Machine Learning and Spatio Temporal Analysis for Assessing Ecological Impacts of the Billion Tree Afforestation Project.

ABSTRACT: This study evaluates the Billion Tree Afforestation Project (BTAP) in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province using remote sensing and machine learning. Applying Random Forest (RF) classification to Sentinel-2 imagery, we observed an increase in tree cover from 25.02% in 2015 to 29.99% in 2023 and a decrease in barren land from 20.64% to 16.81%, with an accuracy above 85%. Hotspot and spatial clustering analyses revealed significant vegetation recovery, with high-confidence hotspots rising from 36.76% to 42.56%. A predictive model for the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), supported by SHAP analysis, identified soil moisture and precipitation as primary drivers of vegetation growth, with the ANN model achieving an R ² of 0.8556 and an RMSE of 0.0607 on th

SUBMITTER: Mehmood K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11839268 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature