Assessments of Bio-physical Characteristics of Vegetation Cover in Western Part of Purulia District in West Bengal

Abstract

Biodiversity is an innate possession of a nation as it necessitates not only safeguarding of single or multiple species but also the habitat as a sum total with its surroundings. Proper documentation of biodiversity facilitates conservation of natural resources of any nation which needed assessment of its biophysical properties in different orders and of different scales. Forests are the most precious global ecosystems providing provisions to biodiversity as well as to the rural communities inhabited in or around the forest boundaries across the countries. But these resources are subjected to continuous deterioration due to human activities summing up with climate change. Assessment of bio-physical properties of vegetation cover under any forest jurisdiction enables the conservation plan formulation for future outcome. The present study includes the type of assessment of biophysical characteristics which includes vegetation type with canopy cover (CC), biological richness (BR), disturbances (DI), and fragmentation (FI) along with climatic and fluvial characteristics as a growth factor under a single frame for the western part of the Rarh plateau in West Bengal which administratively belongs to Purulia District. These regions have most dense forest cover with high biological richness with less amount of disturbance by human activities. Geospatial tools in terms of satellite images provide base of the assessment in the present study which includes formulation of different forest quality zones with in a large spatial extent. This may become a useful tool for formulation of conservation plan in the study area and areas with the same biological characteristics.