Mapping the Extent of Agroforestry Area in Different Altitudes of Tehri District, North Western Himalaya, India Through
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Mapping the Extent of Agroforestry Area in Different Altitudes of Tehri District, North Western Himalaya, India Through GIS and Remote Sensing Data K. K. Vikrant1 • D. S. Chauhan1 • R. H. Rizvi2 • Abhishek Maurya2 Received: 24 August 2017 / Accepted: 18 June 2018 Ó Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2018
Abstract Assessment of area under agroforestry in Tehri district of North Western Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India has been done using GIS and remote sensing technology. The study district characterized by hilly terrain with varying elevations from 288 m to more than 2800 m and generally gentle slopes, valleys, flat land covers and agricultural terraces. High-resolution satellite imageries (spatial resolution 5.8 m) were used in this study for land uses and land covers classification. According to unsupervised classification, highest area was found under forest class (65.22%) followed by cropland (20.41%). Considerable area was also found under snow cover (9.45%) in the district. Area under agroforestry was estimated to be 5572.26 ha (1.53%) by this method, whereas it was estimated to be 7029.06 ha (1.93%) by supervised classification. Estimated cropland area comes out to be about 20.0%. An accuracy of 86.5% was found in this classification for agroforestry class. Highest area under agroforestry of 3707.36 ha was obtained in 1200–2000 m elevations followed by 2231.26 ha in 288–1200 m elevations. Negligible area was found on high elevation zones of more than 2800 m. The major agroforestry systems of dominated by Grewia oppositifolia (Bhimal), Celtis australis (Kharik) and Quercus leucotrichophora (Banj) were identified and mapped and remaining systems were grouped as others class. Estimated area under G. oppositifolia, C. australis and Q. leucotrichophora based systems come out to be 2330.82, 1456.80 and 1129.10 ha, respectively. These systems are multiple usufructs are food, fuelwood, fodder, fiber and small timber. It has been observed from the accuracy assessment that the estimates of area under agroforestry obtained under this study are reliable. Keywords Landuse land cover Mapping Agroforestry GIS and remote sensing Tehri district
Introduction Agroforestry plays a vital role in improvement of Indian economy through tangible and intangible benefits. In the report of the task force on Greening India for livelihood security and sustainable development, Planning Commission (2001) it was assessed that there is a potential of commercial agroforestry in 10 million ha irrigated lands and further 18 million ha rainfed area could be brought in
& D. S. Chauhan [email protected] 1
Department of Forestry and NR, HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar, Garhwal, Uttarakhand 246174, India
2
ICAR-Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh 284003, India
subsistence agroforestry. Implementation of agroforestry programme in rainfed areas will help in poverty alleviation of 30 million people of weaker section (FSI 2013). Organized research on agroforestry in India was initiated in 1983
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