Landcover Analysis of Uppper Magat Magat Watershed, Northern Luzon, Philippines

Abstract

The Upper Magat Watershed is classified as one of the 142 critical watersheds in the Philippines and its contribution on maintaining ecological balance as well as its economic importance warrants significant inputs to its sustainable management, conservation, and protection. As such, it was subjected to landscape analysis particularly its land cover and landscape elements which were used to recommend management regimes in the watershed. Geographic Information System (GIS) was employed in data processing and analysis. The generated GIS data were then processed using Supervised Classification in Quantum GIS 3.4.9 with Semi-Automatic Classification and Lecos plug-ins, and Arc Map 10.2. The Upper Magat Watershed was classified into five major land cover types such as vegetation, agricultural areas, barren lands, built-up zones, and water bodies. Areas classified as vegetation were mainly forest lands and grassland areas in the upper slopes which dominates the total land area of the study site. While agricultural areas were very pronounced in the lowland areas. Furthermore, the results of overlaying the DENR projects such as NGP and FMP with the landcover shows that there is a significant increase in forest areas and retention of forest cover in the projects sites. The study recognized that the importance and impact of landcover change and its drivers in the planning process, development environmental projects and mitigation and strategies to investigate and formulate possible solutions to identified potential or emerging problems in the watershed.