Land Degradation Assessment in Pakistan based on

LU and VCF
Peng Xu
School of Geoscience and Technology, Southwest Petroleum University
Zegen Wang (  zegen01@126.com )
School of Geoscience and Technology, Southwest Petroleum University
Zhuo Huang
Faculty of Geomatics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University
Zhiwei Yong
School of Geoscience and Technology, Southwest Petroleum University
Rui Lin
School of Civil Engineering and Geomatics, Southwest Petroleum University
Yang Zhao
School of Geoscience and Technology, Southwest Petroleum University

Research Article

Keywords: Land degradation, Land use degradation, Vegetation degradation, Transfer matrix, Trend
analysis

Posted Date: July 20th, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1815244/v1

License:   This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Read Full License
 Land Degradation Assessment in Pakistan based on LU and VCF
Xu Peng1, Wang Zegen1, Huang Zhuo2, Yong Zhiwei1, Lin Rui3, Zhao Yang1
(1. School of Geoscience and Technology, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 620500 China;
2. Faculty of Geomatics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070 China;
3. School of Civil Engineering and Geomatics, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 620500, China)
Abstract: Land degradation is a global environmental issue receiving much attention currently. According to the
definition and interpretation of land degradation by relevant United Nations organizations, land use degradation was
qualitatively analyzed based on the two periods of land use data in 2001 and 2020, land use transfer matrix and
change flow description table in 2001 and 2020. At the same time, here we employed the Vegetation Continuous Fields
MODIS data over the span of 21years (2000-2020) to quantitatively estimate vegetation degradation by using the Theil-
Sen Median trend and Mann-Kendall non-parametric test. And the land degradation situation in Pakistan was
comprehensively evaluated by combining the results of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Major findings of this study
indicate: (1) unused land (61.91%), cropland (20.7%) and grassland (15.88%) are the major types of land use in Pakistan.
Unused land area decreased during whole period, while other land areas increased, the grassland area changed the most,
the cropland area increased the most, and the conversion between grassland and unused land was the most significant. (2)
The average vegetation coverage in Pakistan is low, but showed a significant upward trend during whole study period,
with a growth rate of 0.0786/𝑎 . The vegetation degradation area accounts for only 1.32% and the vegetation
improvement area accounts for 28.79%. (3) 2.15% of the land was degraded, of which land use degradation accounts for
1.9% and vegetation degradation only accounts for 0.25%. Land use degradation is mainly due to vegetation loss (53.78%)
and withdrawal of agriculture (40.07%). 22.41% of the land has been improved, of which land use improvement accounts
for 5.75% and vegetation improvement accounts for 16.66%; The improvement of land use is mainly due to agricultural
expansion (48.9%) and vegetation establishment (48.81%). The degradation and improvement of land use in Pakistan are
mainly affected by grassland, followed by cropland. The research shows that there are serious phenomena of cropland
abandonment, vegetation loss and over agricultural expansion in Pakistan, but thanks to Pakistan's efforts in forest
restoration and ecological protection in recent years, the overall vegetation coverage has been significantly improved. At
the same time, we found that the regional distribution of land degradation and improvement has obvious spatial similarity,
which is mostly distributed in the transition area from northern mountainous area to central plain, central and eastern plain
and the Indus River Basin. The distribution of cropland and built-up land is similar in space. Meanwhile, we found that
land degradation in Pakistan is significantly affected by human activities. The government and people should devote more
energy to optimizing the use of cropland land resources, reasonably reclaiming wasteland for cropland land, and protecting
forests and vegetation. This paper provides a new idea for land degradation assessment, and the assessment results can
optimize the use of land resources to improve the current situation of land degradation and serve the sustainable
development of land resources in Pakistan.
Key words: Land degradation; Land use degradation; Vegetation degradation; Transfer matrix; Trend analysis

