FOREST DEGRADATION ANALYSIS USING GEOSPATIAL TECHNIQUES APPROACH IN TROPICAL REGION OF PAHANG, MALAYSIA

Abstract. Tropical forest degradation is a global concern since most deforestation study supports that the region seems to suffer a great loss in the recent decades. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the forest dynamic in Rompin and Pekan district of Pahang state using satellite image and land use model. Pekan district has the biggest peat swamp forest (PSF) in Peninsular Malaysia and also covers with inland dipterocarp forest. The land use of study area was categorized using Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) and further analysed using Land Change Modeler (LCM). From the results, forest land use has a negative growth (15% net loss) in the last 25 years, mostly converted to other vegetation class with overall 45% loss and 20% gain. The PSF itself was continuously degraded during the 1990 to 2017 periods, with a total loss of more than 700 km². This study demonstrates the forest land use exploitation and the needs to consider a details forest monitoring analysis to extract the actual contributors for this phenomenon. The role of Permanent Reserved Forest (PRF) seem likely to be taking effect since the deforestation only massively happen outside of the PRF and part of the disturbed area are being reforested.