GIS Applications

Spatial Informatics Class 19: GIS Applications in Forestry

Dr.P. Rama Chandra Prasad Lab for Spatial Informatics, IIIT Hyderabad 10th November, 2011

Forestry &Ecology Wildlife Agriculture Water resources / Wetlands Geology Environment Disaster Management Urban Planning Transportation Utility services Telecom, Electricity Health Tourism Archeology Business Education

GIS in Daily Life

Forestry Why GIS ?

Forest : A forest is best defined as an ecosystem or assemblage of ecosystems dominated by trees and other woody vegetation Forests provide resources as Timber and non-timber products, grazing land for animals, wildlife habitat, water resources and recreation areas. Forestry involves the management of a broad range of natural resources within a forested area. GIS overtakes conventional methods of resource assessment and inventory, The time factor alone has led to a wide acceptance and large demand for GIS applications in forestry apart from accessibility.

Forest Types of India

The original vegetation of Indian subcontinent was dominated by vast forests lost by human explorations. Types Champion and Seth (1968) into 5 major groups based on climate, Moist tropical forest, Dry tropical, Montane Subtropical, Montane Temperate and Alpine forest These are further divided 16 major forests types based on moisture and temperature. And further based on Structure, physiognomy and floristic they are subdivided into 221 minor types.

Forest Types of India

Forest Management and GIS

Forest Cover of India
(State of the Forest Report , 2003)
Source : Forest Survey of India

GIS plays crucial role in forest management by providing information about resources and can make planning and management of resources easier like Recording and updating resource inventories Harvest estimation and planning Ecosystem management Landscape and habitat planning It also answers following questions that help in forest management activities such as 1. Location 2. Condition 3. Trends 4. Pattern 5. Modeling

Based on IRS LISS III data

Legend Very Dense Forest (>70%)* Moderately dense forest(40%-70%) Open Forest(10%-40%) Scrub Non-forest Water bodies State boundaries *% Crown density in parenthesis

Major Applications of GIS in forest management

Forest Resource Assessment and Monitoring Assessing forest types, Deforestation, Degradation and Land Use/Cover Changes, etc., Forest Protection and Health Monitoring Against pests, fire and disease, human actions Ex. To predict the occurrence, location, direction, rate of spread and intensity of forest fire spatial data about vegetation type, topography and other natural Features of the area are needed Forest Harvesting Location of forest stands, timber inventory data, ecologically sensitive zones, terrain Features necessary for harvest planning Forest Conservation and Biodiversity Identification, selection, design and Protected areas and nature reserve Forest working plan Forest divided management activities management of

into

Blocks

and

compartments

for

Species habitat planning and conservation Location of species and its associated parameters and Extrapolating the possible habitat of species Recreation and eco-tourism planning The use of GIS in identifying important tourist locations and to provide visualization of tourism activities in and around forest areas

A case study

1. FOREST TYPE MAPPING

REFERENCE MAP REGISTRATION (Toposheets 86 - C/14, C/15, C/16, D/9, D/13, G/2, G/3, G/4 and H/1 ) SATELLITE DATA PROCUREMENT (IRS 1C/1D LISS III Data Of March 1st 1999) SATELLITE DATA RECTIFICATION IMAGE CLASSIFICATION - Visual Interpretation RESULTS

Interpretation Key for Visual Interpretation of predominant vegetation types

Vegetation classes Andaman Tropical Evergreen Forest Southern Tropical Evergreen Forest Tropical Semi evergreen Forest Tropical Moist deciduous Forest Mangroves Littoral Forests Tone Deep Red Reddish Pinkish Red Texture Coarse Smooth / Hazy Smooth / coarse Spectral Signature Association Mostly on Hill Tops Aspect based vegetation class On the slopes of hill On hill slopes and lowland areas Fringing muddy creeks Along seashores and fringing sandy beaches

Semi-evergreen

Moist deciduous

Evergreen Forest

Littoral / Beach forest

Bluish /Blackish Coarse blue Dark Red velvety Smooth Bluish pink/pinkish Less coarse

