Visualization of Landscape Dynamics in National Parks of Central Western Ghats

a Energy & Wetlands Research Group, Center for Ecological Sciences [CES],
b Centre for infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning [CiSTUP],
c Centre for Sustainable Technologies (astra), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore – 560012, India.
d Lab of Spatial Informatics, IIIT-H, Hyderabad, India
*Email:
tvr@iisc.ac.in; settur@ces.iisc.ernet.in
Conclusion

The LULC changes in protected areas will result in imbalance of ecosystem, land productivity and biodiversity. Disturbance corridors created by developmental projects or mismanagement of natural resources is the common phenomenon observed in all three protected areas. Land use analysis highlights loss of evergreen to semi evergreen forest cover and increase in horticulture and forest plantations. MWLS land use analysis highlights evergreen cover has reduced from 25.04 to 21.95% by 2016 with increase in moist deciduous cover, shift from agriculture to horticulture (18.35%). The forest loss from construction of series of dam such as Chakra, Savehaklu inside WLS is another major change noticed. CA-Markov modeling has represented local relations of dynamic systems in simulation and planning purposes for year 2025. The projections generated here are useful to land use planners, resource managers, and conservation practitioners to manage and mitigate impacts through effective planning for conservation. The current study can be further improved by more detailed socio environmental variables integration, location of change and trends of land use changes.

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