Presenter :
Batar A.Name of Society : ILTER Scientific Conference 2022 (2022)
Name of Proceedings : Many global environmental agendas, including biodiversity loss, land degradation depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. The fragmentation of forest is one of the threats to forest landscape integrity and connectivity. Therefore, an estimation of where forest fragmentation is likely to occur is critically important for improving the integrity of the forest landscape. We prepare a forest fragmentation susceptibility map for the first time by developing an integrated model and identify its causative factors in the forest landscape. Our proposed model is based upon the synergistic use of the earth observation data, forest fragmentation approach, patch forests, causative factors, and the weight-of-evidence (WOE) method in a Geographical Information System (GIS) platform. We evaluate the applicability of the proposed model in the Indian Himalayan region, a region of rich biodiversity and environmental significance in the Indian subcontinent. This study identifies Himalayan moist temperate and pine forests as being likely to be most affected by forest fragmentation in the future. The results suggest that the study area would experience more forest fragmentation in the future, meaning loss of forest landscape integrity and rich biodiversity in the Indian Himalayan region., 16
