification accuracy of 1992 and 2012 images
was carried out to determine the quality of information derived
from the data. If the classification data are to be useful in detec-
tion of change analysis, it is essential to perform accuracy
assessment for individual classification (Owojori and Xie,
2005). For the accuracy assessment of land cover maps
extracted from satellite images, stratified random method was
used to represent different land cover classes of the area. The
accuracy assessment was carried out using 100 points, based
on ground truth data and visual interpretation. The compar-
ison of reference data and classification results was carried
out statistically using error matrices. In addition, a non-
parametric Kappa test was also performed to measure the
extent of classification accuracy as it not only accounts for diag-
onal elements but for all the elements in the confusion matrix
(Rosenfield and Fitzpatirck-Lins, 1986). Kappa is a measure
of agreement between predefined producer ratings and user
assigned ratings. It is calculated by a formula (Eq. (1)):
K ¼ PðAÞ  PðEÞ=1  PðEÞ ð1Þ
where P(A) is the number of times the k raters agree, and P(E)
is the number of times the k raters are expected to agree only
by chance (Gwet, 2002; Viera and Garrett, 2005).
2.5. Land use/cover change detection
Post-classification change detection technique, performed in
ArcGIS 10 was employed by the study. Post classification
A. Butt et al.
has been successfully used by various researchers in urban
environment due to its efficiency in detecting the location,
nature and rate of changes (Hardin et al., 2007). Another
technique used to obtain the changes in land cover/land use
during the specified time period was overlay procedure. A
two-way cross-matrix was obtained by the application of this
procedure and was used to describe the main types of change
in the study area. In order to determine the quantity of conver-
sions from a particular land cover to other land cover category
and their corresponding area over the evaluated period, cross
tabulation analysis on a pixel-by-pixel basis was conducted.
Thus, a new thematic layer was also produced from the two
five-class maps, containing different combinations of ‘‘from–
to’’ change classes.
3. Results and discussion
The classified LULC map of Simly watershed of years 1992
and 2012 is given in Fig. 2. The achieved overall classification
accuracies were 95.32% and 95.13% and overall kappa statis-
tics were 0.9237 and 0.9070 respectively for the classification of
1992 and 2012 images. According to Lea and Curtis (2010),
accuracy assessment reporting requires the overall classifica-
tion accuracy above 90% and kappa statistics above 0.9 which
were successfully achieved in the present research.
The classification results for 1992 and 2012 are summarized
in Table 3. Percentage of classes based on these results show
the land cover/land use practices observed in watershed area
during 1992 and 2012.
The results show that major decline with respect to area
coverage in Simly watershed was observed in Vegetation and
Water classes whereas, the area of Settlements, Bare soil/rocks
and Agriculture classes was increased. Vegetation land shrank
from 69% to 43% of the total area while Water class, which
was least area covering class in 1992, further lost area under
its cover and reduced from 4% to 1%. The share of
Settlements was 6% of the total area which increased up to
11%. The Agriculture class was increased from a share of
11% to 29% and the Bare soil/rocks faced an increment in
the total share from 10% to 16%.
The comparison of each class of 1992 and 2012 showed that
there has been a marked land use and land cover change dur-
ing the study period of 20 years. During the 1992–2012 period
the percentage area covered by Agriculture class in watershed
increased by 163.7%. This increasing trend of land cover/land
use change in the watershed’s area reinforces that economic
forces are commonly a major stimulus on anthropogenic
change of land (Wang et al., 2008) and it is the main reason
why the area near and around the main water-bodies and
streams in the watershed has shifted from other land covers
to Agriculture cover. At start the overall agricultural produc-
tion and expansion were only subjected to peripheral lands
on steep slopes until biophysical limitations like steep slopes
and thin fertile topsoil limited further expansion and
Agriculture land was pushed into formerly wooded areas. It
has also been observed in watershed that the Settlements or
Built up areas are mostly surrounded by Agricultural area,
especially in the catchment area and by the main streams. It
means the area near the population has been cleared for the
production of crops in order to fulfill the basic necessities of
life (Hagler Bailly, 2007).
Land use change mapping and analysis using Remote Sensing and GIS 255

Figure 2 Classified maps of Simly watershed (1992 and 2012).

Table 3 Land cover/land use classes and areas in hectares. area mainly includes lower vegetation, Patriata forest, range-
Land cover/use classes 1992 2012 lands, conifer forest and dry semi evergreen forest. A complete
checklist of climbers, wild trees and shrubs in the study area
Area (ha) % Area (ha) %
was prepared by Nasir and Akhtar (1987). This class was also
Agriculture 1775 11 4681 29 replaced by Settlements and Agriculture class. In addition to
Bare soil/rocks 1648 10 2691 16 deforestation, cutting of fuel wood by the local communities
Settlements 1038 6 1870 11
and extensive cattle grazing have deformed the plants present
Vegetation 11,342 69 7008 43
Water 603 4 155 1
in the area to small bushes and in some areas have left only
barren lands (Arfan, 2008; Shafiq et al., 1997). Ali et al.