Corresponding Author: Wang Zegen, E-mail: zegen01@126.com

Author: Xu Peng E-mail: xu_peng233@163.com
1 Introduction

Land resources is one of the most important natural resources for human survival. In recent years, with the increasing
global climate change and human activities, land degradation has become one of the major global environmental issue
that pose a serious threat to the sustainable development of social economy and human survival (Xie et al. 2020). And it
has been widely concerned by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), IPBES, IPCC and
other organizations. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 15.3 explicitly states that "striving to
build a world where land degradation no longer occurs" (United Nations (UN) 2015); The UNCCD Conference of the
Parties (COP12) officially adopted the scientific concept of "Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)" (UNCCD 2015a), and
incorporated the overall Objective of the Strategic Framework 2018-2030(UNCCD 2015b). Currently, countries generally
accept the definition of land degradation in the UNCCD first noun term, which is the reduction or loss of both biological
or economic productivity and complexity of the land, and the causes of degradation include the process of overlapping
one or more pressures and drivers, such as land-use changes, changes in human activity and residential patterns (UNCCD
2017a). Monitoring and assessing the current status of land degradation, thereby curbing land degradation and restoring
degraded land, is essential to ensure biodiversity, ecological and environmental quality, food security, sustainable
development and human well-being. The United Nations Interagency Group of Experts on SDGs (IAEG-SDGs), based
on the UNCCD definition of land degradation, identifies land use / cover trends, land productivity trends and carbon stock
(carbon in soil) as the core indicators of land degradation (UN 2017; Li et al. 2021). Currently, the research hotspots of
land degradation mostly focus on research directions carbon source or carbon sink (Ahirwal et al. 2017; Chuai et al. 2018;
Khan et al. 2021), vegetation restoration succession (Ouedraogo et al. 2015; Zhang et al. 2021), Land degradation
restoration and reconstruction (Cui et al. 2018; Novianti et al. 2018) and sustainable management of land resources (Xie
et al. 2020). It mainly uses remote sensing classification (Martínez-López et al. 2014; Bell et al. 2021), comprehensive
indicators (Akinyemi et al. 2019; Gong et al. 2021), landscape pattern analysis (Sun et al. 2006; Tang et al. 2020; Huang
et al. 2021) and other technical methods in combination with relevant models and indicators. The research on land
degradation using multi-source data mainly includes assessment and monitoring, driving factor research Simulation and
prediction of development trend.
The most intuitive manifestation of land degradation is the change of land use (LU) type and vegetation degradation.
LU change is affected by climate, natural environment, human activities and other factors. It is the core index for assessing
land degradation and can reflect and characterize the change of land nature. Meanwhile, the occurrence or non-occurrence
of land degradation and the ecological environment situation go hand in hand. Vegetation Continuous Fields (VCF) is an
important indicator factor of surface vegetation and regional ecological environment conditions (Leprieur et al. 2000;
Anatoly et al. 2002), which can reflect the quality of land resources and indicate the direction of land evolution to a certain
extent (Sarkar and Kafatos 2004). Vegetation destruction leads to land degradation, and land degradation will further lead
to the reduction of vegetation, deforestation and reclamation, overgrazing and vegetation destruction Vegetation
destruction leads to land degradation, which will further lead to vegetation reduction. Deforestation and reclamation,
overgrazing and vegetation destruction will directly lead to land degradation (Zhang et al. 2006). Therefore, VCF can
characterize the change of surface vegetation itself (Gutman and Ignatov 2010) and reflect the degree of land degradation
(improvement). A large number of scholars evaluate and analyze land degradation and ecological environment effects in
the combination of relevant models and indicators from the perspective of LU (pattern) change (Kangalawe et al. 2008;
Mohammadi et al. 2021) or assessment of land degradation and desertification retrieval of changes in vegetation cover
by remote sensing (Hao et al. 2020). Wang et al. (2019) uses the LU change data and land use transfer matrix analysis
analyzed the ecological environment change and land degradation of Laos since 2000 to 2017. Zenebe et al. (2018)
assessed the extent of LU changes and NDVI and their links to land degradation in Ethiopia. Assennato et al.(2020)
estimated land degradation in Italy to be about 36% based on three sub-indicators of SDGs15.3.1 (land use/land cover,
land productivity and soil organic carbon trends) and related indicators with significant local impact. Mancino et al. (2022)
used the median of non-parametric Theil-Sen estimation to analyze the multi-time NDVI trend, and used Mann-Kendall
test to evaluate the trend significance characteristic area. Combined with the changes of LU and VCF, the qualitative and
quantitative studies on land degradation are few, and the comprehensive analysis of the two can more accurately and
effectively evaluate the land degradation, which will help to optimize the use of land resources and realize the sustainable
development of land resources.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an important land corridor connecting China with the Arabian
Sea and a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative. The CPEC Pakistan section is mainly located in arid and semi-
arid areas, with diverse climate, complex terrain and fragile ecological environment (Hoell et al. 2016; Adnan et al. 2017).
Moreover, the increase of population leads to unreasonable human activities, such as deforestation and overgrazing, which
worsen land degradation, forest degradation and soil degradation, and causes huge economic and environmental losses
(Ullah et al. 2019; Muhammad et al. 2020). Increasingly serious land and ecological environment problems, not only
restrict sustainable socio-economic development in Pakistan, but also restrict the smooth progress of the Belt and Road.
Therefore, it is urgent to evaluate and analyze the land degradation, optimize land resources utilization and improve the
ecological environment. In recent years, in order to improve land and environmental degradation present situation,
Pakistan government has launched the "ten billion tree forest restoration plan", actively responded to the Bonn challenge
and the New York Declaration on Forests, and actively promoted the implementation of the UN SDGs in Pakistan. Majeed
et al. (2021) studied the changes of LU, NDVI and NDBI in Jhelum District, Punjab province, Pakistan from 1990 to
2020, and analyzed the impacts and factors between LULC changes and climate. Gilani et al. (2021) comprehensively
assessed the dynamics of soil erosion in Pakistan in 2005 and 2015, and the results showed that increasing soil erosion is
coupled with LU changes due to population expansion, rapid infrastructure development and continuous exploitation of
natural resources. Ullah et al. (2019) found that the level of land degradation in District Mardan of Pakistan is relatively
high, the causes are soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, overgrazing, Rapid population expansion, soil salinization,
Agricultural expansion, water degradation and poor land management. Muhammad et al. (2020) collected data through
structural questionnaire and face-to-face interview from farmers, and was analyzed through descriptive statistics and Chi-
square test to study farmers' livelihood sustainability and land degradation in Mardan district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Pakistan. The results show that land degradation is a huge potential threat to farmers' sustainability and food security.
Niazi (2016) argues that in Pakistan, land ownership, LU and land degradation are interrelated. Land degradation is caused
by the imbalance of land acquisition, which intensifies the use of land resources by large and small landowners. Ullah et
al. (2018) comprehensively assessed and plotted the soil erosion intensity and sediment quantity in Potohar Region of
Pakistan, analyzed the mean and maximum value of annual erosion in this region, and pointed out that soil erosion was
most likely to occur in areas close to river channels and hills. At present, the research on land degradation in Pakistan
mainly involves soil erosion change, carbon storage change, drought risk analysis, LU change and the evaluation of field
visits in the whole or local area. Based on long-term remote sensing data and LU data, there is less evaluation of land
degradation in Pakistan at the national scale.
Based on this, with the support of GEE, GIS and MATLAB, this paper makes a comprehensive assessment of land
degradation from both qualitative and quantitative aspects by using Pakistan's LU data in 2001 and 2020 and the VCF
data from 2000 to 2020. According to the UNCCD interpretation of land use / cover change causing land degradation
(land use / cover change flow description table) and land use transfer matrix in SDG15.3.1 Good Practice Guide (2017)
(UNCCD 2017b) to qualitatively analyze the degradation results of each land unit in Pakistan. In addition, we used Telson
median (Sen) trend analysis method to analyze the change trend of VCF data in each land unit in 21 years, and mann-
Kendall (MK) was used to test the significance of the trend of VCF. Finally, the results of the Sen analysis and the MK
test were superimposed to quantitatively analyze the vegetation degradation in each land unit. On this basis, for the areas
where the LU changes, this paper is assessed as land degradation or land improvement; for the unchanged (relatively
stable) areas of LU, the results of land degradation are determined by the results of quantitative analysis. Therefore, the
main purpose of this study is to assess the land degradation status in Pakistan by integrating LU and vegetation degradation,
so as to improve the land degradation status in Pakistan, promote the sustainable development of land resources, and
provide support for the construction of green "CPEC", Pakistan's "LDN" goal and "ten billion tree afforestation plan".