Open mangrove

Degraded mangrove

Different Forest Types of North Andaman Islands

Interpretation of classes

FCC

A PORTION OF NORTH ANDAMANS

SEG

MANGROVE

CLASSIFIED

MD LITTORAL

AGRI

DEG

EG

AGRICULTURE ANDAMAN EVERGREEN HILL TOP EVERGREEN SEMI-EVERGREEN MOIST DECIDUOUS

Vegetation Type Map

2. Forest Patch Characterization

Distribution of forest patches and their area statistics in each forest type
Class (ha) No.of patches 104 910 35 10 14 25 1098 Evergreen Area (Sq.km) 0.7 73.0 24.8 12.6 24.7 174.3 310.0 Area (%) 0.2 23.5 8.0 4.1 8.0 56.2 100.0 Semievergreen No.of patches 83 1277 66 29 13 36 1504 Area (Sq.km) 0.56 122.49 45.4 35.3 22.4 224.68 450.83 Area (%) 0.1 27.2 10.1 7.8 5.0 49.8 100 Moist deciduous No.of patches 107 1268 48 17 6 14 1460 Area Area (Sq.km) (%) 0.75 0.3 104.54 46.2 32.48 14.4 19.26 8.5 9.66 4.3 59.5 26.3 226.19 100

<1ha 1- < 50 50 - <100 100- <150 150 - <200 > 200 Total

Evergreen patches distributed more towards the southern side and patch number and size decreases as moved towards northern side reverse in case of moist deciduous.

3. BIODIVERSITY MAPPING
Vegetation type map Ancillary data Ground sample data Terrain

Fragmentation

Disturbance Index

Forest / Non forest map

Broad cover types

Road settlement

Ecosystem uniqueness Species richness Biodiversity value

Fragmentation

Porosity Interspersion Juxtaposition

Proximity analysis

Terrain complexity

Disturbance Index = f (fragmentation, Porosity, interspersion, biotic/human Disturbances & juxtaposition of vegetation types)

Landscape Analysis package

Biological Richness = (Ecosystem uniqueness Species richness, Biodiversity value, Terrain Complexity and Disturbance Index)

SAMPLE POINTS OVERLAID ON FCC OF NORTH ANDAMANS(IRS ID LISS-III OF 01 MARCH 1999)

Ecological Indices & Methods for Data Analysis

Basic Parameters Frequency Density Abundance Basal area Indices Shannon Index Margaleaf Index Simpsons Index Morisitas Index Important Value Index Family Importance Value Output result List of species Habit types Diversity Richness Similarity Sps. Categories Rare Endemic Threatened Dominant Abundant Cosmopolitan Stranger Unique

Stratified Random sampling

DEM generation

Contours

Toposheet

Drainage

Spot heights

DEM

Biological Richness Map

4. Forest Canopy Density Mapping PAN DATA

Canopy density is an essential parameter to assess and analyze the factors affecting forest growth, its regeneration and to keep a check on management initiatives in gap area plantations and regeneration status PANOCHROMATIC satellite data Of Feb 29 2000 (Black & White) Generation of Hard copies Interpretation of tracing sheets Scanning of tracing sheets Conversion to digital format Generation of vector layer in GIS Editing and labeling Merging with Vegetation type map

D1 < 20% :

D2: 20 <40%

D3: 40 <60%

D4: 60 <80%

D5: >80%

Interpretation key used for Forest Density Mapping

PAN

A PORTION OF NORTH ANDAMANS

Results Majority of the area (506 km2) is covered by dense luxuriant forest with canopy cover between 60-80% showing high intact nature of the forest and very low-density class occupy an area of 75.3 km2 which indicates a sign of lower forest fragmentation rates in the study area. An overall observation of density map obtained reveals the domination of D3 (4060%) and D4 (60-80%) density classes in the North Andaman forests.

DENSITY MAP

5. Forest Fragmentation using GIS Model

Why to study forest fragmentation ? A GIS-fragmentation model (Ritters et al. (2000). The model uses a sliding algorithm with overlapping windows and identifies the amount of forest and its occurrence as neighbouring forest pixel within the fixed area of windows surrounding each forest pixel. The value thus obtained when a window slides over an image grid was used to classify the windows by type of fragmentation. The result was stored at the location of centre pixel and, if the centre pixel was not forest, then a null value was assigned to that location.

