Forest Cover Change and Ecosystem Services: A Case Study of Community Forest in Mechinagar and Buddhashanti Landscape (MBL), Nepal

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes are regarded as one of the key drivers of ecosystem services degradation, especially in mountain regions where they may provide various ecosystem services to local livelihoods and surrounding areas. Additionally, ecosystems and habitats extend across political boundaries, causing more difficulties for ecosystem conservation. LULC in the Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL) has undergone obvious changes over the past four decades; however, the spatiotemporal changes of the LULC across the whole of the KSL are still unclear, as well as the effects of LULC changes on ecosystem service values (ESVs). Thus, in this study we analyzed LULC changes across the whole of the KSL between 2000 and 2015 using Google Earth Engine (GEE) and quantified their impacts on ESVs. The greatest loss in LULC was found in forest cover, which decreased from 5443.20 km2 in 2000 to 5003.37 km2 in 2015 and which mainly occurred in KSL-Nepal. Meanwhile, the largest growth was observed in grassland (increased by 548.46 km2), followed by cropland (increased by 346.90 km2), both of which mainly occurred in KSL-Nepal. Further analysis showed that the expansions of cropland were the major drivers of the forest cover change in the KSL. Furthermore, the conversion of cropland to shrub land indicated that farmland abandonment existed in the KSL during the study period. The observed forest degradation directly influenced the ESV changes in the KSL. The total ESVs in the KSL decreased from 36.53 × 108 USD y−1 in 2000 to 35.35 × 108 USD y−1 in 2015. Meanwhile, the ESVs of the forestry areas decreased by 1.34 × 108 USD y−1. This shows that the decrease of ESVs in forestry was the primary cause to the loss of total ESVs and also of the high elasticity. Our findings show that even small changes to the LULC, especially in forestry areas, are noteworthy as they could induce a strong ESV response.

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Interdependent effects of climate variability and forest cover change on streamflow dynamics: a case study in the Upper Umvoti River Basin, South Africa

Regional Environmental Change ◽

10.1007/s10113-019-01521-8 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (7) ◽

pp. 1963-1971

Author(s):

Karen Lebek ◽

Cornelius Senf ◽

David Frantz ◽

José A. F. Monteiro ◽

Tobias Krueger

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Climate Variability ◽

River Basin ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Forest Cover Change

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Forest cover change prediction using hybrid methodology of geoinformatics and Markov chain model: A case study on sub-Himalayan town Gangtok, India

Journal of Earth System Science ◽

10.1007/s12040-014-0476-2 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 123 (6) ◽

pp. 1349-1360 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Anirban Mukhopadhyay ◽

Arun Mondal ◽

Sandip Mukherjee ◽

Dipam Khatua ◽

Subhajit Ghosh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Markov Chain ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Markov Chain Model ◽

Chain Model ◽

Forest Cover Change ◽

Change Prediction ◽

Hybrid Methodology

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Mining impacts on forest cover change in a tropical forest using remote sensing and spatial information from 2001–2019: A case study of Odisha (India)

Journal of Environmental Management ◽

10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114067 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 302 ◽

pp. 114067

Author(s):

Manoranjan Mishra ◽

Celso Augusto Guimarães Santos ◽

Thiago Victor Medeiros do Nascimento ◽

Manoj Kumar Dash ◽

Richarde Marques da Silva ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Tropical Forest ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Spatial Information ◽

Forest Cover Change ◽

Mining Impacts

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Integrating biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services into operational plan of community forest in Nepal : status and gaps

Banko Janakari ◽

10.3126/banko.v29i1.25149 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 29 (1) ◽

pp. 3-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

P. R. Thani ◽

R. KC ◽

B. K. Sharma ◽

P. Kandel ◽

K. Nepal

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Biodiversity Conservation ◽

Wildlife Conservation ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Community Forestry ◽

Environmental Benefits ◽

Main Stream ◽

Optimum Level ◽

Community Forest ◽

Operational Plan

After initiation of community forestry system in Nepal, the status of forest cover has improved due to significant roles of people in conservation, management and utilization of forest resources. As a result of increased productivity of the forest and restoration of degraded areas, forest users have been able to receive various economic, social, cultural and environmental benefits to strengthen their livelihood. Despite many positive outcomes of community forestry, there are still some factors which haven’t allowed the proper biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services maintenance. The study carried out on 100 operational plans from different parts of the country and it showed that the incorporation status of biodiversity and ecosystem services into community forest operational plan is worse despite the fact that such plan is the main component to lead the destination of any community forest. In addition to this, some gaps and challenges were observed in community forestry which have not favoured to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management systematically at an optimum level. Among them, duplication problem of biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues in operational plan; timber oriented operational plan; limited provision about wildlife conservation and negative perception of people on wildlife and their conservation owing to human wildlife conflict; dominant socioeconomic factors; impact of introduced species, invasive and alien species; lacking in provision of adaptation and mitigation methods to cope with impact of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services and shrinking of biological corridor due to habitat fragmentation were major issues. Besides this, to address these issues, it was also identified from the national consultation workshop of forest officials and experts that most appropriate uniform methods, measures and mechanisms are needed to be developed for the complete assessment, prioritization, analysis and development of action plans to main stream biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management into operational plan of community forestry.

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