(2008) reported that if the built up area in and around
Rawalpindi and Islamabad continued to increase at a rapid
The second class which faced an increment in the total area rate as observed now, it would result in increased surface run-
was Bare soil/rocks with 63.3% increase in the overall area off and a significant decrease in forest and arable land.
during the study period. This increase in the Bare soil area According to IUCN (2005) and Tanvir et al. (2006) the major
was due to rapid deforestation in the area which removed accelerators of forest decline in the watershed’s area are the
the Vegetation cover from the land and rendered it barren human activities like illegal forest wood cutting due to high
and exposed. The losses of soil from these practices thus market value and also the rigorous use of forest wood for ful-
ensued less productive lands which were ultimately abandoned filling household requirements like cooking and heating and
by farmers for crop production due to economic inefficiency, also for timber production. In addition to these, ineffective
resulting in a large increase in barren land area. Similar trends management of forests and forest disease also play an impor-
have been observed in the study of District Swat conducted by tant role in forest decline.
Qasim et al. (2011). Classification results supported the above According to the information revealed by classification
mentioned facts that Vegetation area decreased over the past results, the Settlements or built up area showed 80.1% increase
20 years by 38.2% from 1992 to 2012. Vegetation in the study from 1992 to 2012. Reasons were a number of new housing
256
Figure 3 Major land use conversion in Simly watershed from 1992 to 2012.
schemes, farmhouses and recreational pursuits that have been
developed in and around area in the past 20 years. Along with
these developments, there is an incline toward the construction
of new pavements, highways, roads and other structures to
access these areas. Another developmental activity in the
Simly watershed area is ‘‘New Murree’’. NESPAK (2004)
reported that it will spread over Patriata forest and the pro-
posed plan would remove 5–8% of the trees present in the
area. This would affect the snow melt and rain fall driven
A. Butt et al.
surface runoff. However, a study conducted on Zone IV of
Islamabad by Adeel (2010) concluded that Settlements or built
up areas located near Simly dam have a very little further
future development potential due mainly to the steep topogra-
phy and relatively poor approachability to the area.
The area covered by Water class has also witnessed a
decrease from 1992 to 2012. The percentage decrease in land
area covered by this class was 74.3%. The land cover/land
use changes observed in all other classes affected the Water
Land use change mapping and analysis using Remote Sensing and GIS
Table 4 Cross-tabulation of land cover classes between 1992 and 2012 (area in ha).
1992
Agriculture Bare soil/rocks
2012 Agriculture 560 562
Bare soil/rocks 748 622
Settlements 212 283
Vegetation 253 180
Water 2 0.3
Total 1775 1648
class during two decades. Easy accessibility of water resulted in
the depletion of water and ended in dried up tributaries and its
replacement by either compact surfaces or barren land.
Another reason for the shrinkage was an increased rate of sur-
face runoff due to lack of plant roots to withhold the water. As
the runoff exceeded recharge capacity of ground water it
resulted in the lowering of water table. Increased deforestation
rate also contributed to the increase in surface runoff and is
responsible for down flow of nutrients and sediments (Ali
et al., 2008; Hagler Bailly, 2007; Mendoza et al., 2011).
Moreover, the change in the total area of Simly lake was
also observed. Classification indicates that the lake covered
148 ha area in 1992 constituting about 0.9% of the total area
of watershed and this area was reduced to 139 ha in 2012 cov-
ering 0.8% of the total area of Simly watershed. Thus, approx-
imately 6% of the lake area diminished in 20 years.
Simly dam is one of the three major sources supplying water
to Islamabad and Rawalpindi. It not only supplies water to ever
increasing population of twin cities but also supplies it for irriga-
tion purposes. Along with the loss due to agriculture and urban-
ization demands, evaporation, seepage and percolation are also
leading causes of quantitative decline of water in the reservoir
(Ashraf et al., 2007; Hagler Bailly, 2007; Keller et al., 2000).
Rapid expansion of urbanization and agriculture practices not
only depletes the water quantitatively but also plays a leading
role in polluting the water (IUCN, 2005). The extensive use of
herbicides and pesticides in agriculture is a toxic pollution
source. Increase in the agricultural land use and nutrient losses
associated with it, are the chief driver of water quality degrada-
tion and inherently increase the vulnerability of water that trans-
ports these nutrients. Researches conducted on Simly Lake by
Ahad et al. (2005) and Iram et al. (2009) concluded that the pes-
ticide residues present in the lake exceed the European Union
(EU) standards.