Measurements of the model Let Pf be the proportion of forested pixels in the window and Pff (strictly) as the proportion of all adjacent (cardinal directions only) pixel pairs that include at least one forest pixel, for which both pixels are forested. Pff (roughly) estimates the conditional probability that a given pixel of forest, its neighbor is also forest. Based on the values model identifies six fragmentation categories as 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Interior (Pf =1.0) Patch (Pf < 0.4) Transitional (0.4 < Pf < 0.6) Edge (Pf > 0.6 and Pf-Pff >0) Perforated (Pf > 0.6 and Pf-Pff < 0) Undetermined (Pf > 0.6 and Pf = Pff). Black boxes indicate forested pixels and white for non-forest

IRS-1D LISS-III Satellite Im age G eom etric corrections V isual Interpretation V egetation Land use / land cover m ap vector converted to grid

vector converted to grid E vergreen M oist deciduous Sem i-Evergreen

Forest

Non-Forest

Fragm entation M odel Interior

Results

Ph ytosociological data analysis

The application of fragmentation model for the entire forest data (5x5 window) irrespective of forest types showed 82 % of forest is still in intact condition and remaining fragmented classes occupy less percent of the area, indicating the initialization of fragmentation process.
F o r e s t F r a g m e n t a t io n
90 75 E n t ir e f o r e s t E v e r g re e n S em i ev erg reen M o is t d e c i d u o u s

F o res t A re a (% )

60 45 30 15 0 I n t e r io r P atch T r a n s it io n a l E dge

P e rfo rat e d

F r a g m e n t a t io n c a t e g o r ie s

Percentage of Forest in Different Fragmentation categories

6. Forest Change Detection

Natural (Tsunami) impact

Anthropogenic impacts

The tsunami that occurred on 26 December 2004 adversely impacted the entire stretch of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands About 3,730 ha of coastal vegetation was destroyed Most of the vegetation was affected and transformed into sand, barren and water

Analysis of the 1976 (MSS) and 1999 (LISS III) images showed a loss of 12.5 % (5.0 % interior and 7.5 % coastal) of forest with a corresponding increase in non-forest area

Results

Transitional

Patch

Edge Perforated

7. Forest simulation scenario

Table 2. Changes in Vegetation and Land cover classes during 1976, 1999 and 2005 Satellite data Vegetation Types/ Land Cover Interior vegetation types (including Plantations) Coastal vegetation types (including mud flats) Total Non forest classes (Agriculture, settlement, barren) Sand Total MSS (1976) LISS (1999) Area (ha) 104,810 99,720 33,000 31,500 98,370 27,770 SPOT (2005) 1976-1999 1999-2005 Changed Area (ha) -5,090 -1,500 6590 6,070 540 6,610 -1,350 -3,730 5,080 3,800 1,250 5,050

137,810 131,220 126,140 6,360 1,450 7,810 12,430 1,990 14,420 16,230 3,240 19,470

Based on satellite (274 ha yr-1, 1976-1999) data as well as the proposals of the Andaman and Nicobar state government developmental plans, we hypothesized the lowest deforestation rate to be 200 ha yr-1 for the simulation study Observations of data of past 24 years (19761999) showed that within the large settlements of North Andaman there was an increase in area of 1230 ha which translates to an overall boundary increase of about 100 km. we estimated that on an average there will be an increase in the radius around each major settlement area of 0.5 km for every 25 years Using GIS, incremental multi buffer zones, each of width 0.5 km, were generated around the major settlements Simulation predicted an increase in area of non forest landuse to 19,600 and 29,600 ha for the next 25 and 50 years respectively, resulting in the loss of 13,100 and 22,700 ha of forest. Finally, by the end of 50 years the estimated forest area of 131,200 ha (as per1999 satellite data) may reduce to 108,500 ha

Fire Modeling in GIS

Simulated map showing the changing forest scenario with increasing anthropogenic impacts

8. Forest Fires
The cause of forest fires is usually attributed either to lightning or to ignitions by native people Forest fires have an important major influence on the vegetation cover, animals, plants, soil. The loss of recreation value of the forest and the destruction of wildlife habitat. GIS is used as a tool for modeling forest fires Proximity is a concept which is used in a great many GISrelated models

Forest Fires
According to Forest Survey of India, about 50 per cent of the forests in India are prone to fires. The fires cause huge losses in terms of timber and biodiversity Fire is one of the major reasons for degradation of forests in India. Repeated fires can reduce forests to grasslands

Mar.2004 28 2004 Feb. 2004 Apr Dec. 2003 Feb. 2004

Why to Model Forest Fires?

