Abstract
The Cauvery basin of Karnataka State encompasses a range of land cover types, from dense forest areas and plantations in the Western Ghats hills, to fertile agricultural lands in the river valley. Recent demographic changes, rapid economic development and urbanization have led to the conversion of vast stretches of forested land into plantations and permanent agriculture. We examine the human drivers of forest cover change between 2001 and 2006, using MODIS 250 m data at multiple spatial scales of nested administrative units i.e., districts and taluks. Population density does not emerge as a major driver of forest distribution or deforestation. Protected areas and landscape accessibility play a major role in driving the distribution of stable forest cover at different spatial scales. The availability of forested land for further clearing emerges as a major factor impacting the distribution of deforestation, with new deforestation taking place in regions with challenging topography. This research highlights the importance of using a regional approach to study land cover change, and indicates that the drivers of forest change may be very different in long settled landscapes, for which little is known in comparison to frontier forests.
Highlights
Deforestation constitutes one of the most serious environmental challenges the World faces today.The consequences of forest clearing are well documented and severe, ranging from biodiversity extinctions to global warming, soil erosion and increased flooding [1]
This paper investigates the use of MODIS data for the study of deforestation at a regional scale in southern India
In this landscape, which represents an area that has been long settled and used by humans, in areas with high population density and landscape accessibility without any protected areas, the useable agricultural areas are already in use, and as such it appears that additional deforestation is not feasible
Summary
Deforestation constitutes one of the most serious environmental challenges the World faces today.The consequences of forest clearing are well documented and severe, ranging from biodiversity extinctions to global warming, soil erosion and increased flooding [1]. Landscapes originally covered largely by forests have been steadily encroached upon to make way for agriculture, pastures and settlements [4]. Responding to this critical issue, the field of land change science has made significant progress in understanding, documenting and describing the driving forces that contribute to deforestation [1,4]. Protected areas play a major role in limiting forest clearing. While their impact on human lives and livelihoods is being increasingly questioned, parks have managed to protect many tropical forests from further clearing [11,12,13]
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