Environmental Effects of Extension of National Highway No. 1 � a case analysis

Usman Abdulrazak; Amandeep Singh; Dheera Kolota

Volume : V, Issue : VI, June - 2016

Environmental Effects of Extension of National Highway No. 1 � a case analysis

Usman Abdulrazak, Amandeep Singh, Dheera Kolota

Abstract :

 This research has been conducted with a view to assess the environmental effects as a result of the expansion of Panipat – Jalandhar expressway that began in 2008 to the present day of May 2016 for the purpose to uplift it from four (4) lanes into the six (6) lanes which covers the total of 291 km and yield into the serious change of vegetation cover. The study also is to assess the decreasing area of vegetation along the construction road site, which found the severe decline of vegetation vicinity from 1631.3 km in 2002 to 1344.8 km in march 2016 and to identify the intensity of vegetation alteration with indication of 2002 having the dense vegetation in respect of the 0.688 value as correlate it with the 2016 value of 0.5176 that entails present of shrubs and a lesser amount of trees for the entire road environs. It also has a bunch of negatives impact that honestly linked to the environmental imbalance which affects the whole ecosystem due to the decreases of vegetation cover. This study, adopted the secondary source of data in order to assess the realistic change in vegetation dense area with aid of Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), that selected the buffer region with limited of three (3) km from both road sides and the two range value that is below 0.6 indicates the shrubs and small trees while above 0.6 means high concentration of vegetation cover and also the Data set with assist of land sat image was derived from the United State Geological Survey (USGS) and finally the derived satellite map or image was processed.