[pp.29-38]

Land Degradation Assessment in the Greater Mekong Subregion

Rajendra P SHRESTHA and Kingshuk ROY （Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand / Nihon University）

Abstract:
Land degradation has been an important concern while talking about food security and environmental conservation. Assessment of land degradation is important to prioritize the land conservation efforts as a measure for increasing food production and ecosystem services. Although there have been attempts to produce baseline desertification and land degradation information at the global and regional level, there is the need for more precise large-scale data as the earlier attempts were based on expert judgments and of coarse-scale in nature. This regional level study employs remote sensing and GIS techniques to assess land degradation in the Greater Mekong Subregion. The indicators used to assess composite land degradation were vegetation cover, runoff, water use efficiency and soil loss. The study revealed that about a quarter of the subregion’s total area are degraded and another quarter has moderate degradation.

Key Word:
land degradation, environmental conservation, RS, GIS, Greater Mekong, Subregion

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