2 Area

Pakistan is located in the northwest of the South Asian subcontinent between 23°30′—36°45′N and 60°53′—75°31′E
(Fig. 1). Its land area is about 88 × 104 𝑘𝑚2 (Including Pakistan controlled Kashmir), mainly desert, cropland and
grassland. It is adjacent to India, China, Afghanistan and Iran in the east, north and west, and is close to the Arabian Sea
in the south. It is a key area for CPEC construction.
The terrain of Pakistan gradually decreases from northwest to southeast in general, and the terrain is complex, with
hills, mountains and plateaus in the west and north and desert in the south, plain in the east. High mountains, hills and
deserts account for more than half of the national area of Pakistan. Complex terrain complex and changeable climate
make much of Pakistan in arid and semi-arid region, high temperature throughout the year, the overall less rainfall (Fig.
2), dry wet season two distinct and spatial distribution difference obvious, rainfall is mostly distributed in the northern
mountainous areas and the central and eastern regions, and is divided into tropical desert climate, tropical monsoon
climate and alpine plateau climate from south to north.
The main river in the territory is the Indus River, which runs through the country from north to south. The Indus
Plain formed by the Indus River and its tributaries is an important food producing area in the territory. Pakistan, with four
provinces and two special zones under its jurisdiction, is a typical agricultural country, with agriculture contributing 25%
to GDP and a total population of over 200 million in 2017, over 62% of which make a living directly or indirectly from
agriculture (Rehman et al. 2017).

Fig.1 study area

 Fig.2 Precipitation

3 Materials and Methods

3.1 Data Used

LU data and VCF data used in this study are provided by GEE platform. The former, Land use data in Pakistan for
2001 and 2020 are the MODIS Land Cover (MCD12Q1) datasets (https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/c-
atalog/MODIS_006_MCD12Q1), with a spatial resolution of 500 meters. The data contains a total of 13 sets of
classification standards. The LC_Type1 (Annual IGBP Classification) classification standard is selected, and the LU type
data is combined into six categories of forest land, grassland, cropland land, wetland, built-up land and unused land based
on the actual LU status of Pakistan. In the latter, the data of VCF in Pakistan for 21 period from 2000 to 2020 is derived
from the EOS / MODIS (MOD44B) VCF product data of NASA (https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/ca-
talog/MODIS_006_MOD44B), spatial resolution is 250 meters, and the value ranges from 0 to 100.

