Land Use Land Cover Mapping, Change Detection ...

Research Article ISSN 2277–9051 International Journal of Remote Sensing and GIS, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2012, 90-98 © Copyright 2012, All rights reserved Research Publishing Group

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Land Use Land Cover Mapping, Change Detection and Conflict Analysis of Nagzira-Navegaon Corridor, Central India Using Geospatial Technology P. K. Yadav*, Mohnish Kapoor, Kiranmay Sarma University School of Environment Management, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University Dwarka 16C, New Delhi - 110075, India *E-Mail: [email protected]

Abstract Degradation of forest connectivity in between landscapes occurs due to fragmentation and anthropogenic activity, which causes biodiversity decline. Conservation of wildlife corridors requires complete knowledge of species habitat requirements. Information of land use/cover and conflicts supports the assessment of wildlife habitat and identification of corridor status. In the present research paper an attempt has been made to find out the status of ecological corridors between Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary and Navegaon National Park using temporal remote sensing data. It is found that 6.22 percent dense forest is converted to open forest and 6.66 percent open forest to non forest between 1990 to 1999. After observation of change analysis, it is found that maximum deforestation occurred in the corridors. In the following decade (1999 to 2009), 1.81 percent dense forest is converted to open forest and 2.21 percent of the open forest to non forest. Water bodies have been decreasing continuously in both decades. Forest loss and degradation occur due to human interference, urbanization, cattle grazing, noise pollution, air pollution and so on. As per the details obtained from field survey regarding the conflict analysis in the corridor, it can be inferred that most of the sites along the NH-6, state highways and railway tracks show presence of human encroachment in terms of agriculture land and build-up area. Due to high frequency of traffic on roads/railway, wild animals often divert from their original dispersal route and enter these hamlets leading to conflict situations. Keywords: corridor, change detection, deforestation, conflict, GIS, remote sensing.

1. Introduction Land use and land cover is an important component to understand global land status; it shows present as well as past status of the earth surface. Land use and land cover are two separate terminologies which are often used interchangeably (Dimyati et al 1994). Land cover is a basic parameter which evaluates the content of earth surface as an important factor that affects the condition and functioning of the ecosystem. Land cover is a biophysical state of the Earth surface, which can be used to estimate the interaction of biodiversity with the surrounding environment. Nowadays, land use land cover analysis plays an important role in the field of environmental science and natural resource management. The Land cover reflects the biophysical of state of the earth’s surface and immediate surface, including the soil material, vegetation and water. Land use refers to utilization of land resources by human beings and land cover changes often reflects the most significant impact on environment due to excessive human activities. Land use and land cover is dynamic in nature and is an provides a comprehensive understanding of the interaction and relationship of anthropogenic activities with the environment (Prakasam, 2010). Land use/cover changes also involve the modification, either direct or indirect, of a natural habitats and their impact on the ecology of the area. Land use/cover change has become a central component in current strategies for managing natural resource and monitoring environmental changes (Tiwari and Saxena, 2011). Land use/cover pattern of a region gives information about the natural and socio-economic factors, human livelihood and development. Like other resources, land resource is also delimiting due to very high demand of agricultural products and increasing population pressure day by day. Hence, information of land use/cover and possibilities of their optimal use is essential for the selection, planning and implementation of the land use schemes to meet the increasing human needs and welfare. This also provides the information for managing dynamics of land use and meeting the demands of increasing human population. Change detection is the process of identifying difference in the state of an object or phenomenon by observing it at different time (Anderson, 1977).Change detection in Land use/cover can be performed on temporal scale such as decades to assess landscape changes caused due to anthropogenic activities on the land (Gibson and Power,

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Yadav et al./International Journal of Remote Sensing and GIS, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2012, 90-98

2000). These anthropogenic activities are due to rapid growth of human population and demands of food resources. Land use land cover changes have been recognized as important drivers of global environment change (Turner et al 1996). High temporal resolution, precise spectral bandwidths, and accurate georeferencing procedure are factors that contribute to increase use of satellite data for change detection analysis (Jensen, 1996). Processing of multi-temporal images and change detection techniques has been developed in the past three decades. Change information of the Earth’s surfaces is becoming more and more important in monitoring of the local, regional and global environment. The forest connectivity and corridors are critical for biodiversity conservation. A wildlife corridor is a narrow strip of forest cover, connecting two larger forest areas. These corridors help in dispersal and movement of individuals between different habitats for food, folder, shelter, breeding and other activities. Corridors connect habitat patches for the exchange of materials and energy in the form of food web and dispersal and genetic exchange (Vogt et al., 2007). Degradation of forest connectivity in between landscapes occurs due to fragmentation and anthropogenic activity, which causes biodiversity decline. Conservation of wildlife corridors requires a complete knowledge of species habitat requirements. It also requires past and current area under different land use practices such as agriculture, forestry and human habitations that alter vegetation cover, land surface, biochemistry, hydrology and biodiversity (Ellis 2007). Vegetation forms an integral component of terrestrial ecosystem and wildlife habitat (Khanna et al. 2001). Information of land use/cover and conflicts supports the assessment of wildlife habitat and identification of corridor status. Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) provides a modern foray into the issues of ecosystem management. The technique has been used extensively in the tropics for generating valuable information on the forest cover, vegetation type and land use changes (Forman, 1995). Now, advanced geospatial technologies have further improved the efficiency of mapping of land use land cover type at landscape level. Thus, integration of these techniques forms a potential tool for land use land cover and change detection. In the present study, land use land cover mapping and change detection has been done for NagziraNavegaon corridor of central India.

