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Riverine systems are influenced by historical and current land use practices linked to alterations in the riparian zone across multiple scales. This study aims to explore the trend of spatiotemporal land cover changes and configuration along a major headstream of the river Ganges in India. Geo-spatial tools were used to quantify the changes in the landscape across a time span of 22 years. Landscape configuration was quantified by applying class level metrics using the software FRAGSTATS. A loss of 18.3% and 5.5% in the dense forest class was perceived in the upland and the riverine areas respectively aided by conversion of large contiguous forests into smaller isolated patches. Markov analysis showed that the forests in the landscape still possess inherent resilience capacity as indicated by a probability of 47% conversion of open forest class to dense forest class in future based on current land-use practices. Land cover changes and forest fragmentation can have inevitable impacts on ecological functioning and species persistence. Monitoring these changes is fundamental in planning future strategies for riverine landscape management. The present study underpins the utility of remote sensing and GIS in building useful baseline data for inaccessible mountainous landscapes at both local and regional scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective quantification of land cover changes remains a challenge in Himalayan hills and mountains, and has a colossal value addition for natural resource management. Here we present a new robust method for classifying land cover vegetation at physiognomic scale along steep elevational gradients from ~ 200 to ~ 7000 masl in the Kailash Sacred Landscape, Western Himalaya, India along with four decades of land use and land cover changes (1976-2011) using remote sensing techniques coupled with intensive ground surveys. Results show that forest cover loss was minimum ca 7.14% of existing forest in 1976; but, however forest fragmentation is high especially in montane broad-leaved and subtropical needle leaved forests. This change largely impacted the quality of valuable tree species such as Quercus spp. Post 1976, continuous migration forced conversion of high altitude agricultural lands into grasslands and scrublands. Human settlement expansion was high especially in low altitudinal range valleys between 1000 and 2000 masl and has increased 6.76 fold since 1976, leading to high forest fragmentation in spite of reduced agriculture area in the landscape. Our physiognomic level classified land cover map will be a key for forest managers to prioritize conservation zones for protecting this unique forest land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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