3.2 Methods
3.2.1 Qualitative Analysis of Land Degradation
We qualitatively assess the land degradation in Pakistan by combining the flow description table of land degradation
in Pakistan and the LU transfer matrix.
(1) Description of land degradation flows
According to the explanation of land degradation caused by LU degradation in SDG15.3.1 Good Practice Guide
(2017) (UNCCD 2017b), combined with the actual situation of land use classification in Pakistan in this study, a flow
description table of LU change process in Pakistan was obtained (Table 1), for qualitative assessment of land degradation
in Pakistan.

Table 1 Description of LU change flow

Final Type
 Forest land Grassland Cropland Wetland Built-up land Unused land
Forest land 0 - - - - -
Initial Grassland + 0 + - - -
Type Cropland + - 0 - - -
Wetland - - - 0 - -
Built-up land + + + + 0 +
Unused land + + + + - 0
Note: "+" represents land improvement, "0" represents land stability, and "-" represents land degradation. Since the land type in
Pakistan is mainly desert, water bodies and wetlands account for a relatively low proportion, and water bodies are not involved in the
explanation of land degradation caused by land cover change in this guide, this study divides water bodies into wetlands, and unused
land mainly includes sparse vegetation, bare soil and permanent ice/snow, etc.
(2) LU change transfer matrix
The LU area transfer matrix can deeply reveal the structural characteristics and direction of regional land use type
changes, clarify the transfer between different LU types, and accurately and specifically reflect the dynamic characteristics
of land cover changes (Grebby et al. 2016). Therefore, this study uses this method to analyze the area converted from one
LU type to other types in Pakistan from 2001 to 2020, and quantitatively expresses the change process between LU types.
The mathematical expression is as follows:
𝑆11 ⋯ 𝑆1𝑛
𝑆𝑖𝑗 = [ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮ ] （1）
𝑆𝑛1 ⋯ 𝑆𝑛𝑛
Among them: 𝑆𝑖𝑗 represents the area change from the 𝑖 type LU to the 𝑗 type of LU throughout the study period; n
represents the total number of LU types.
3.2.2 Quantitative analysis of land degradation
Combined with the Sen trend analysis and the MK non-parametric test method, land degradation in Pakistan was
quantitatively analyzed by studying the VCF variation characteristics in Pakistan. As data do not need to be subject to a
special distribution, and are highly resistant to erroneous data, is insensitive to outlier data, and has the significance level
test based on solid statistical theory, so it is scientific and reliable (CAI and YU 2009), Trend analysis and significance
test combined with Sen and MK are widely used in long-term vegetation series analysis (Liu et al. 2016; Ali et al. 2019).
Sen method is a robust non-parametric statistical trend calculation method, which calculates the median slope of
𝑛(𝑛 − 1)/2 data combinations:
𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑗 −𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖
𝑆𝑉𝐶𝐹 =Median ( ) ，2000 ≤ 𝑖 ≤ 𝑗 ≤ 2020 （2）
𝑗−𝑖

Where, 𝑆𝑉𝐶𝐹 is Theil-Sen median change trend of VCF, and 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑗 and 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖 are VCF values in year 𝑗 and 𝑖
respectively. When 𝑆𝑉𝐶𝐹 > 0, VCF increases, otherwise it decreases.
The MK non-parametric statistical significance test:
Setting:
{𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖 }, 𝑖 = 2000,2001 ⋯ ,2020 （3）
Z statistic is defined as:
𝑆−1
,𝑆 > 0
√𝑣𝑎𝑟(𝑆)
𝑍= 0, 𝑆 = 0 （4）
𝑆+1
,𝑆 < 0
{√𝑣𝑎𝑟(𝑆)
Among them:
𝑆 = ∑𝑛−1 𝑛
𝑗=1 ∑𝑖=𝑗+1 𝑓(𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑗 − 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖 ) （5）
 1, 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑗 − 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖 > 0
𝑓(𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑗 − 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖 ) = { 0, 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑗 − 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖 = 0 （6）
−1, 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑗 − 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖 < 0

𝑛(𝑛−1)(2𝑛+5)
𝑣𝑎𝑟(𝑆) = （7）
18

Inside the formula, the statistic Z ranges from (−∞, +∞), 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑗 and 𝑉𝐶𝐹𝑖 are VCF values of pixels in year 𝑗 and 𝑖
in the study area respectively, 𝑓 is a symbolic function, and 𝑛 represents the length of VCF sequence. Using bilateral
test, when |𝑍| > 𝜇1−𝜕/2 indicates that the research sequence data changes significantly at the 𝜕.
Due to the few values of 𝑆𝑉𝐶𝐹 strictly equal to 0, this paper selected 𝑆𝑉𝐶𝐹 less than -0.0005 as the degradation zone,
𝑆𝑉𝐶𝐹 between -0.0005 and 0.0005 as the stability zone, and 𝑆𝑉𝐶𝐹 greater than 0.0005 as the improvement zone, relevant
references. In this paper, we select 𝜕 = 0.05(𝜇1−𝜕/2 = 1.96) to estimate the significance of the change trend of VCF
long-time data at the confidence level of 0.05.

