Landscape characterisation of the forests of Himalayan foothills |
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Authors: | M Munsi G Areendran A Ghosh P K Joshi |
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Institution: | (1) TERI University, New Delhi, India; |
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Abstract: | Deforestation and degradation are important aspects of landscape dynamics and have global significance. Quantification of
landscape pattern using landscape metrics help in characterisation of landscapes and thus overall health of the forest cover.
Himalayan foothills are one of the most important and fragile landscapes. Developmental activities and depdendence on the
forest resources have altered the spatial pattern of these natural landscapes to a great extent. These changes in the landscape
were analysed using satellite data from 1990, 2001 and 2006. The vegetation type maps of Dehradun forest division were prepared
by supervised classification technique in order to study the landscape dynamics. Patch density, edge density, shape index,
cohesion index, interspersion and juxtaposition index, normalised entropy, and relative richness are some important landscape
metrics used in the study for quantifying the characteristics of landscape. The landscape metrics analysis and transformation
analysis show that the forested areas are getting degraded and physical connectedness between the patches have also decreased
making them isolated. The study demonstrates the importance of geospatial tools for monitoring the impact of disturbances
on the forest ecosystem health, which can further help in landscape management. |
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