Similarly a developmental activity, ‘‘New Murree Project’’,
spread over Patriata forest, which was envisioned to be a tour-
ist city of international standards by NESPAK (2004) has no
facilities for waste management in and around the planned
locality of New Murree. Thus, the generated waste by the local
inhabitants and tourists is dumped on the slopes in the Patriata
area and as share of the runoff from Patriata ridge comes to
Simly Dam and pollutes dam’s water. Thus the sewage waste
along with the pesticide and fertilizer residues viz., Nitrates
and Phosphates flow into the main streams and ultimately ends
up in the main water body and cause an increase in algal
bloom. These causes of water pollution are verified by
Gliessman (2006).
GIS was used for the post-classification comparison of the
detected change, producing change map for comprehending
the spatial pattern of change between years (Fig. 3). The two
257
Settlements Vegetation Water Total
378 3047 134 4681
278 1021 22 2691
245 982 148 1870
133 6286 155 7008
4 5 144 155.3
1038 11,342 603 16405.3
classified maps were overlaid to produce the land use and land
cover change map, in addition to the cross tabulation matrix
between the two dates.
The cross-tabulation matrices (Table 4) show the nature of
change of different land cover classes or in other words the
shift in the land cover classes. Out of the 1775 ha that was
Agriculture area in 1992, 560 ha was still Agriculture area in
2012 but 748 ha was converted to Bare soil/rocks, and rest to
Vegetation and Settlements. At the same time the increase of
Agriculture, from 1992 to 2012, was mainly from Vegetation
(3047 ha). Vegetation out of 11,342 ha in 1992 lost area mainly
to Agriculture as mentioned before, Bare soil/rocks,
Settlements and retained 6286 ha of total in 2012.
Settlements increased from 1038 ha in 1992 to 1870 ha in
2012. It retained 245 ha of it and was mainly replaced by
Agriculture and Bare soil/rocks. The class which Settlements
mainly replaced in 2012 was Vegetation (982 ha) (Table 4).
Water class retained only 144 ha of the total 603 ha in 1992.
It was reduced to 155 ha and mainly replaced by Vegetation,
Settlements and Agriculture in 2012 (Table 4). The area of
other land cover classes replaced by water was small.
This study elucidates the significance of incorporating
Remote Sensing and GIS for change detection study of land
cover/land use of an area as it offers crucial information about
the spatial distribution as well as nature of land cover changes.
Overall 95% accuracy of the land use/land cover maps indicates
that the integration of supervised classification of satellite
imagery with visual interpretation is an effective method for
the documentation of changes in land use and cover of an area.
4. Conclusion
Based on the results obtained by employment of GIS and RS
applications to achieve the specific research objectives, it is
concluded that the land cover/land use practices in the study
area have altered significantly in 20 years. The LULC shift in
the watershed area was evident by the decline in the area of
Vegetation and Water class (38.2% and 74.3% respectively)
and augmentation of area covered by classes of Settlements
(80.1%), Agriculture (163.7%) and barren land (63.3%). The
haphazard expansion of Settlement and Agriculture area in
the watershed was mainly due to lack of proper management
and land use planning since no EIA report is generated prior
to land development in the study area. The major impact of
this expansion was subjected on Vegetation and Water class
to deforestation and water depletion respectively.
Additionally, all these alterations in the land cover and land
use patterns adversely affected water quality and accessibility
by 2012 which may prove a limiting factor in the future for
258
both urban growth and agriculture practice and may also be
responsible for further loss of already shrinking Vegetation
cover in the watershed areas. Hence, proper management of
these water resources is required because without proper man-
agement, this valuable water resource will soon be lost or will
no longer be able to play its required role in agriculture pro-
duction and socio-economic development of the area.
Having said all that, there are several recommendations based
upon the conclusion of the present study for the proper man-
agement and conservation of the forest, water and soil
resources subjected to decline in the watershed.
 An effective water management practice could be breaking
down major river basin into sub-watersheds and prioritizing
the sub-watershed for conservation and management based
on degradation level so as to conserve and minimize the
human induced impacts faced by it.
 Tree planting should be promoted by the Government offi-
cials and they must collaborate with non-governmental
organizations.
 Another step forward in protecting and restoring the forest
would be providing incentives to the local people for guard-
ing the new plantations.
 Government should take appropriate steps to restore the
degraded lands specially degraded soil, water and forest
lands and their further degradation must be prevented.
 Proper land use planning should be done for the watershed
prior to any developmental project being conducted in the
area and must be preceded by a proper Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA).
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