4 Results and Analysis

4.1 LU Degradation Results and Analysis

4.1.1 Characteristics of LU Change
Based on the spatial distribution of LU changes in Pakistan from 2001 to 2020 (Fig. 3) and area transfer matrix
(Table 2), the distribution of LU types in Pakistan is highly consistent with its landform, the development of river systems,
and the space of human social and economic activities. According to LU classification results in 2020, the main LU types
in Pakistan are unused land, cropland land and grassland. Among them, unused land (about 61.91%) is mostly distributed
in the plateau area to the west of the Indus River, cropland (about 20.7%) and built-up land (about 0.75%) are mostly
distributed in the East and the Indus River Plain, grassland (about 15.88%) is mostly distributed in the northern
mountainous area. Wetlands and forests are rarely distributed, forest land (about 0.22%) is mostly distributed in the
northern mountainous area, wetland (about 0.53%) is mostly distributed in the southern coastal area.

（a）land Use Change(2001-2020) （b）Land Use 2020

Fig.3 LU change results from 2001 to 2020 with Pakistan
 Table 2 LU change area transfer matrix from 2001 to 2020 with Pakistan(km2)
2020 Total Reduce
Land use type Forest lands Grasslands Croplands Wetlands Built-up lands Unused lands （2001） （2001）
Forest lands 1143.25 448.5 4.5 2.75 0 17.5 1616.5 473.25
Grasslands 783.75 108315 21461.25 295.5 145 8619.25 139619.75 31304.75
2001 Croplands 7.75 6756.5 158067.25 44.75 83.75 368.75 165328.75 7261.5
Wetlands 1.25 24 0 3998 0 13 4036.25 38.25
Built-up lands 0 0 0 0 6378.25 0 6378.25 0
Unused lands 20 24823 3408.75 356.5 35.75 538100 566743.5 28644
Total（2020） 1956 140367 182941.75 4697.5 6642.75 547118
Increase（2020） 812.75 32052 24874.5 699.5 264.5 9018.5
Change（2020-2001） 339.5 747.25 17613 661.25 264.5 -19626
Note: Transfer out refers to the area from a certain LU type in 2001 to another land type in 2020, and transfer refers to the area from other land types in 2001

to a certain LU type in 2020.

From the total area and spatial distribution of LU types in the two periods, the area and structure of different LU
types in Pakistan have changed to varied degrees in the meantime. Overall, the area of unused land decreased, while forest
land, grassland, cropland, wetland and built-up land increased. Among them, the unused land decreased by 19626km2,
transferred out by 28644km2, mainly into grassland (86.66%) and cropland (11.9%), transferred in by 9018.5km 2, the
transferred out area is 3.18 times of transferred area, and the unused land decreased significantly. Grassland has the largest
change area (an increase of 747.25km2), with 31304.75km2 transferred out, mainly into cropland (68.56%) and unused
land (27.53%), and 32052 km2 transferred in. Cropland increased the most (17613 km2), 7261.5 km2 was transferred out,
mainly into grassland (93.05%), 24874.5 km2 was transferred in, and the transferred area was 3.43 times that of the
transferred out area. Cropland increased significantly. Population expansion leads to excessive land reclamation, resulting
in the increase of cropland, while the abandonment of cropland is serious; During the study period, forestland, wetland
and built-up land increased slightly.
4.1.2 LU Degradation Results
We have statistically analyzed the evaluation results of each land unit and found that land degradation in Pakistan is
mainly caused by people's unreasonable LU (without considering natural factors). From the perspective of LU degradation
(Fig. 4, Table 3 and Table 4), the area of LU degradation area is 16860.75km2(about 1.9% of the whole territory), and the
area of LU improvement is 50854 km2(about5.75%. The latter is 3.12 times that of the former, the LU degradation in
Pakistan is relatively serious, and the area with relatively stable land accounts for 92.3%. LU improvement (Fig. 4b, Table
3) is mainly due to the conversion of unused land to grassland and grassland to cropland land, accounting for 48.81% and
42.20% of the total improved area respectively. Over the past two decades, grassland has had the greatest impact on land
improvement in Pakistan. Its LU improvement is mainly manifested in vegetation establishment and agricultural
expansion. LU degradation (Fig. 4c, Table 4) is mainly manifested as grassland into unused land and cropland into
grassland, accounting for 51.12% and 40.07% of degraded area respectively. LU degradation is mostly manifested in the
loss of vegetation and the abandonment of cropland land. Most of the LU in Pakistan is relatively stable, mostly distributed
in the western plateau and the desert areas in the southeast. The LU improvement and degradation areas are mostly
distributed in the transition zone from the northern mountainous area to the central plain and the irrigation area of the
Indus River Basin. The land use improvement and degradation areas are relatively consistent in spatial distribution, and
are highly active in human socio-economic activities. The LU improvement and degradation areas are relatively consistent
in spatial distribution, and they are distributed in the areas with highly active human social and economic activities
(transition area from northern mountainous area to central plain and plain area of Indus River Basin).
 （a）Schematic diagram of LU degradation (improvement) results

