India's plant diversity database at landscape level on geospatial platform: prospects and utility in today's changing climate

摘要

Characterization, quantification and monitoring of biodiversity have been among the major challenges in biodiversity conservation. Until recently, spatial ecological database in India was almost non-existent. There is need of a robust and quality database of the biological diversity at species, community, ecosystem and landscape levels for identification of vulnerable ecosystems and risk species. In order to have a national level database on the spatial distribution of biological diversity, a nationwide project on the biodiversity characterization at landscape level was implemented and studies were carried out between 1998 and 2010 to characterize and map the flowering plants richness in the forested landscapes. The spatial database on vegetation types generated from temporal IRS LISS-III satellite imagery, road/rail network and settlements from topomaps and high-resolution satellite images, and species richness from field sampling were used to generate the spatially explicit species distribution maps and statistics. This study has resulted in the creation of a large baseline spatial database on vegetation types, porosity, patchiness, interspersion, juxtaposition, fragmentation, disturbance regimes, ecosystem uniqueness, terrain complexity and biological richness.