Insights of Forest Dynamics for the Regional Ecological Fragility Assessment
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Insights of Forest Dynamics for the Regional Ecological Fragility Assessment T. V. Ramachandra1,2,3
•
Setturu Bharath1 • Aithal H. Bharath1,4
Received: 24 December 2019 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 / Published online: 25 August 2020 Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2020
Abstract Forest ecosystems play a vital role in sustaining various life forms on the earth. These ecosystems support society through the provision of goods (timber, fuelwood, etc.) and an array of ecological services (carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, etc.). However, unplanned developmental activities have been affecting the ecological integrity evident from the fragmentation of forests, barren hilltops, conversion of perennial streams to intermittent or seasonal streams, etc. During the past three decades, forests have undergone major transitions with the breaking of contiguous native forests into small parcels of land, restricting the movement of species thereby limiting the potential of species for dispersal and colonization. This paper analyzes the landscape dynamics and spatial patterns of forests fragmentation of Shimoga District, Central Western Ghats and prioritizes ecologically fragile or Ecologically Sensitive regions (ESR) at village levels based on biogeo-climatic-social variables with the land use dynamics considering temporal remote sensing data. Results revealed that there was a net loss of 10% in forest cover from 43.83% (1973) to 34.02% (2018), primarily caused by the expansion of agriculture, horticulture, and forest plantations. Forest fragmentation has increased, evident from the decline of the interior forest to an extent of 11% from 26% (1973–2018). ESR prioritization at village level in the Shimoga district considering the ecological, geo-climatic and social variables indicate that 11% villages are ESR 1 (highest sensitivity), 30% are in ESR 2 (higher sensitivity), 36% are in ESR 3 (high sensitivity) and the remaining 23% are in ESR 4 or moderate sensitivity category. The analysis illustrates the importance of understanding spatiotemporal patterns of landscape structure for sustainable management of tropical forests. Keywords Landscape dynamics Land use land cover (LULC) Shimoga Forest fragmentation Ecological sensitive regions (ESR)
& T. V. Ramachandra [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/energy Setturu Bharath [email protected] Aithal H. Bharath [email protected] 1
Energy and Wetlands Research Group, CES TE 15, Center for Ecological Sciences [CES], Indian Institute of Science, New Bioscience Building, Third Floor, E-Wing, [Near D-Gate], Bangalore 560012, India
2
Centre for Sustainable Technologies (astra), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
3
Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning [CiSTUP], Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka 560 012, India
4
RCG School of Infrastructure Design and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India
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