Land use and landscape dynamics in northern Thailand: assessing change in three upland watersheds

This study analyzed human-induced loss and fragmentation of tropical forests in three upland watersheds in northern Thailand between 1954 and 1992. During this 38-year period, forest cover declined, agricultural cover increased, population and population density grew, and agriculture changed from subsistence to cash crops. These changes resulted in a spatially diverse landscape with implications for biological and cultural diversity, sustainable resource use, and the economic conditions of the region. By quantifying the spatial and temporal patterns of tropical-forest change, we have attempted to show how the landscape in these upland tropical forests is controlled by physical and biological, as well as social and economic, parameters. The study illustrates the hierarchy of temporal and spatial events that result in global biome changes.