Spatiotemporal vegetation analysis in neyyar wildlife sanctuary, western ghats, india using geoinformatics

Vegetation is a vital component of the natural environment. Terrestrial vegetation includes natural ecosystems, such as native forests and woodlands, shrub lands, grasslands and wetlands. Information on land cover is fundamental to many national/global applications including watershed management and agricultural productivity. Thus, the need to monitor land cover is derived from multiple intersecting drivers, including the physical climate, ecosystem health, and societal needs. Tropical forests have undergone rapid land cover changes especially in the last few decades. Terrestrial forest is one of the major factors in the global carbon balance, and therefore in global climate change. Change in forest cover may also have affected past climates on regional or sub-continental scales. Forest cover change accelerates the climate change and global warming. The present study analyses the vegetation change in the Neyyar wildlife sanctuary for a period of forty years using GIS and Remote sensing techniques.