Impact of floods 2010 in coastal area of Pakistan - a case study of Kharo Chann, Thatta District

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Gill, Kaif Shahzad, Naeem Ashraf, Irfan Saeed, Urooj Laghari, Farooq Chann, Kharo
Copyright Year	2012
Abstract	With the increasing impacts of climate change, coastal areas have become more vulnerable to extreme events like tsunami, floods and cyclones. The ‘2010 Pakistan Floods’ brought disastrous impacts through destruction of property, livelihood and infrastructure. This study has been conducted by using space borne data and Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS) techniques to assess the ecological impacts of the floods at Kharo Chann, District Thatta, Sindh province. For this purpose, SPOT-5 satellite images dated 26th March and 28th September, 2010 of the study area were used for pre and post flood assessment. Detailed field survey data have been integrated with the satellite images and topographical data in a GIS environment to highlight the overall changes caused by the floods. Object Based Image analysis (OBIA) technique was used to map the eleven major land cover classes of the area. The study reveals that flood has a positive impact on density classes of ‘Mesquite / Tamarix spp. / Reeds, which has been increased from 1,225 ha to 3,341 ha within a time span of 6 months. In a few low depression areas, where the flood water remained stagnant, Mesquite has been damaged. The study also highlighted a decrease of 1,171 ha of ‘Closed to open Mangroves Canopy’. The recent floods also resulted in land erosion in some of the areas of Kharo Chann. The land cutting due to water pressure was high near Atharki, Saleh Dandal, Jamnasar and Chor Goju villages. Approximately 38 ha land was lost around these communities. During the 2010 floods, the agriculture fields were submerged resulting in a huge loss to the local economy.
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://wwf.org.pk/pwp/record/6.pdf
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article