ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In the name of Allah the most Beneficent and the Merciful, I

owe my gratitude from the deepest corners of my heart to the
Allah Almighty who ordered us to acquire knowledge and then
enforced us with the power to acquire the knowledge.

Then I pay my humble gratitude to Prof. Dr. Jamil Hassan

Kazami, who spared time out of his very busy routine to coordinate
a course on GIS for the M.Phil. / Ph.D. students. I am especially
thankful to him for providing me the opportunity to learn certain
advanced techniques in GIS, and for providing me with necessary
tips, facilities and data required for learning through this course.

I also owe very special gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Dr.

Azra Parveen Azad for guiding me and recommending me such a
useful course which will help me through my research work. I also
am thankful to her for facilitating my stay throughout the
semester. I am also very thankful to Prof. Dr. Khalida, the
chairperson of the department of geography for her help and kind
support throughout my stay at the department. I would also like to
forward my gratitude to Ms. Anila Kausar who provided me with
help and support in completing my project.

At the last but not least I am very thankful to my course

mates syed Meer Syed, Ms. Farhat Niazi, Ms. Nazish, Ms. Amna and
others for providing a good company away from home and for
providing a very congenial working environment which made it
possible for me to complete my work in time.

Sajid Mahmood Farooqi

(M.Phil./Ph.D.) 2007 - 2012

 INTRODUCTION

As the title of this project suggests it is carried out to

ascertain that either the land use changes can be an adjustment to
the flood hazards, on the active flood plains or not. In arid regions
flood plain areas have been a great attraction for the human being
since the time immemorial. A number of ancient civilizations have
emerged and flourished on the river banks particularly after the
man have learned to practice agriculture. In the areas now
included in Pakistan Indus Civilisation and the ruins of Harappa
and Mohenjo-Daro are the examples of the same phenomenon.
Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were situated on the river banks and
were the most modern and developed cities of the ancient times.
Archaeological studies of these areas reveal that being situated on
the flood able areas these cities were inundated many times and
ultimately due to a change in the river course were buried under
the silt.

Even in the current day’s modern world with the most

advanced technologies it is difficult to completely control the
forces of nature. Floods are one of the most common and
devastating of the natural hazards as far as their frequency,
magnitude and loss (tangible and intangible) incurred is
concerned. Examples can be taken from Europe and USA where
despite having the latest weather monitoring technologies land
use regulations have been implemented to reduce the risk of
damages from the riverine floods. For that matter using the RS and
GIS techniques the risk areas have been clearly delineated by
producing the Hazard Maps and beyond the line of risk no human
settlements are allowed. These areas either have been developed
in to recreational areas or been left undeveloped.

In the current project it is being tried to categories the

land forms and land uses on the CHEJ interfluve, for this purpose
using the available documentary resources mapping of the area
have been carried out using the GIS tools. So that it can be
estimated that what the extent is of the hazard prone area and
can Land Use changes be adopted as an adjustment to the flood
hazards.
 OBJECTIVES

Following are the basic objectives of this project:

1: To practically use the GIS tools learned during the course.

2: Base mapping the study area using the GIS tools and
techniques.

3: Preparing the land use and land form maps of the area under
study.

4: Estimation of the area under different land forms.

5: Categorization of different land uses in to Primary and

Secondary land uses.

6: Establishing a relationship between the land forms, soils and

land uses of the study area.

The main objective of this project is the practical

implementation of the knowledge of the GIS tools learned during
the course more than the academic or research purposes.

METHODOLOGY

For carrying out this project first of all documentary resources

(Secondary Data) like published maps of the area were collected
and arranged. For this project following data and documents were
collected and arranged:

1: Digital satellite image (N-43-30) Land sat TM at a resolution of

30 Meter
2: Scanned maps to be used as base map from Colombo Plan
Cooperative Project Report (1958) at a scale of 1:253,440 or 1
inch to 4 miles.

