Landscape characterisation of the forests of Himalayan foothills

Deforestation and degradation are important aspects of landscape dynamics and have global significance. Quantification of landscape pattern using landscape metrics help in characterisation of landscapes and thus overall health of the forest cover. Himalayan foothills are one of the most important and fragile landscapes. Developmental activities and depdendence on the forest resources have altered the spatial pattern of these natural landscapes to a great extent. These changes in the landscape were analysed using satellite data from 1990, 2001 and 2006. The vegetation type maps of Dehradun forest division were prepared by supervised classification technique in order to study the landscape dynamics. Patch density, edge density, shape index, cohesion index, interspersion and juxtaposition index, normalised entropy, and relative richness are some important landscape metrics used in the study for quantifying the characteristics of landscape. The landscape metrics analysis and transformation analysis show that the forested areas are getting degraded and physical connectedness between the patches have also decreased making them isolated. The study demonstrates the importance of geospatial tools for monitoring the impact of disturbances on the forest ecosystem health, which can further help in landscape management.