Assessing Habitat Quality of Forest-Corridors through NDVI Analysis in Dry Tropical Forests of South India: Implications for Conservation

Remote Sensing

Paramesha Mallegowda¹  Ganesan Rengaian¹  Jayalakshmi Krishnan¹  Madhura Niphadkar¹  Heiko Baltzer² 

[1] Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Royal Enclave, Sri Ramapura, Jakkur Post, Bangalore 560 064, India; E-Mails:Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Royal Enclave, Sri Ramapura, Jakkur Post, Bangalore 560 064, India;

关键词: wildlife corridor;    NDVI;    change analysis;    greening;    browning;    anthropogenic pressure;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs70201619

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Most wildlife habitats and migratory routes are extremely threatened due to increasing demands on forestland and forest resources by burgeoning human population. Corridor landscape in Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve (BRT) is one among them, subjected to various anthropogenic pressures. Human habitation, intensive farming, coffee plantations, ill-planned infrastructure developments and rapid spreading of invasive plant species Lantana camara, pose a serious threat to wildlife habitat and their migration. Aim of this work is to create detailed NDVI based land change maps and to use them to identify time-series trends in greening and browning in forest corridors in the study area and to identify the drivers that are influencing the observed changes. Over the four decades in BRT, NDVI increased in the core area of the forest and reduced in the fringe areas. The change analysis between 1973 and 2014 shows significant changes; browning due to anthropogenic activities as well as natural processes and greening due to Lantana spread. This indicates that the change processes are complex, involving multiple driving factors, such as socio-economic changes, high population growth, historical forest management practices and policies. Our study suggests that the use of updated and accurate change detection maps will be useful in taking appropriate site specific action-oriented conservation decisions to restore and manage the degraded critical wildlife corridors in human-dominated landscape.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
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