Spatial Analysis of Vegetation Cover in Urban Green Space under New Government Agenda of Clean and Green Pakistan to Tackle Climate Change

Shrinkage of urban green space has led to the disruption of the ecological balance. Population growth, industrial expansion, development activities and land encroachment reduce the vegetation cover of metropolitan cities including Lahore, Pakistan. Presently, Lahore is on top of all metropolitan cities in the world having worst air quality index (AQI). Thus, monitoring of the vegetation cover in urban areas is the ultimate need of the day for the conservation and protection of environment which is also the agenda of new government (Clean and Green Pakistan). Besides, Honorable Lahore High Court has also passed an order to plant trees in the oldest and biggest graveyard of Lahore to tackle the climate change issue. Considering the above-mentioned facts, the current research was carried out for the first time in Lahore, Pakistan to analyze the vegetation cover using spatio-temporal technique. For vegetation cover assessment, spatial techniques were used in the present study viz. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Transformed Normalized Vegetation Index (TNDVI), Difference Vegetation Index (DVI) and supervised classification. On the basis of high magnitude of smog and air pollution issue, four recent years were selected, i.e. 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 to observe ground reality. The results of the study revealed the depletion of vegetation cover in cemeteries at an alarming rate. Furthermore, the results of study revealed no significant change in green cover in Miani Sahib after the passing order of Lahore High Court of plantation in the graveyard.