Monitoring of Forest Cover Dynamics by Geospatial Technique — A Study in Nayagram Block of West Medinipur District, West Bengal, India

Subir Kumar Moyra, and Sukla Hazra

East Calcutta Girls' College, West Bengal State University, India

Abstract: With the increasing human activity and over exploitation, the forest cover scenario is changing very rapidly in India. Particularly different forests of high population density areas like West Bengal, second most densely populated state having 1028 population per Km2 are facing this problem most severely. A study was conducted to monitor the changing forest cover scenario in Nayagram block which is located in the south western part of West Medinipur district, West Bengal. Selected site carries its historic entity by the name Jangal Mahal covering 28.48% of area with semi deciduous forest with dominated sal (Shorea robusta) species. Monitoring of forest cover dynamics gets a new dimension after the advent of remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) techniques. Multispectral indices based forest monitoring system could only help to separately enhance the vegetation internal characteristics like health, height, vigor, etc. but fails to represent forest cover as a single feature. Present study develops forest cover using multi criteria decision making (MCDM) based weighted overlay analysis of three distinct vegetation indices, i.e., modified atmospheric and soil adjusted vegetation Index (MASAVI), bare surface index (BSI) and scaled shadow index (SSI). To reveal the actual situation in terms of forest cover dynamics, LANDSAT imagery of the year 2001 and 2010 respectively have been processed. Attempts are made to geospatially monitor the dynamics of forest cover in the study area at temporal scale.

Key words: forest cover, RS and GIS technique, vegetation index, factor