3: Scanned images of 1:250,000 sheets of the area concerned

First of all the available digital data and maps were

recognized and arranged in the Arc-Catalogue application in the
ArcGis environment. As all the maps were on different coordinate
systems therefore as a first step after loading these images in the
ArcGis view scanned images were georefrenced to the digital
satellite image containing the coordinate information of the area.
After the georefrencing the control points were saved as a file for
any future use. Then the scanned maps (Raster) containing the
non digital information about the land forms and land uses of the
area were converted in to the Vector format. The information in
the Vector format is saved in the form of Polygon (Area), Line and
point entities. This information is saved in form of different layers
after wards these layers are overlayed to get a complete map in
digital format. After the Vector of the area was prepared the
required attributes were manually added to the maps containing
the qualitative and quantitative information of the area under
study.
 For preparing the vectorised map of the area first of all
required layers were created in the Arc-Catalogue. Then these
layers were added to the table of contents in the ArcGis
environment. Afterwards each layer was put in to the edit mode
and all the required features were digitized. During the process of
digitization a table is created by the ArcGis by default containing 3
fields that is FID or Feature Identification, Feature class and ID. FID
and Feature are non editable attributes whereas the ID is manually
entered in to the table after recognizing the features in the map
with the help of feature select tool. Then the required fields are
added to the table and the attribute data is entered for the
required features. After the editing is complete edits are saved and
editing process is stopped.

Now the digital map is ready for analyses, visualization and

display. After going through this process the map was reclassified
for different categories of the attribute data according to map
requirements. After the map is symbolized it is redrawn in to the
lay out view and other map accessories like North arrow, Scale
Bar, Legend and Title of the map is added to the lay out. Now the
map is ready for publishing. For this matter lay out view is
exported as a Jpeg and saved for the process of printing.

During this project following all the required procedures four

maps of the area were prepared.

1: Predominant land forms of the study area

2: Predominant land use categories of the study area

3: Primary land use of the study area

4: Secondary land use of the study area

More over using the area tool area under different land forms
was calculated and also displayed and explained with the help of
charts.
CHEJ interfluve is composed of seven major landforms Meander
Flood Plains being the largest covering 41.80 % of the interfluve
area showing the impact of historical floods and their extent.
Scalloped interfluve the raised centeral part ranks second, the only
area experiencing no effects of floods. The active flood plains
occupy the margin of the Interfluve just inside the river Jhelum and
river Chenab, Active Flood Plains cover an area of about 9.36 %
hosting more than 150 settlements and a substantial number of
human beings. The flood plain dwellers are directly subject to the
flooding conditions and are living a life continuely threatened by
the risk of flooding. On the other hand the flood plains are also an
economic resource for the area and the country being the most
fertile land providing best of the agricultural reource and best crop
yielding area.
 LAND_FORMS COUNT Percentage
Active Flood Plains 22 9.362
Channel Levee Remnant 4 5.774
Exposed Bedrock 3 2.033
Meander Flood Plains 14 41.792
Peni Plain 5 7.622
Scalloped Interfluve 6 31.376
Sand Bars 52 2.041

FINDINGS

It was revealed during the area calculation that the active

flood plain occupies only 10 % of the total area. The active flood
plain is also the area which is more frequently subjected to floods.
Although the frequency of floods has decreased substantially after
the construction of major water reservoirs on these river, but the
design capacity of these reservoirs is only in accordance with the
average floods. In case of any 100 year flood return which is much
beyond the storage capacity of the reservoirs the area once again
will be subjected to sever flooding causing much life and property
damages. The main reason will be that the encroachment on to
the flood plains has increased many folds due to the development
of a false perception of security following the construction of
protection measures based on the engineering solutions.

To prevent any further life and property damages certain land

use regulation are to be adopted as in the most advanced
countries have been adopted. The area affected will not be large
as most of it already is used for unimproved grazing zone. If after
demarcation of the risk zone precisely this area be restricted for
further settlement and declared as an agricultural and grazing
zone only and no more residential activity than there are chances
to reduce further damages.