Detecting disturbed forest tracts in the Sariska Tiger Reserve, India, using forest canopy density and fragmentation models

摘要

The paper explored the level of forest disturbance in the Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) of Indian tropical forest. We acquired single scene image of Landsat-5 (1989) and Landsat-8 (2015) for the analysis. Disturbance map was produced using fragmentation and canopy density models. The map was categorized into high, moderate, low, and undisturbed forest tracts. Spatiotemporal analysis of forest disturbance (1989-2015) revealed that highly disturbed tracts experienced a decrease of 43%, while medium and low disturbed tracts showed an increase of 57% and 30%, respectively. Undisturbed forest tracts witnessed decrease mainly due to a decrease in very high canopy density and increase in forest fragmentation. Within cores I, II and III of STR, undisturbed forest tracts in core I have significantly declined due to increased anthropogenic activities. Thus, the study calls for immediate attention to check forest disturbance in core I of STR. Though the government has initiated relocation program of the villages and restoration of the STR, the execution process has still a long way to achieve the goal. The methodology adopted in this study can effectively be utilized for assessing the forest disturbance tracts at spatial scales.