FOREST COVER ASSESSMENT USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS: A CASE STUDY OF CHAMOLI DISTRICT, UTTARAKHAND, INDIA

摘要

Forests are complex biotic systems that are essential links between the land and its inhabitants, more so in the young Himalayas, which are rendered geo-physically unstable due to active tectonic forces that are acting on them. The paper examines the forest diversity and change in forest cover of the Chamoli District of Uttarakhand Himalayas. As forests constitutes about 70 per cent of the area of Chamoli, they are the only natural resources, which can be utilized for development of the Chamoli district, which incidentally happens to be one of the most backward regions of the country. The large percentage of area under forests also makes it important for this non-cash based economy. In the time span of 17 years 1989 to 2006 shows the increase in the forest cover. For the forest cover assessment, the satellite imagery (data) is procured from the Geo Spatial Data Library (GSDL) in digital format. Landsat-TM for October 1989 and Landsat-ETM for November 2004 had been used for the study using Erdas Imagine 8.7 image processing software and the analysis had been done using ArcGIS 9.0. Information about environmental awareness and perception, Forest Institutions as forest panchayats, customaries law and existing traditional knowledge about the forest use and forest conservation, source of livelihood, literacy, female literacy, etc. is to be collected through a pre-printed structured questionnaire. A separate questionnaire is to be prepared for interviewing Government officials and non-governmental officials (NGOs) and other institutions as Panchayats, Mahila Mangal Dal, Youth Mangal Dais, Self Help Groups, Environmental Protection Committees, Forest Fire Prevention Committies, Van Panchayats, Lath Panchayats exsisting in the village to get information about the government's as well as NGO's role in spreading environmental awareness and it's effectiveness.