J. Geographical Studies, 2(2), 87-99, 2018. S. Pokhrel and C. Sherpa 87 Original Research Paper Analysis of Land Use Land Cover in Annapurna Conservation Area in Gandaki Province, Nepal using Vegetation Index and Land Use Land Cover Datasets Shiva Pokhrel 1 *, Chungla Sherpa 2 1. Kathmandu Forestry College, Kathmandu, Nepal. 2. Forest Research and Training Center, Gandaki Province, Kaski, Nepal. Abstract Conservation areas are originally well-known for protecting landscape features and wildlife. They are playing key role in conserving and providing a wide range of ecosystem services, social, economic and cultural benefits as well as vital places for climate mitigation and adaptation. We have analyzed decadal changes in land cover and status of vegetation cover in the conservation area using both national level available data on land use land cover (LULC) changes (1990-2010) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (2010-2018) in Annapurna conservation area. LULC showed the barren land as the most dominant land cover types in all three different time series 1990, 2000 and 2010 with followed by snow cover, grassland, forest, agriculture and water body. The highest NDVI values were observed at Southern, Southwestern and Southeastern part of conservation area consisting of forest area, shrub land and grassland while toward low to negative in the upper middle to the Northern part of the conservation area. Article history Received: 16 February 2019 Revised: 21 April 2019 Accepted: 05 May 2019 Keywords Annapurna Conservation Area; Land Use Land Cover; Land; NDVI; Nepal; Vegetation. Editor(s) M. A. Siddiqui 1 INTRODUCTION Natural and anthropogenic activities are the obvious factors responsible for the land use land cover (LULC) changes leading to changing landscape. Land is the section of earth surface having chemical, biological and physical properties play significant role in availability and use of resources (UNCCD, 2017). Further, land characteristics vary due to landscape, climate, hydrology, vegetation and fauna as well as human activities including land management like terracing, drainage scheming and agro-biological activities. In recent centuries, it has been observed that the changes in land use and land cover is drastically increasing (Houghton, 2003). In this background many effort have been made to measure the global to local levels extent and magnitude of changes on land use and land cover that is caused by human activities. Among the various anthropogenic activities, the agriculture has been considered as a primary mode of modification that have made in natural ecosystem (Ramankutty and Foley, 1999). Modification of land along with expansion of human footprints and global changes has lead huge problems in land surface throughout the world. In this background land degradation is a great threat to world and which is not only issue that is connected with ecology but also associated with social and economic value too (Dudley et al., 2015; Deng and Li, 2016). The changes in LULC are either because of natural factors like earthquakes, landslides, drought, flood, etc. or anthropogenic activities with advance technology expanse as the human footprints on earth surface. Increasing in consumption of fossil fuel and rapid industrialization in late 1980’s was lead to increase the greenhouse gasses in atmosphere with new threats like global warming and significant impacts on global system (IPCC, 2007). Arid and semi-arid environments are characterized by climate variation and drought with further anthropogenic drivers like deforestation, wetland drainage, overgrazing, unsustainable land use practices, * Author’s address for correspondence Kathmandu Forestry Collage, P.O Box 1276, Kathmandu, Nepal . Tel.: + 977 9803093077 Emails: shiva.pokhrel063@gmail.com (S. Pokhrel -Corresponding author), chungla.sherpa@gmail.com (C. Sherpa) http://dx.doi.org/10.21523/gcj5.18020204 © 2018 GATHA COGNITION ® All rights reserved