Shashi Bhushan
Jawaharlal Nehru University School of Social Science, India
Title: Assessing change of forest cover and their socio-economic impact through LULC and NDVI in Kaimur, Bihar, India: 1977-2014.
Biography
Biography: Shashi Bhushan
Abstract
The Study attemts to identify the ulitisation of land use pattern and status of forest area in kaimur region of Bhabua, Bihar, India using LULC(Land use Land Cover) classification and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)-based land-cover change detection method based on harmonic analysis. Apart from this, the study also tried to discover the regions of forest scarcity through checking the quality of forest nearest to settlement and visual interpretation.The main focus is the forested areas of kaimur district of bihar, boardered with Sonabhadra districts of Uttar Pradesh prioritized in changing socio-economic structure of surrounding livelihood and contemperary conservation with livelihood initiatives. GIS (Geographical Information System) and Remote sensing applied to landsat images of the pleateau a region in 1977 and 2014 indicates a 17% decline in overall forest for the study area. Nearly 50% of the area is covered with forest area, out of which 36% are open and 14% are dense forest cover, where most of the open forest are were degraded for different purpose of activities. There was 16% increase in agricultural area and 3% in built up area, which shows that most of the forest area has been shifted into agricultural land and settlement expansion due to population pressure on local natural resources. The remote-sensing analysis, complemented by fieldwork in the region, attributes the negative trends to the livelihood demand for firewood, animal grazing and NTFP. The study proposes the application of satellite remote sensing and geospatial techniques for future environmental monitoring and forest dynamics studies.