Change on Montane Forest Area in Khun Chae National Park, Chiang Rai Province

Abstract

Khun Chae national park has a valuable natural resources. However, land use change may change the montane forest ecosystem of this area. The purposes of this study aimed to monitoring the changes of montane forest, MF, and clarified the effects of changing on the climate change. The satellite images from LANDSAT-5 TM in 2 periods (1989 and 2009) were used and analyzed based on hybrid classification. In addition, the correlation between MF and climate changes were analyzed. The results showed that MF areas trended to decrease from 1989 to 2009, 116,515 and 108,111 rai, respectively. The average changed rate was 0.23 %.y-1 (about 8,404 rai or 4.73 % of total areas). The degradation forest effected to climate changes which average temperature, maximum and minimum temperature were increased, particular average temperature increased about 0.7 ?C. In addition, the annual rainfall and raining day were decreased, then, drought was increased. Thus, the protection on forest degradation may protect the climate changes both local and global scale.

Keywords: Climate Change, Evergreen Forest Ecosystem, Khun Chae National Park, climate change

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