**6. Conclusions**

This study sheds new light on systematic land cover dynamics of ICT over the period of four decades, underlining a major decrease in tree cover along with significant increase in settlements and

soil. The findings from the analysis of land cover changes, landscape metrics, forest fragmentation, and LCRPGR, are aligned well and agree overall with previous published work on the regional and global scales. The computation of LCRPGR is vital to understand the rate of land change as compared to the population boom, to understand historical land consumption traditions, and to guide decision and policy makers on planned urban expansion while ensuring the protection of environmental, social, and economic assets. It is indeed a scientifically accepted phenomenon that in most of the cities, the land consumption rate overall is much faster than the population growth rate, due to high demand of luxurious occupancies in the urban areas.

Both natural and anthropogenic activities are responsible for land cover changes in ICT. In terms of landscape and fragmentations, the ICT urban landscape ecology is continuously under threat due to the encroachment of housing societies, and influential business community. The findings from urban landscape matrix and forest fragmentation analysis in this study could help ICT Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) in making strategic decisions to prevent tree loss, forest degradation, and encroachment in the urban landscape of ICT, and also plan future urban growth keeping with the use of remote sensing imagery and geospatial analysis. The methodology outlined in this study is cost-e ffective and could be easily replicable to other countries/regions, especially in developing countries, through integrating freely available satellite images with a 5–10 years interval.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, H.G., W.A.Q.; data analysis, S.A., M.K.; supervision, H.G., visualization, H.G., W.A.Q., S.A., M.K.; writing—original draft preparation, H.G., S.A., W.A.Q., S.M.A.; writing—review and editing, H.G., W.A.Q., S.M.A. All authors have read and approved the final version of this paper. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** This work is an extension of an Undergraduate Final Year Project, which was completed in 2018, and we would like to express our thanks to Institute of Space Technology (IST) managemen<sup>t</sup> and academic sta ff for their support. The authors also would like to acknowledge the editors and three anonymous reviewers for their extensive and critical comments on the paper, which helped to improve the paper immensely.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The views and interpretations in this publication are those of the authors, and they are not necessarily attributable to their organizations.
