Aaranyak-Rufford Small Grants_sarma

Aaranyak Small Grants for Nature Conservation in Northeast India

Aaranyak-Rufford Small Grants >>

Title of the Project: Spatial Modeling and Preparation of a Decision Support System for Conservation of Biological Diversity of Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam, India.

Project Investigator: Sarma Pranjit

Project objectives:

1. To create spatial model of the Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary using GIS showing habitat characteristics and habitat utilization by different species.

2. To develop a Decision Support System (DSS) for the sanctuary, where all the information will be fed in to GIS domain to complement the concerned authorities to plan conservation and management of wildlife in the sanctuary.

3. To analysis forest cover/habitat changes in and around the Sanctuary from 1970s to till date and to understand its impact on wildlife.

Project Update (June 2007):

Both spatial and non-spatial information of the Barnadi WLS, satellite imagery (IRS 1D LISS III of December 2006) has already been collected. All available maps with the State Forest department as well as from survey of India has been gathered and digitized. Collection of spatial information such as location of available forest camps, location of abandoned forest camps, location of watchtowers, road network, drainage network, fringe villages etc. has been collected during five visits to the study sites till date. 70% of the required information to prepared the SDSS, which is also a major objective of the study is collected and being fed in to GIS domain.

The sanctuary has been classified in to five major habitat patterns these are a) woodland which is further classified as i) semi-evergreen and ii) mixed-moist deciduous, b) grassland which is further classified as i) dry grassland ii) swampy grassland, c) water body which is further classified as i) rive and ii) ponds, d) river sand and e) fallow land, using ERDAS Imagine 9.0 software. A 1 sq. km. grid layer has been prepared for the entire sanctuary and sample point of habitat pattern and each habitat has been collected using the GPS from the grid.

Change detection technique of ERDAS Imagine 9.0 has been adopted to do the change analysis of the study area. Satellite imageries of Landsat MSS, 1977, Landsat TM 1988, Landsat TM, 1998 and IRS LISS III, 2006 have already been collected.

Observing a hog nest in the field

Habitat Mapping