Forest cover monitoring using remote sensing and GIS — A case study in Dhaulkhand range of Rajaji National Park,Uttar pradesh

Rajaji National Park in U.P. is a protected area where large number of nomad population live within the park area. Their dependence on the forest for cattle rearing and firewood has caused degradation of the forests. Proximity to settlements outside the park further adds to the problems. In the present study, forest cover and river, bed changes have been attempted by using temporal aerospace data of the year 1960 and 1993. Subsequently, PAMAP GIS package has been used for the change detection analysis. The study indicates that the land cover changes are mainly due to biotic factors. Some of the important changes in forest cover are: (i) transformation of mixed forest to scrub forest in 67 ha (ii) the sal mixed and mixed sal forest categories have replaced sal forest in 262 ha (iii) significant increase in forest plantation i.e. 2075 ha in the year 1960 to 3793 ha in 1993 (iv) eighteen times increase in Chirpine area, it increased from 13 ha in 1960 to 230 ha in 1993. The land cover changes in 6663 ha (45%) out of 14962 ha of the study area. The consequential changes in the river beds due to the change in the forest cover was also analyzed. During this period river beds with boulders have increased by 87 ha. These river bed changes include lengthening and broadening of river and change in river course.