Land Cover Mapping of Central Karakorum National Park

Donor Agency:  International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development

 

Summary

The Central Karakoram National Park (CKNP) is the largest National Park of Pakistan located in an extremely rugged area in Karkoram Range. There are four main types of forests including Montane Dry Temperate Coniferous, Montane Dry Temperate Broadleaved, Sub-Alpine and Northern Dry Scrub forests. The study area harbors a great faunal diversity. There are at least nine large mammal species including Markhor, Himalayan ibex, Ladakh urial, Blue sheep, Marco Polo sheep, Snow leopard, Himalayan brown bear, Black bear and Himalayan lynx are found in the area.

Previously there was no comprehensive information available on the Land Cover of the CKNP. The Park was not covered even under the national level Land Cover mapping initiatives in 1992 and 2004. Land Cover is an important component of the biosphere that is critical to the continued existence of all terrestrial life. Land Cover, particularly vegetation, play a catalytic role in shaping the flow of energy and mass in climate system of planet Earth. Fauna and Flora are dependent on the habitats in which they live. The structure of the habitat, particularly the vegetation is an important variable effecting animal diversity. To accomplish the Land Cover mapping of the area, ASTER satellite images of 15m spatial resolution captured during the year-2006 were acquired.

Seventeen valleys/watersheds covering an area of 19,197 Km2 were classified into 13 Land Cover Classes. The Land Cover has seven vegetation classes including Shrubs, Grasses, Junipers, Conifers, Broadleaves, Plantation and Agriculture. Valley-wise cover statistics were computed and thematic maps were produced for each valley. The study primarily focused on vegetation and in this respect most of the area can be characterized as dry alpine scrub type vegetation with species like Artemesia spp., Juniper spp., Rosa webbiana and Polygonum spp. on the dry slopes and Myricaria germanica and Hippophae rhamnoides, along the stream beds. Broadleaves mainly consists of Salix spp and Betula utilis which can be found in moist places. Conifer mainly includes Pinus wallichiana and Junipers were found mixed with grasses at high altitude while Pinus wallichiana was less common in the area and was mostly found in the western end of the CKNP.

Report Land Cover Mapping of the Central Karakoram National Park Adobe Acrobat Document 5.34 MB