Arshad Amin^1,, Shahab Fazal²

Man has been using land since the beginning of human civilization. Over the time, growing population demanded more land which expanded its use, so forests that share their borders with built-up or agricultural land use are prone to further degradation than the forests that share their borders with non-forest, natural land cover e.g., wetland, water bodies, grassland etc. The increased use led to increase in the rate of degradation and fragmentation of forest land. Deforestation is the prime cause for the forest land fragmentation and dense forests are very sensitive to this phenomenon where roads are one of the major causes of fragmentation. The present study focusses on the land use dynamics and forest landscape fragmentation of Shopian district of hill state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1995 to 2015. The study is based on remotely sensed data using landscape fragmentation model in GIS. The analysis shows that agricultural and built-up land use has continued to increase at the cost of rich forest cover which has not only significantly decreased but is in the deplorable state. Forest land fragmentation analysis revealed the increase in deforestation and the degradation of the dense forest into small and isolated patches.

deforestation, forest land fragmentation, forest, GIS, land use