Exploring ecosystem health of wetlands in Rarh tract of West Bengal through V-O-R model

Abstract

Monitoring and assessing ecosystem health(EH) is crucial for ecosystem management on a local and global scale. The current study uses the V-O-R (Vigor-Organization-Resilience) model (Peng et al.,2015) to assess the ecosystem health of wetlands in the Rarh tract of the Murshidabad district. Water depth, landscape matrices, and land use and land cover (LULC) data were used to quantify vigor, organization, and elasticity. According to the findings, built-up areas increased from 2.11% in 1990 to 8.91% in 2020 and agricultural lands increased from 57.01% in 1990 to 81.53% in 2020.Wetlands, on the other hand, dropped by 3.43% in 2020 from 15.32% in 1990. From 1990 to 2020, EH dropped from 0.95 to 0.17 and good EH declined from 35.62% to 1.58%. Weak EH, on the other hand, grew to 30.52% throughout this time. The fast agricultural land growth and urban area expansion are to blame for the worsening of EH in the wetlands. Finally, the study's findings give a better knowledge of EH in the Rarh tract wetlands, which will aid policymakers in creating eco-environmental management strategies.