Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
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Kewer Gadhera Sub-Watershed,
Central Himalaya
Vishwambhar Prasad Sati
INTRODUCTION
Land is a complex and dynamic combination of factors—geology,
topography, hydrology, soils, microclimate and communities of plants and
animals. They are continually interacting under the infl uence of climate
and of people's activities (Hudson 1995). Land-use/cover changes have
recently become a major issue of research and a debate among academicians,
researchers, policy makers and governments. Land use stands for the pattern
of man's activity or economic function on a piece of land and land cover
changes relate to the type of feature changes on the surface of the Earth
(Lillesand and Kiefer 1994). It is the result of anthropogenic interaction
with the natural environment. Besides affecting the quality of life of the
people living in the area, land-cover changes also affects surface run-off
as also erosion intensity (Piyoosh 2002). With increase in population and
thus, in human settlements, urbanization, and industrialization, the change
in all categories of land use seems to have led to tremendous changes in
landscape. Similar to the global scenario, mountain regions have also
been characterized by land-cover changes. In many of the mountain areas,
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