Earth Sciences Pakistan (ESP)

The riparian zone is an ecological corridor for the rivers, forests, and lakes where the transition of water occurs between flora, fauna, and alluvial soil. It functions as a barrier to protect the riparian cities from floods, a retainer to hold the sediments transported in the water body, and a purifier in an order to adsorb the harmful dissolved solids present in the river flow. At some rivers, where the riparian zone has been degraded, the natural vegetation is observed to be under-functioning, consequently decreasing the water quality. The anthropogenic activities on river beds e.g agriculture are a reason for riparian degradation. In this study, the riparian zone of River Indus’s reach between the Sukkur and Kotri barrages is observed to identify the varying land covers and land temperature ranges due to agricultural invasion that could threaten the river ecosystem and sustainability. In a low flood period, less moisture on the river bed facilitates the detection of mature Rabi crops through the Landsat satellite. Acquired Imageries were classified for natural vegetation and agricultural area using the Visible bands. Land Surface Temperature (LST) was calculated from the pixels of the Thermal band. The images for 1999, 2003, 2010, 2015, 2018, and 2019 for February were utilized for the processing. Results demonstrated that in 1999, the 45.4% area of the Sukkur-Kotri reach was under the natural vegetation cover and decreased up to 14.2% area in 2019. In 1999, 22.5% of the reach area was under agricultural farming and increased up to 60% of the area in 2019. Analysis of surface temperature demonstrated that the areas having high temperatures are under natural vegetation cover, which is being reduced. And the areas having low temperatures are under agricultural farming, which is being increased inside the riparian zone.