Monitoring post mining forest dynamics of the tropical thorn forest in Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, India using multi-temporal satellite data

摘要

Recent advances in remote sensing technology and methodologies and in the integration of analytical results and evaluation schemes in a long-term monitoring protocol have created new and exciting opportunities for applying remote sensing data to meet monitoring needs. Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary (ABWLS), encompassing about 32.71 km~2 area, represents a typical tropical thorn forest ecosystem of low hills layered with quartzite and has undergone drastic transformations due to massive open cast mining of feldspar and for red sand stone. Regeneration of secondary forests has occurred in mining pits that have been quarried. In the present study the rate of land use land cover change was determined for the period of two decades 1992-2013, which was divided into three sub-periods with a subsequent gap of 7 years and the land use land cover changes of these three sub-periods were compared. Land use land cover trajectory analysis showed the rate of change of LULC during the last two decades (1992-1999, 1999-2006, 2006-2013), which provided useful information of forest regeneration in a mining affected area. The study proved that the technique of GIS and remote sensing can provide land cover information and landscape characterization statistics for assessing habitat diversity and land cover change in a disturbance-dominated post-mining landscape.