Chapter 14 - Forest and livelihood susceptibility and sustainability in relation to trekking and tourism: a study in Singalila National Park of India

Abstract

Trekking in Singalila National Park is an adventure tourism experience due to the physical characteristics of the terrain and its wildlife resources. After the development of a metal road from Manebhanjyang the initiation point of the conventional trek route and Sandakaphu, the destination point, there have risen a lot of environmental problems. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Built-up Index have been derived simultaneously for the change detection. To focus on the root of the problems and for the search of sustainable alternatives of the existing activities, the techniques of Public Participation Geographical Information System popularly known as PPGIS have been adopted. For hotspot analysis, the halt points of the trek route have been taken into consideration and a heat map is generated for analytical purpose. This chapter addresses the research gap on susceptibility and sustainability issues concerning forest and livelihood of the Southern Singalila trekking corridor with visualization of alternatives as revealed from hillshade analysis.