In parallel, the development of this Land Cover Assessment and Monitoring project serves as the actualization of the above concept. This project primarily aims to determine the present status of land cover types and the nature of the land cover transformation for selected target countries in the Asian region at the scale of 1:1 million on a regular basis, a vital information for the regional monitoring of the land cover dynamics. It also provides an opportunity to identify areas of major land cover transformation ("hot spots") which will serve as an early warning system that will allow for a more detailed analysis, and a sound link of information in order to derive criteria for any future action plan governed by this valuable knowledge on land cover variables.

Major land cover resources of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao P.D.R., Myanmar, Nepal, and Vietnam have been investigated under two time frames (i.e. 1985-1986 and 1992-1993). The recognition of the potential and usefulness of the remotely sensed data, particularly NOAA AVHRR in assessing and monitoring the land cover dynamics, in conjunction with ancillary data within a GIS structure have been fully underscored.

The basic principles, methodological background and overall summary behind this activity can be found in Volume 1-A while each country's result appear in separate volumes (Vol. 2-A: Bangladesh, Vol. 3-A: Cambodia, Vol. 4-A: Lao P.D.R., Vol. 5-A: Myanmar, Vol. 6-A: Nepal, Vol. 7-A: Vietnam). Specific observations and conclusions have been presented on a country basis.

Follow-up activities such as repeating the same exercise for the selected Asian countries in order to arrive at more comprehensive land cover resource monitoring has been scheduled for the activities set for 1995. Sri Lanka and Pakistan were added for a wider scope of assessment in the Asian region. Experts from China, India and Iran will be invited to help and be trained in tackling major activities under this project as scheduled for 1995. They are expected to perform the same exercise for their respective country/region starting 1996 and later be part of the overall regional compilation of information. Methodological guidelines are expected to be documented for future information dissemination such as training among the target countries.

Pre-processing of the raw NOAA AVHRR data has been carried out by writing in-house programs. The possibilities of using the programs developed by EROS Data Center in US is being explored for harmonized and standard pre-processing opportunities.

In order to come up with more standard and harmonized land cover classification system for the region in the succeeding years, efforts will be placed to incorporate the general level land cover classification system recently agreed upon by the IGBP-DIS group. Cooperation and collaboration established with Land Cover Working Group of Asian Association of Remote Sensing (LCWG/AARS) and FAO regional office in Bangkok will definitely be an advantage in this regard.

Our heartful thanks to the UNEP EAP-AP staff who have put in many hours of dedicated effort into the overall analysis of this project, Messrs. Chandra Giri, Rey Ofren, and V. Sritharan with the valuable guidance extended by Dr. Pierre Defourny. The contribution of Mr. Kumar Kotta (ICIMOD/MENRIS-Kathmandu) is deeply appreciated for the Nepal case study.

This study has been completed in consultation and collaboration with various national and international agencies. The Land Use Mapping Office and IUCN Office in Cambodia, the Lao P.D.R. National Office Forest Inventory and Planning, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment's Organization of Laos, the Department of Forestry and SPARSSO of Bangladesh, the Ministry of Forestry of Myanmar, and the Forest Inventory and Planning Institute of Vietnam have provided the much needed field information and relevant secondary data. The collaboration conveyed by the Mekong Secretariat throughout the execution of this project is highly regarded. Numerous other agencies and data sources such as the DCW (Digital Chart of the World) also contributed in building the geographical database for the countries in this study. Most recently a Memorandum of Understandng has been signed with Land Cover Working Group of Asian Association of Remote Sensing (LCWG/AARS) regarding the exchange of data, outputs and experinace.

Surendra Shrestha
Regional Coordinator
UNEP Environment Assessment Programme - Asia Pacific
December 1994