High temporal satellite data helps in monitoring burnt area progression and control operation

Modeling forest fires is an essential part of forest stand management. Modeling is essential to aiding fire fighters and rescue workers deploy and manage fires safely. Allowing prior warning to residents who may be in the path of the flames and indicating the best points to attack a fire. Allows ecologist and forest managers to safely plan prescribed burns, assessing the extent of the spread of a fire. In short it is essential to forest management and safety!

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Forest Fire Management

Fire management activities include fire prevention, controlled burning and post-fire recovery action

GIS propagation Model Fire simulation

Wind constitutes its principal vector. Its force, influences directly the fire propagation velocity and its direction determines the orientation of fire - weather data Type of vegetation Cover Remote sensing data sets Relief- Fire acts differently on a ground according to whether it is flat or presenting very marked asperities (broken relief). A coherent process of simulation, must take into account the direction and the degree of the slope - DTM The starting point of fire geographical coordinates

Structural

Meteorological

Vegetation

Fire mapping Fire Risk Index

Once these parameters injected into the model, the zone obtained by simulation looks like the shape of a polygon which expresses the zone to be devastated by the forest fire

Fire Propagation Model

Fire starting point
GIS Model. The propagation zone is assimilated to the polygone

9. Forest Health Monitoring

GIS enables foresters to visually display insect and disease patterns geographically, and to estimate severity and direction of spread, based on tree species occurrence and other parameters. Example: Bullarto area of the Wombat State Forest, Australia Infected by Armillaria luteobubalina (root rot disease),

Fire extent after 1 hour.

Fire extent after 1 hour

Map showing area affected by Armillaria root rot disease (green dotted area) near Bullarto south in the WSF, overlaid on aerial photograph

Fire extent after 4h.

Fire extent after 4 hour.

Wind variation 2 (weak wind) Direction N NE.

Wind variation 3 (strong wind) Direction N NE.

MAPPING OF INVASIVE SPECIES Complete Infestation of Eupatorium odoratum (Chromolaena odorata)

Light pink and smooth tone in forest edges/exterior completely represents >80% density of Eupatorium.
IRS P6 LISS III Image of part of Dhenkanal District, Orissa

(Saptsajya RF and near by hills infested with Eupatorium weed)

Latitude: 20 33 05.15 N Longitude:85 33 16.25 E 11/10/2011 56

10. Species Habitat Modeling

Invasion of Lantana camara

IRS P6 LISS III image showing infested areas

4,3,2 band combi. 3,2,1 band combi.

Sileru, Visakhapatnam, AP

11. Working Plan inputs using Remote Sensing and GIS

12. Integrated Forest Resource Information System

The Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) manages more than 15 million acres of forest To build and implement a geospatially enabled enterprise information system called the Integrated Forest Resource Information System (IFRIS) To design an enterprise GIS application that allowed employees map forest-related activities such as forest stand observations, water quality harvest inspections, wildfire incidents. The key objectives were to reduce the time and expense of traditional field-worker activities as well as accurately and consistently capture field data for input into the enterprise GIS. All field-workers are equipped with Trimble GeoXM devices running ArcGIS Mobile, SQL Server.

http://www.gim-international.com/issues/articles/id706-GIS_in_Forest_Management.html

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Field employees use the GeoXM device to collect feature data by cataloging attributes, such as pest infestations, on an inventory form along with GPS coordinates. GIS Web services push the GPS data and associated attributes from the mobile device to IFRIS Web. Uploaded field data and features can be immediately viewed via IFRIS Web, ArcGIS Mobile technology makes it faster and easier for field staff to capture data and describe the location and nature of critical forestry data. IFRIS Mobile gives field users a simple interface to collect GPS positions and attributes for a variety of features. ArcGIS Mobile is used to provide a map for navigation and feature verification.

Management Approaches
Recover (sustainable forest management) Afforestation, Reforestation

Reduce Deforestation Check Forest fires, Pest attacks, sensitive zones Awareness

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