DEFORESTATION AROUND THE WORLD - India Environment Portal

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Deforestation Around the World
Illegal housing seems to be high in almost all neighbouring regions to large urban
concentrations, and also in several costal locations and remote areas (Polyzos and Minetos
2009). While in the past, illegal housing activity as a phenomenon was concentrated in urban
and suburban space, resulting in significant negative consequences to the formation and
functionality of cities, nowadays it appears that illegal housing phenomenon influences
wider spatial units.
a b
c d
Fig. 2. Hot-spots of land use changes: a) Very significant land use changes b) significant land
use changes c) moderate land use changes d) low land use changes
The phenomenon of land use change happens for multiple reasons and also presents
important spatial differentiations. In order to acquire an overall understanding of land use
transformations and modifications, we attempt to locate "hot-spots" (Reid, Tomich et al.
2006) or "regions of very high activity" across the country (Figures 1 and 2). In the first
column of matrix in Fig. 1 we have coloured with red regions that present very high (VH)
rates in at least two of the four spatial phenomena that mainly drive land use changes. They
also present high (H) activity in at least one of the four aforementioned phenomena. These
regions constitute the "hot spots” or "first level areas” of land use change. The spatial
"distribution of "hot spots" is presented in the Fig. 2a. In these areas, land use changes are
rapid and extensive and they perhaps jeopardize the fundamental regional characteristics as
well as economic, social and environmental equilibrium of these areas.