Long Term Deforestation Assessment in Jharkhand state, India: A grid based Geospatial Approach

Author: Firoz Ahmad* and Laxmi Goparaju*

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Abstract

Forest is a fundamental component of the environment. Deforestation is caused by various anthropogenic factors, forest fire and fragmentation of large contiguous forests. Deforestation represents a global issue mostly caused by human influence and the forest of Jharkhand, India is not an exception as they have also been witnessing large scale deforestation. The aim of the present study is to identify deforestation using historical data for the year 1935 (Survey of India topographical maps of 1924–1935) and for the year of 2015 with Landsat -8 datasets in Jharkhand, India. To achieve this objective, the analysis focuses on grid (5 km*5 km) based assessment to detect long term change. The grid based analysis reveals forest percent in Jharkhand for the year 1935 and 2015 were roughly 49% and 23% respectively. The result shows 2596 forest grid for the year 1935 out of which 1372 forest grids were found present in the year 2015. 1224 forest grid (equivalent to 26% forest area) was lost

Keywords

Jharkhand, forest assessment, deforestation, geospatial technology, GRID Analysis.

Conclusion

The present study has attempted to develop grid (5 km × 5 km) based forest cover percent of Jharkhand for the year 1935 and 2015. Deforestation has been evaluated based on the grid loss between the 80 years period. Roughly 53 percent of the forest area has been lost between these periods. The deforestation within the state of Jharkhand which is at such alarming rate is concern for forest policy/decision maker. There is an urgent need to strictly implement the Indian forest conservation act 1988 and formulate appropriate conservation measures and strategies in deforested and degraded forest areas. There is urgent need to provide environmental education to the people and involve/encourage them for tree planting/ protecting forest which would involve local bodies for conservation measures plans. The driving factor for deforestation in Jharkhand must be closely monitored and restricted. Finally we recommend that the forests for the Jharkhand state should be temporally monitored usi

References

Deforestation is a conventional environmental challenge considerably affecting the resilience and distribution of forests across the different boundaries. It is defined as the loss of trees’ cover usually as a result of forests being cleared for other land uses purpose (Gorte and Sheikh, 2010). Over the years, the world has experienced unprecedented forest loss at a global scale. The rate of deforestation is still alarming because in the year 2010 it was observed that the world had just over 4 billion hectares of forest, which corresponds to an average of 0.6 forest per capita (FAO, 2010). As a recognized global challenge, deforestation has gained greater boost in policy and research which has also indicated that there is increasing research on various dimensions of deforestation by many scientists. Though deforestation is well identified problem, it has important to highlight the changes that affect the manifest the rate and extent of it has however varied across the world viz. con

How to cite this article

Firoz Ahmad and Laxmi Goparaju (2017). Long Term Deforestation Assessment in Jharkhand state, India: A grid based Geospatial Approach. Biological Forum – An International Journal 9(1): 183-188.