Role of Reforestation in Reducing Landslide Risk in Galyat, Pakistan: A Remote Sensing and GIS-Based Temporal Analysis (2011–2025)

Ayesha Shakeel

Landslides are among the most common natural hazards in mountainous regions, often resulting in loss of life, damage to infrastructure, and destruction of agricultural land. Forest cover plays an important role in slope stabilization, soil erosion control, and landslide-risk reduction; however, empirical evidence regarding this relationship in specific mountainous landscapes remains limited. This study investigates the relationship between vegetation change and landslide occurrence in the Galyat region of Pakistan from 2011 to 2025. Remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques were used to derive the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from Landsat 5, 8, and 9 imagery for 2011, 2017, and 2025. These data were compared with a landslide inventory digitised from high?resolution Google Earth Pro imagery for the corresponding years. Mean NDVI decreased from 0.355 in 2011 to 0.181 in 2017 before increasing slightly to 0.197 in 2025. Landslide frequency decreased from 125 events in 2011 to 52 in 2017 and then increased to 76 in 2025. In contrast, total landslide-affected area increased from 55.78 ha in 2011 to 93.26 ha in 2017 and 98.38 ha in 2025. These contrasting trends indicate that vegetation condition alone does
not explain changes in landslide activity in Galyat. Reforestation should therefore be considered alongside rainfall, slope characteristics, geology, and land-use change within an integrated landslide-risk reduction strategy. The study also demonstrates the usefulness of remote sensing and GIS for monitoring vegetation and landslide dynamics in data-scarce mountainous regions.