（b）LU improvement （c）LU degradation

Note: (b and c: different colors represent the flow direction of a certain land type during the study period, and their
thickness of the locus line represents the amount of transformation, and the larger the transformation, the thicker the
locus line)
Fig4. Results of LU degradation from 2001 to 2020
Table 3 LU improvement results
LU change type LU improvement type Area (km2) Proportion (%)
Grassland to forest land Afforestation 783.75 1.54
Unused land to cropland Agricultural expansion 3408.75 6.7
Grassland to cropland Agricultural expansion 21461.25 42.20
Unused land to grassland Vegetation establishment 24823 48.81
 Table4 LU degradation results
LU change type LU degradation type Area (km2) Proportion (%)
Grassland to wetland Inundation 295.5 1.75
Forest land to grassland Vegetation loss 448.5 2.66
Cropland to grassland Withdrawal of agriculture 6756.5 40.07
Grassland to unused land Vegetation loss 8619.25 51.12
4.2 Results and Analysis Vegetation Degradation
4.2.1 VCF Time Variation Characteristics
Firstly, based on the annual average value of VCF, we analyzed the overall change trend of VCF in Pakistan in the
past 21 years. The results showed that from 2001 to 2020, Pakistan's VCF showed a significant increasing trend (𝑃 <
0.001、𝑅2 = 0.7789), with a growth rate of 0.0786/a. There were large fluctuations only in 2004, 2009 and 2020. The
VCF in 2002 was the lowest in 21 years was 2.09%, and the highest in 2020 was 4.47%. Referring to the research of a
large number of scholars on the classification of VCF (Xiong et al. 2018), and combined with the actual situation of
Pakistan. It is divided into five grades according to the value of VCF: extremely low VCF area (0~5%), low VCF area
(5%~20%), medium VCF area (20%~40%), slightly high VCF area (40%~60%) and high VCF area (60%~100%). From
the spatial distribution of average vegetation coverage from 2001 to 2020, the overall vegetation coverage in Pakistan is
low; more than 80% of the territory is in extremely low VCF (or no VCF), and the areas with slightly high and high VCF
areas (only 0.06%) are concentrated in the northern mountainous areas. In addition, the areas with low vegetation coverage
are mostly in the Indus River Basin and the middle east of Pakistan.
4.2.2 Results of Vegetation Degradation
We analyzed the change trend characteristics of vegetation coverage in Pakistan from 2000 to 2020 on the pixel scale
by using the VCF data, based on the Sen trend analysis and MK significance test model and ArcGIS 10.6, MATLAB 2020
software. At the same time, the MK significance test results were divided into two parts: significant change (|𝑍| > 1.96,
passed the test) and non-significant change (|𝑍| ≤ 1.96, failed the test) (Fig. 5).
The superposition analysis of the Sen trend analysis results and MK significance test results can effectively reflect
the changes of VCF in Pakistan from 2000 to 2020 and obtain the results of vegetation degradation (Fig. 6 and table 5).

（a）Change trend of VCF long time series （b）VCF change significance test results
Fig5. VCF trends (2000-2020)
 Fig6. Results of land quantitative change in Pakistan(2000-2020)
Table 5 VCF change results statistics
SVCF Z value VCF change trend Area proportion (%)
≥0.0005 ≥1.96 Serious degradation 19.67
≥0.0005 -1.96~1.96 Slight degradation 8.94
-0.0005~0.0005 -1.96~1.96 Basically stable 69.47
＜-0.0005 -1.96~1.96 Slight improve 0.97
＜-0.0005 ＜-1.96 Serious degradation 0.34

It can be seen from Fig.5and Fig.6 that the vegetation improvement mainly occurs in the northern mountainous areas,
the central and eastern plains and the Indus River Plain, and the vegetation degradation mostly occurs in the northern
mountainous areas and the central and southern area of the Indus River Plain. The area of VCF change passes the
significance test accounts for 21.17% of the total area, and 78.83% of the total area fails to pass the significance test. That
is, the VCF change in most areas is not significant, and the areas with significant change are mostly distributed in the
mountains in northern Pakistan, the plains in central and eastern Pakistan and the Indus River Basin. The area with obvious
improvement of vegetation is mainly in the Middle East, and the area with obvious degradation of vegetation is mainly
in the Indus River Basin in the southeast. It can be seen from table 5 that VCF shows an increasing trend, accounting for
28.61% of the total area, and the VCF shows a degradation trend, accounting for 1.31% of the total area. The former is
21.84 times higher than the latter. The VCF improvement area is much larger than the VCF degradation area, while VCF
change trend is basically stable, accounting for 69.47% of the total area. From the results of vegetation degradation, the
land improvement in Pakistan is obviously, and the vegetation is developing better.