2. Study Area

Figure 1. Location map of Gondia district.

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The Nagzira-Navegaon corridor lies between the north latitude of 20.39º and 21.38º and east longitudes of 89.27º to 82.42º. This area is one of the most biodiversity rich zones of central India. It has two protected areas; Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary and Navegaon National Park have connectivity through a forest patch. Gondia district provides suitable and healthy corridors for transfer of energy resources, wildlife movements and genetic exchange of wildlife between different protected areas of central India. National Highway (NH-6) and South Eastern Railway (GondiaChando extension) passes through heart of the study area. The Nagzira-Navegaon corridor connects nine tiger reserve in central India and is also included in the proposed Nagzira-Navegaon Tiger Reserve. The corridor connectivity presently remains as narrow strip of forest parallel to each other connecting Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary in north and Navegaon National Park in south. In ancient time, study area was ruled over by 'Gond' kings. The rich dense forest reflects in the culture of Gond people, whose main business was to collect lak from 'Palas' tree and 'Gum' from 'Babul' tree, Gum is called as 'Gond' in Hindi, hence the named as Gondia. This is an under-developed district and most of the land is covered with forest. Paddy is the main agriculture produce. Gondia city is popularly known as rice city due to a large number of rice mills. Wainganga is the largest and most important river and water body like Itiadoh lake, Navegaon lake, Chulband reservoir, Bagh reservoir, Karbanda dam, Bodalakas dam etc. are found in that district. Therefore, the study area has an enormous potential for change detection study to be carried out.

3. Conflict in study area The study area has suffered fragmentation, degradation and habitat loss for the wildlife movement. Habitat loss often leads to fragmentations, which leads to modification of large continuous to small discontinuous forest patches. The area around Nagzira-Navegaon corridor has witnessed an increase high rate of human population, which has accentuated biotic pressure on the corridor. The biotic pressure is particularly discriminating along NH-6 in the 85 km patch from Deori to Sakoli, which is bisecting the corridor near Navegaon National Park. The corridor’s connectivity is broken by NH-6 crossing East-West. The anthropogenic disturbance influences loss of corridor along the southern boundary of Navegaon National Park . Gondia-Chando extension railway touches the eastern boundary of Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary and passing besides south-western part of Navegaon National Park, the frequency of trains is too high. Several critical protected areas in the country have witnessed wild animals being trampled by speedy trains owing to a railway line in and around these critical areas (WTI 2008).

4. Materials and Methods Changes in vegetation pattern were detected using Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery, owing to their good spectral and temporal resolution and moderate spatial resolution (Lillesand et al 2004; Short 2004). For carrying out this study following data and software’s were used:Table 1. Details of used imagery for Gondia district Path & Row

Year-1990 Source: Landsat-5 TM

Year- 1999 Source: Landsat-7 ETM+

Year- 2009 Source: Landsat-7 ETM+

143, 45

17 November

4 December

7 December

143, 46

17 November

4 December

7 December

144, 45

5 November

9 November

14 December

Google Earth Imagery and Survey of India toposheets no. 55o/15, 55o/16, 64c/3, 64c/4, 64c/8, 64d/1 and 64d/5 with scale of 1:50.00 (cm:km) were used for vector layer creation.

