LAUSR

World's forests have always been under anthropogenic threats leading to instantaneous and sound supervision using satellite-based data collecting capabilities through GIS/RS. Timber line in Pakistan consists of sub-alpine forests and alpine pastures of KPK, AJK and GB. Research findings showed that earth's climate was changing rapidly than previously assumed, demanding the spatiotemporal dynamics analysis using GIS/RS techniques in prevalent climate change scenarios. Two separate methods were used; 1) Visual Interpretation of Supervised Classification Technique for AJK & GB and 2) object Oriented Classification of Supervised Classification Technique for KPK. The primary data for T (max), T (min) & Ppt. (1980-2013) was taken from PMD, Islamabad. Province wise data showed 15 % change in forest cover area for timber line in both KPK (142780 Ha) & AJK (24990 Ha), followed by GB (39267 Ha) as13 % across 2005-2014. The results calculated that the average upward shift in timberline was highest in KPK (285 m), followed by AJK (233 m) and GB (170m) across 2005-2014.The data also showed change in avg. T (max) was 3.4°, -1.8° and 0.6° C, avg. T (min) was -2°, -1.5° and -2° C while change in total precipitation was 88.5, -3.7 and 75.5 mm for AJK, GB and KPK respectively. The Pearson's Correlation Co-efficient chart concluded that climatic factors showed a strong and positive correlation among themselves as well as with change in elevation. However, the correlation among climatic factors and change in forest cover area was weak concluding deforestation to be exclusively an anthropogenic phenomena. Change in elevation showed a weak and negative correlation with change in area while all other correlations were non-significant.