4.3 Results and Analysis of Land Degradation

The schematic diagram of LU and vegetation degradation results (Fig. 7) was obtained by combining vegetation
degradation results on the basis of giving priority to LU degradation results. The LU degradation area accounts for 1.9%,
the improvement area accounts for 5.75%, and 92.35% of the land LU has not changed (remained relatively stable). For
the area where LU degradation (improvement) occurs, this paper evaluates it as land degradation (improvement). In the
areas where LU has not changed, land degradation (improvement) shall be comprehensively evaluated in combination
with vegetation degradation (improvement). In the area where LU has remained relatively stable, vegetation significantly
degraded area, vegetation slightly degraded area, vegetation basically stable area, vegetation slightly improved area and
vegetation significantly improved area account for 0.27%, 0.89%, 71.64%, 8.61% and 18.04% respectively. If there is no
significant change in vegetation, this paper evaluates that the land in this area has not been degraded (improved). If LU
is not changed and vegetation cover is significantly degraded, it is assessed as land degradation, or vegetation is
significantly improved, it is assessed as land improvement. The area of land degradation caused by vegetation change
accounts for 0.25% and the area of land improvement accounts for 16.66%. Finally, the result of land degradation is
obtained (Fig.8), in recent 20 years, 75.44% of the land in Pakistan remained relatively stable, mainly distributed in
western mountainous areas and Southeast desert areas. 22.41% of the land was improved and 2.15% of the land was
degraded, which were mostly distributed in the northern mountainous area, the transitional area of central plain and the
Indus River Basin. The spatial distribution of land degradation (improvement) areas is similar, and the distribution is
consistent with the distribution of built -up land and cropland, which is located in an area where human economy and
society are very active.

(a) Schematic of LU and vegetation degradation (b)Area proportion of each part

Fig. 7 LU and vegetation degradation results
 Fig. 8 Land Degradation Results of Pakistan in recent 20 years

5 Discussion

(1) This paper uses LU data of 2001 and 2020 to qualitatively evaluate land degradation in Pakistan by using LU
transfer matrix and LU change flow description table. Analyzing the dynamic change characteristics of LU can effectively
characterize the impact of LU change on land degradation under the joint action of man and nature, which is often applied
to land degradation analysis (Kangalawe et al. 2008; Zubaidai et al. 2019). For example, (Guo et al. 2019) classified land
degradation into forest and grassland degradation, farmland degradation, urban land degradation, wetland degradation
and other types of degradation. The evaluation results of this paper show that from the perspective of LU change, 1.9%
of the land in Pakistan has LU degradation, mainly due to conversion of grassland to unused land (vegetation loss) and
cropland to grassland (Withdrawal of agriculture); 5.75% of land LU has improvement, mainly due to the conversion of
unused land to grassland (vegetation establishment) and grassland to cropland (agricultural expansion). According to the
2017 census, as of 2017, the total population of Pakistan was 212.2 million, with a population growth rate of 2.08%, the
rapid expansion of population has increased the pressure on the land. According to the research results of (Gilani et al.
2021), due to the increase of deforestation, vegetation degradation and natural disasters, soil erosion in Pakistan's high-
altitude areas has increased significantly, and land degradation is more serious. Pakistan is a typical agricultural country,
and nearly 70% of people living directly or indirectly on agriculture. LU degradation (improvement) is closely related to
the use of cropland. In order to achieve "LDN" in Pakistan, it is necessary to optimize the use of cropland resources and
pay more attention to protect cropland, forest and grassland vegetation.
(2) Long-term VCF data with medium spatial resolution of 250m are used to quantitatively analyze the quantitative
change results of land in Pakistan from the pixel scale by using the Sen trend analysis and the MK test method. The Sen
trend analysis and MK significance test are often widely used in long-time series analysis of vegetation (Liu et al. 2016),
The VCF can not only reflect the change of vegetation itself on the land acquisition surface (Gutman et al. 2010) but also
reflect the degree of land degradation (improvement). Combining the Sen and the MK to quantitatively analyze the
vegetation change characteristics in Pakistan can effectively evaluate the vegetation degradation. VCF remained relatively
stable in most areas. The vegetation improvement area is much larger than the vegetation degradation area. From the
perspective of VCF change, the vegetation is developing well, thanks to Pakistan's efforts in ecological environment
protection and forest restoration in recent years.
(3) Based on the comprehensive analysis of LU degradation and vegetation degradation, this paper considers
vegetation degradation on the basis of LU degradation, that is, give priority to the results of qualitative analysis (1.9% of
the land is degraded and 5.75% of the land has been improved). For the areas where LU has not been degraded and
changed, conducting a comprehensive evaluation in combination with vegetation change. The vegetation is significantly
degraded, which is evaluated as land degradation (0.25%), If the vegetation is significantly improved, it is evaluated as
land improvement (16.66%), The two parts of the assessment results are integrated, and finally the land degradation
results are obtained (2.15% of the land is degraded and 22.44% of the land is improved). The results of vegetation
degradation in the land degradation assessment method in this paper can be regarded as the supplement and improvement
of LU degradation, the combination of the two can effectively evaluate the land degradation caused by LU and vegetation
change, which will help to improve regional land degradation status, regional ecological environment protection and
promote the sustainable development of land resources.
(4) This paper evaluates and analyzes land degradation from the structure of LU, and does not evaluate the
degradation of land service function. Next, it can be combined with the degradation of land service function (land
productivity, soil conservation, carbon storage, habitat quality, etc.) to carry out a more comprehensive land degradation
assessment.
(5) It should be noted that the research results of this paper depend on LU data. Due to the low resolution of LU data,
it has a certain impact on the final results. Data with higher resolution and better accuracy can be used in the future. At
the same time, it must be noted that the meaning of land degradation has always been controversial. At present, the
relatively unified view is that the reduction or loss of both biological or economic productivity and complexity of land
and the difficulty of recovery in a short time can be considered as land degradation. However, changes in LU, such as
forest turning into cropland, do not necessarily reduce or lose their biological or economic productivity. They only provide
products or services for human beings in another way, but still belong to land degradation, it remains controversial.
Therefore, how to uniformly define land degradation is very important for land degradation assessment and restoration
of degraded land. In addition, this paper does not discuss and analyze the driving forces causing the changes of LU and
VCF. According to the relevant literature, we know that the factors that LU and VCF degradation factors can be divided
into natural and human factors. Analyzing the driving factors of LU change and VCF change, further exploring the driving
forces of land degradation, predicting the future trend of land degradation in Pakistan, and taking protective measures
against the main influencing factors, more effectively optimize the land use pattern, improve the current situation of land
degradation and ensure the development of vegetation in the direction of high coverage.