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Table 2. Software used Software

Function

Arc GIS 10

Preparation of thematic map, Data base generation, Analysis

ERDAS Imagine 11

Layer stag, Image classification, Subset, Mosaicking, Recording and Accuracy assessments

Quantum GIS 1.6

Conversion of KML files to shape files

Field data collection

Data Acquirement

Landsat TM 1990 Geo-referenced

Landsat ETM+ 2009 Geo-referenced

Landsat ETM+ 1999 Geo-referenced

Layer stacking GCPs for different LULC Classes

Observations of conflicts in corridor

Subset of the study Area

Verification of LULC Classes

Supervised Classification

LULC Image Year 1990



Result Change Analysis During 1990 to1999

Change Analysis During 1990 to 2009

Figure 2. Workflow Diagram

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Table 3. Accuracy of assessment of supervised classification Year

Overall classification accuracy

Overall kappa statistics

1990

85.94%

0.77

1999

92.19%

0.85

2009

87.68%

0.81

5. Results and Discussion Result of land use/cover analysis of multi-temporal satellite images of Nagzira-Navegaon corridor are given below in table form. The data present in table 4 are represents the area of each land use/cover category of the three different years(1990, 2001 & 2009) and four different classes ( Dense forest, Open forest, non forest & water body). Dense forest is characterized by > 40% canopy density, while the forest with canopy density between 10% and 40% is defined as Open forest and less the 10% canopy defined as Non forest (FSI 2005). Forest cover was largely confined to the protected area while relatively non protected areas were occupied by agriculture land (non forest). Nagzira-Navegaon corridor has a number of wetlands and other pockets of water bodies distributed in the whole study area.

Figure 3. Land use/cover map of Gondia district of Maharashtra, 1999

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Figure 4 and Figure 5. Land use/cover map of Gondia district of Maharashtra, 1999 and 2009 Table 4. Area statistics of Gondia district of Maharshtra, Year 1990, 1999 & 2009 Land use/cover (Class) Dense forest Open forest Water body Non forest Total

Year 1990

Year 1999

Year 2009

Area (sq.km)

Area(%)

Area (sq.km)

Area(%)

Area (sq.km)

Area(%)

664.78 1519.72 182.76 3114.14 5481.40

12.13 27.73 3.33 56.81 100

387.71 1465.79 137.62 3490.28 5481.40

7.07 26.75 2.51 63.67 100

464.70 1462.87 104.35 3449.48 5481.40

8.48 26.69 1.9 62.93 100

Change analysis of whole time period in study area, gives information about changes of three different time periods. Table: 5 represent conversion of one type Land use/cover classes to other and net change matrix of different time period. Table 5. Net change analysis of Gondia district within year 1990 to 1999 and 1999 to 2009 Change analysis of Land use/cover

Year 1990 to 1999

Year 1999 to 2009

Area sq. km.

Area in %

Area sq. km.

Area in %

Dense to Open Forest Dense to Non Forest Open to Dense Forest Open to Non Forest Water Body to Non Forest Non Forest to Open Forest

340.86 60.92 112.51 365.11 56.47 80.27

6.22 1.11 2.05 6.66 1.04 1.46

99.22 5.59 167.56 121.33 60.05 189.22

1.81 0.10 3.05 2.21 1.10 3.45

No Changes Others

4429.83 35.43

80.81 0.65

4793.64 44.79

87.45 0.83

Total

5481.40

100

5481.40

100

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Figure 6. Change analysis map of Gondia district, Year 1990 to1999

Figure 7. Change analysis map of Gondia district, Year1999 to 2009

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It is found that 6.22% dense forest is converted to open forest and 6.66% open forest to non forest beween 1990 to 1999. After observation of change analysis, it is found that maximum deforstation occurred in the corridors. In the following decade (1999 to 2009), 1.81% dense forest is converted to open forest and 2.21% of the open forest to non forest. Water bodies have been decreasing continously in both decades. Forest loss and degradation occur due to human interferences, urbanization, cattle grazing, noise polluction, air pollution etc. As per the details obtained from field survey regarding the conflict analysis in the corridor, it can be inferred that most of the conflicts occurred at the site along the NH-6, State highway and Railway tracks. These are the areas where human encroachment has been taking place in terms of agriculture land and buildup area. Due to high frequency of traffic on roads/railway, wild animals often divert from their original dispersal route and enter these hamlets leading to conflict satutions.

6. Conclusions Looking at the result of this study, the position of the corridor is not satisfactory. The overall forest cover and water bodies are decreasing continuously in the corridor. If present scenario of deforestation and degradation of water bodies were to continue, the corridor existence would be severely threatened It can affect species such as water birds which are related to the wetlands and movement of wild animals through this corridors. At the present moment, these corridors are suffering from diversion of forest land for proposed expansion of national highway and state highway projects. Although present study identifies potential for establishing a forested corridor between two protected areas, it is also recorded that at several locations, connectivity exists through narrow forest strips. Loss of these critical forest patches could seriously impair the variability of the corridor between the two protected areas. Therefore, a sustainable phase-wise management is needed in these forest areas.

Acknowledgements We want to thank the University School of Environment Management, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University for technical and research support. We also thank Wildlife Trust of India and State Forest Department of Maharashtra for providing an opportunity to work in the given study area.

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