Zeitschrift für Fernerkundung und GIS

Abstrakt

Assessment of Landscape Characteristics and Changes in the Khangchendzonga National Park, Sikkim Himalaya, India

Sandeep Tambe, Krishnamurthy Ramesh and Gopal S. Rawat

The Khangchendzonga National Park (KNP) in India forms a part of the eastern Himalaya global biodiversity hotspot. Being the third highest protected area in the world, much of the park is inaccessible and has remained least understood. In this study, Remote Sensing and GIS tools were used to quantify landscape composition, configuration and patterns of changes in vegetation cover. From Landsat ETM+ data, 10 land cover types could be classified with 81% accuracy, which showed relatively higher coverage of snow, rock and alpine meadows. FRAGSTATS recognized 70790 patches with mean patch size of 1.2 ha. Watershed based approach showed that parts of KNP that had higher landscape heterogeneity, reflected a greater Himalayan character, high elevation gradient, east west orientation and not dominantly sculptured by valley glaciers. Riverine areas were found to be susceptible to glacial lake outburst and flash floods. Also vegetation cover has substantially declined at lower elevations (1000 to 2500 m) in the last three decades, particularly in portions not shielded from the villages by buffer forests. The park management needs to evolve innovative co-management models, use the riverine zone carefully, strengthen buffer zone management and prioritize conservation measures in the high impact areas.