6 Conclusions

Using Lu data and VCF data, supplemented by LU transfer matrix, trend analysis and other methods, this paper
makes a qualitative and quantitative analysis of land degradation in Pakistan in recent 20 years from the perspective of
LU and vegetation. The main conclusions are as follows:
(1) Unused land, cropland and grassland are the main LU types in Pakistan. During whole period, the area of unused
land decreased (by 19626km2), the area of other types of land increased, the area of grassland changed the most, and the
area of cropland increased the most (by 17613km2).
(2) The overall VCF in Pakistan is very low during whole period, but it showed a significant increase trend. The
annual average value of VCF increased significantly from 2000 to 2020, with a growth rate of 0.0786/𝑎. The improved
area of VCF accounts for 28.79% of the total area and 1.32% degraded. The former is 21.89 times that of the latter. 21.17%
of VCF changes passed the significance test, and those that failed accounted for 78.83%, indicating that the improvement
of VCF in most areas was not obvious, and the change of VCF in Indus River Plain and central and eastern Pakistan plain
was obvious. From the results of vegetation degradation, 0.34% of them are serious degradation, 0.97% are slight
degradation, 69.47% are stability, 8.94% are slight improvement and 19.67% are significant improvement. Based on the
long-term VCF data, the analysis from the pixel scale makes the evaluation results more reliable.
(3) Over the past two decades, 75.44% of Pakistan's land has remained relatively stable, mainly distributed in
mountainous areas in the West and desert areas in the southeast; 22.44% of the land has been improved, of which 5.75%
is caused by LU improvement and 16.66% is caused by vegetation improvement; 2.15% of the land is degraded, of which
1.9% is caused by LU degradation and 0.25% is caused by vegetation degradation. The degradation and improvement of
LU in Pakistan are mainly affected by grassland, followed by cropland. Land degradation and improvement areas are
similar in spatial distribution, mainly distributed in the transition area from northern mountainous area to central plain,
central and eastern plain and Indus River Basin, which is similar to the spatial distribution of cropland and built-up land,
indicating that land change is highly consistent with human socio-economic activities, and these have a crucial impact on
land degradation in Pakistan.
(4) The study shows that the land degradation in Pakistan is mainly caused by the change of LU. The intensification
of unreasonable human farming activities and climate change lead to the abandonment of cropland and the degradation
of grassland vegetation, which will directly lead to land degradation. Meanwhile we can find that there is such a
phenomenon in Pakistan: the continuous agricultural expansion is accompanied by serious abandonment of cropland and
vegetation establishment is accompanied by serious vegetation loss. However, its vegetation coverage has been
significantly improved, and Pakistan has achieved remarkable results in forest restoration and ecological protection in
recent years. Next, more attention should be paid to optimizing the use of cropland resources, reasonably reclaiming
wasteland for cropland, and protecting forests and vegetation, so as to improve the current situation of land degradation,
achieve the goal of " LDN" in Pakistan, and promote sustainable development of land resources and the smooth progress
of the green "CPEC".

Acknowledgements

This study is supported by Sichuan Provincial Department of science and technology (project of Sichuan Provincial
Department of science and technology, "Research and Application of Key Technologies for Agricultural Drought
Monitoring in Tibet Based on Multi-source Remote Sensing Data", Grant No: 2021YFQ0042), Government of the Tibet
Autonomous Region (Tibet Autonomous Region Science and technology support plan project, "Construction and
Demonstration Application of Ecological Environment Monitoring Technology System in Tibet Based on Three-
dimensional Remote Sensing Observation Network”, Grant No: XZ201901-GA-07) and School of Geoscience and
Technology, Southwest Petroleum University.

Author statement

Xu Peng: Data collection and processing, data analysis and writing the original draft. Wang Zegen: Supervision and
manuscript review. Huang Zhuo: data collection and validation. Yong Zhiwei: validation and manuscript review. Lin
Rui: manuscript review. Zhao Yang: Supervision.

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