STUDY AREA

Western Ghats with spatial extent of 1, 64,280 km2 (<5% of India’s geographical area) is chain of hills and undulating terrain running in the North-South direction for about 1600 km parallel to the Arabian Sea from river Tapti (22˚26’N) to Kanyakumari (about 8˚0’ N) is a repository of endemic flora and fauna. It is one of the 35 hotspots of the world having diverse social, religious, and linguistic group. The region harbors very rich flora and fauna and there are records of over 4,000 species of flowering plants with 38% endemics, 330 butterflies with 11% endemics, 156 reptiles with 62% endemics, 508 birds with 4% endemics, 120 mammals with 12% endemics, 289 fishes with 41% endemics and 135 amphibians with 75% endemics (http://wgbis.ces.iisc.ernet.in/biodiversity/pubs/ces_tr/TR122/index.htm). Uttara Kannada district is located in central Western Ghats with 76% of its 10,291 sq.km area covered with forests has the distinction of having highest forest area. This is the northernmost coastal district of Karnataka State (13.9220 o N to 15.5252o N and 74.0852 o E to 75.0999 o E), topographically the district can be divided into three zones – the narrow and relatively flat to low hilly coastal along the west of Karwar, Ankola, Kumta, Honnavar and Bhatkal taluks; the precipitously rising main range of Western Ghats towards the eastern interior of these taluks, the crestline zone composed of Sirsi, Siddpur Supa and Yellapura taluks and Haliyal and Mudgod taluks towards the north-east flattening and merging with the Deccan Plateau. The district can be divided broadly into five vegetation zones namely: Coastal, Northern evergreen, Southern evergreen, Moist deciduous and Dry deciduous. The evergreen to semi-evergreen forests form major portion of the district especially towards the rainier western parts. Towards the eastern rain-shadow portion, the forests change rapidly into moist and dry deciduous types. Web based SDSS designed with various spatial information related to land, water, biodiversity, ecology and hydrology helps in identifying local hotspots of biodiversity