The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia

The rate of development due to industrialization and human settlement in the state of Selangor has accelerated tremendously in recent years, with a corresponding escalation in the rate of depletion of the forest areas. This trend has given rise to fears of impending depletion of forest areas and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hamzah, Zulhazman
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
Published: 1999
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/9987/1/FH_1999_11_A.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/9987/
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Universiti Putra Malaysia
Language: English
English
id my.upm.eprints.9987
record_format eprints
spelling my.upm.eprints.99872011-02-28T05:01:20Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/9987/ The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia Hamzah, Zulhazman The rate of development due to industrialization and human settlement in the state of Selangor has accelerated tremendously in recent years, with a corresponding escalation in the rate of depletion of the forest areas. This trend has given rise to fears of impending depletion of forest areas and considerable concern for environmental stability and quality. Under these circumstances, the need for conservation and effective management of the forests in Selangor is imperative and cannot be under emphasized. One fundamental set of tools crucial in assessing forest cover changes will be the data provided by remote sensing. This study was undertaken to assess forest area changes in Selangor using satellite remote sensing technology. Detection of forest area change was performed using multitemporal LANDSAT data taken in 1993 and 1996, with the support of existing land use, topographic, and forest resource maps. The data were initially analyzed using Normalized Differences Vegetation Index (NDVI) in order to get a preliminary scenario of the change in forest cover. The data were then classified using Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) and Qvenaid to generate forest change. A total of 39 ground reference points were selected randomly and visited in ground truthing work. Results from this ground truthing showed that forest types can be identified and discriminated easily in LANDSAT TM data. The study quantified that within 1993 to 1996 the loss of inland forest was about 2824.5 ha which implies 941.5 ha per year of inland forest have been converted to other land use types. Peat-swamp forest and mangrove forest have also been reduced by 655.2 ha and 4738.5 ha, which account for an annual loss of 218.4 ha and 1579.5 ha, respectively. This means a total of 8218.2 ha of forest areas in Selangor have been converted to other land use types between 1993 to 1996, which implies an annual loss of about 2739.4 ha, with an accuracy of 84.2 percent. Factors causing forest cover changes include industries, human settlement, logging activities, aboriginal areas, agricultural, recreation and tourism, livestock and illegal settlement areas. 1999 Thesis NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/9987/1/FH_1999_11_A.pdf Hamzah, Zulhazman (1999) The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia. Masters thesis, Universiti Putra Malaysia. English
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
language English
English
description The rate of development due to industrialization and human settlement in the state of Selangor has accelerated tremendously in recent years, with a corresponding escalation in the rate of depletion of the forest areas. This trend has given rise to fears of impending depletion of forest areas and considerable concern for environmental stability and quality. Under these circumstances, the need for conservation and effective management of the forests in Selangor is imperative and cannot be under emphasized. One fundamental set of tools crucial in assessing forest cover changes will be the data provided by remote sensing. This study was undertaken to assess forest area changes in Selangor using satellite remote sensing technology. Detection of forest area change was performed using multitemporal LANDSAT data taken in 1993 and 1996, with the support of existing land use, topographic, and forest resource maps. The data were initially analyzed using Normalized Differences Vegetation Index (NDVI) in order to get a preliminary scenario of the change in forest cover. The data were then classified using Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) and Qvenaid to generate forest change. A total of 39 ground reference points were selected randomly and visited in ground truthing work. Results from this ground truthing showed that forest types can be identified and discriminated easily in LANDSAT TM data. The study quantified that within 1993 to 1996 the loss of inland forest was about 2824.5 ha which implies 941.5 ha per year of inland forest have been converted to other land use types. Peat-swamp forest and mangrove forest have also been reduced by 655.2 ha and 4738.5 ha, which account for an annual loss of 218.4 ha and 1579.5 ha, respectively. This means a total of 8218.2 ha of forest areas in Selangor have been converted to other land use types between 1993 to 1996, which implies an annual loss of about 2739.4 ha, with an accuracy of 84.2 percent. Factors causing forest cover changes include industries, human settlement, logging activities, aboriginal areas, agricultural, recreation and tourism, livestock and illegal settlement areas.
format Thesis
author Hamzah, Zulhazman
spellingShingle Hamzah, Zulhazman
The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia
author_facet Hamzah, Zulhazman
author_sort Hamzah, Zulhazman
title The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia
title_short The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia
title_full The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia
title_fullStr The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed The Use of Landsat TM in Assessing Forest Area Change in Selangor, Malaysia
title_sort use of landsat tm in assessing forest area change in selangor, malaysia
publishDate 1999
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/9987/1/FH_1999_11_A.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/9987/
_version_ 1643824495646998528