Spatio Temporal Assessment of Forest Transformation in Palamau Tiger Reserve India Using Geoinformatics

Abstract

newline Forests are one of the most valuable ecological resources of a global interest. It is a newlinecomplex ecosystem which is predominantly composed of trees, shrubs and usually a newlineclosed canopy. newlineThe forest cover of Jharkhand accounts for 29% of its total geographical area and is newlineprone to degradation leading to loss of green cover and biodiversity. The forests in the newlineJharkhand state are prone to forest fires due to dominance of dry deciduous forest which newlineare largely occupied by native tribal people who are dependent on forest for their newlinelivelihood and therefore blamed for recurrent forest fires. newlineThe present research work is undertaken in the Palamau Tiger reserve in newlineJharkhand, covering an area of 1222 Sq. km .with major objectives pertaining to Spatio- newlinetemporal change in forest cover, forest transformation trend, Forest Fire risk mapping newlineand Forest Fire hotspot relationship with climatic variables along with distribution newlineprediction of Shorea robusta through Species Distribution Modelling. newlineThe long-term forest cover transformation was analyzed in PTR, Jharkhand, India using newlineLANDSAT TM, ETM+, and OLI satellite images acquired for the period from 1975- newline2015. The forest cover was delineated utilizing various keys of visual interpretation newlinetechniques. The study depicted a significant forest cover change (a decrease of 14.55 newlinesq. km i.e. -1.34% change), with primary disturbance in north eastern and north-western newlineparts of PTR along the forest fringe due to the high population and settlement density. newlineIn order to identify the anthropogenic disturbance in the forest reserve, human newlinesettlement density was mapped using high resolution Google Earth imagery. The results newlineshowed a positive correlation between human population density and settlement density newlineas well as with negative forest transformation.