Earth observation data for habitat monitoring in protected areas of India

The role of protected areas in biodiversity conservation was recognised in a globally agreed target to be achieved by 2020. Increasing concerns on biodiversity and ecosystem services have led to rising in the number and extent of protected areas. Evaluating the conservation effectiveness of protected areas is difficult, especially due to the paucity of data on long-term changes in forest cover. In order to understand the impact and efficacy of protected area it is highly desirable to monitor the habitat for assessing the conservation status. Earth observation data is useful to monitor the changing extent of habitats and threats over time. The present work has considered the forest cover change and fragmentation (1930–1975–1985–1995–2005–2013) as the potential indicators to evaluate the conservation effectiveness for 175 protected areas of India. Spatial pattern processes of fragmentation analysed within the current study were core forest loss and other fragmentation classes. Historically 7.3% of the reduction was observed in large core forests from 1930 to 2013. This study reveals that protected areas of India are effective in controlling deforestation and consequently fragmentation. High resolution satellite data based information is needed for analyzing degradation in protected areas including invasion of alien species, forest fires, grazing pressure, selective logging and small scale agricultural encroachments towards continuing conservation of biodiversity and improving carbon stocks.