title: Critical Analysis of Forest Degradation in the Southern Eastern Ghats of India: Comparison of Satellite Imagery and Soil Quality Index.
abstract: India has one of the largest assemblages of tropical biodiversity, with its unique floristic composition of endemic species. However, current forest cover assessment is performed via satellite-based forest surveys, which have many limitations. The present study, which was performed in the Eastern Ghats, analysed the satellite-based inventory provided by forest surveys and inferred from the results that this process no longer provides adequate information for quantifying forest degradation in an empirical manner. The study analysed 21 soil properties and generated a forest soil quality index of the Eastern Ghats, using principal component analysis. Using matrix modules and geospatial technology, we compared the forest degradation status calculated from satellite-based forest surveys with the degradation status calculated from the forest soil quality index. The Forest Survey of India classified about 1.8% of the Eastern Ghats' total area as degraded forests and the remainder (98.2%) as open, dense, and very dense forests, whereas the soil quality index results found that about 42.4% of the total area is degraded, with the remainder (57.6%) being non-degraded. Our ground truth verification analyses indicate that the forest soil quality index along with the forest cover density data from the Forest Survey of India are ideal tools for evaluating forest degradation.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation Research, Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Andimuthu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ramachandran
authors.affiliation: Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation Research, Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Parthasarathy
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Radhapriya
authors.affiliation: Environmental Informatics and Spatial Modelling Lab (EISML), Department of Ecology & Environmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India.
authors.forename: Shanmuganathan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jayakumar
authors.affiliation: Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation Research, Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Praveen
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dhanya
authors.affiliation: Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation Research, Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Rajadurai
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Geetha
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D065928:Forests; D007194:India; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D063809:Satellite Imagery; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil
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