With the dawn of civilization, humankind has been able to change landscapes in order to improve the amount, quality and security of natural resources critical to its well-being, such as food, freshwater, fiber and medicinal products. Through the increased levels of innovation, human population has, slowly at first, and at increasingly rapid pace later on, increased its ability to exploit resources from the environment, and expand its territory. The present paper aims at quantifying the land transformation in North Kashmir River catchment region. Since the study area is entirely mountainous, maximum change has occurred in the forest cover. The dense forests have shrunk by 112 Km2 from 1992 to 2013. Horticulture and agricultural plantation are the fast changing land use classes as minimum land is available for agriculture.
