Forestry & Ecology - Applications

Identification of Forest Cover Loss Locations

Forest survey of India, MOEF&CC brings about comprehensive Biennial reporting of the forest cover status, however, there is a need of annual/sub-annual actionable forest cover loss information..

Long term forests cover change

Multi-source and multi-temporal data from earliest possible topographical maps and satellite remote sensing datasets were used to map the forest cover in the country over last eight decades (1930, 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2013/2014). Forest fraction cover information was hosted on Bhuvan-Forest Fraction Cover.

Monitoring of Biosphere Reserves

The Biosphere Reserves (BRs) are internationally designated landscapes / seascape units under UNESCOs flagship programme; Man and Biosphere (MAB). To undertake activities of biodiversity conservation and development of sustainable management.

Forest Working Plans

Decadal forest working plans are prepared (as per the approved working plan code enforced by MOEF&CC) by the forest divisions of the state forest departments for the prescriptions to be adopted as actions or “working” in the specific forest division so as to maintain the resources sustainably for long terms.

Carbon studies in Forest regions

In order to understand the terrestrial carbon cycle over India, a comprehensive study through “National Carbon Project” (NCP) has been taken up under the ISRO – Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP).

Three-Dimensional Biomass Estimation

Forests, store vast amounts of carbon, in the vegetation (or biomass), above and below the ground as well as in soils. In tropical forests, such as in India the above ground biomass (AGB) component is very significant. AGB is quantified through the careful measurements of the vegetation in field plots, with the most reliable measurements, the gold standard being the destructive measurements of the different components – trunk, branches and twigs, leaves etc.

LiDAR – Canopy Height Model in forest sites Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) enables very high accuracy tree height and allometry measurements. Median height from canopy height model (CHM) is being used for estimating forest biomass which has very high accuracy compared to traditional technique. Reference calibration sites established with Terrestrial Lidar aided methodology are used to establish global biomass models for future NISAR satellite.