Land Cover नेपालको जमिन सम्बन्धी विवरण

Land cover

A land cover map of Nepal using Landsat 30 m (2010) data.

ICIMOD’s first and most complete national land cover^[19] database of Nepal prepared using public domain Landsat TM data of 2010 shows that show that forest is the dominant form of land cover in Nepal covering 57,538 km² with a contribution of 39.09% to the total geographical area of the country. Most of this forest cover is broadleaved closed and open forest, which covers 21,200 km² or 14.4% of the geographical area.

Needleleaved open forest is the least common of the forest areas covering 8267 km² (5.62%). Agriculture area is significant extending over 43,910 km² (29.83%). As would be expected, the high mountain area is largely covered by snow and glaciers and barren land.

The Hill region constitutes the largest portion of Nepal, covering 29.5% of the geographical area, and has a large area (19,783 km²) of cultivated or managed lands, natural and semi natural vegetation (22,621 km²) and artificial surfaces (200 km²). The Tarai region has more cultivated or managed land (14,104 km²) and comparatively less natural and semi natural vegetation (4280 km²). The Tarai has only 267 km² of natural water bodies. The High mountain region has 12,062 km² of natural water bodies, snow/glaciers and 13,105 km² barren areas.