Analysis of Changing Forest Cover and its Impact on Environment with Special Reference to Umtrew Basin, North East India

Abstract

Dhanjit Deka1, Pradip Sharma2



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Abstract
The pattern of forest cover has been changing more or less continuously in all parts of North East India. The changes have been accelerated in last few years partly due to natural causes and mainly due to human activities. The human activities including agricultural expansion, illegal felling of trees for timber wood mainly deplete the forest land and most of which in course of time turns into agricultural land. All these changes have brought about many environmental as well as socio economic problems in the region. The trend of such changes and their impact on natural environment as well as on socio-economic condition of the people are identified as the prime concern at this stage. The Umtrew Basin of North East India is a river basin covering an area of 1253.1sq km where the study has been carried out using satellite data and GIS techniques. The satellite data of Landsat MSS and IRS-1C LISS III for the years 1977, 1999, 2004 and 2007 respectively have been utilized for the study.  In the present study an attempt has been made to identify the pattern of forest cover change using GIS analysis through which we could identify the degraded areas. In course of the present study an attempt has been made to formulate a strategy for maintaining environmental quality of the study area. A humble starting from the Umtrew Basin for such programme with an aim to replicate in other similar areas of the country has been considered as the application part of the study.