Journal of Environmental Studies
Research Article
Assessment of Wildlife Habitats Using Geo-Spatial Techniques; Implications for Long-Term Habitat Management of Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary, Gujarat, India
Aditya D1* and Nishith D2
1Geology Department, M.G. Science Institute, Gujarat University,
India
2Wildlife and Conservation Biology Research Foundation, Patan
(Gujarat), India
*Address for Correspondence: Aditya D, Geology Department, M.G. Science Institute Dadasaheb
Mavlankar Campus, Opp. Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, India; Tel: +918200487460; Email: adiradhu@gmail.com
Submission: 01 August, 2021;
Accepted: 05 September 2021;
Published: 10 September 2021
Copyright: © 2021 Aditya and Nishith. This is an open access article
distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Wildlife habitats are under significant threat due to rapid
development activities. At present, remote sensing and GIS has been
used widely for modelling, evaluating and monitoring wildlife habitats.
These techniques have proven to be efficient tools for integrating the
spatial and non-spatial data required for monitoring wildlife habitats.
This study focuses on modelling the forest cover, assessing the hydrology
and land surface features of the Girnar wildlife sanctuary using such
geo-spatial techniques. The forest of Girnar is known for Asiatic lions,
birds and its rich floral diversity, in which habitat characteristics and
land surface features are poorly known. The spatial data from various
Earth observation satellites were acquired, interpreted and analysed
using different tools on the GIS platform to derive the hydrology, land
use-land cover and land surface parameters of the sanctuary. Geospatial
maps were prepared showing suitable forest cover, drainage
pattern with respect to elevations, and the land surface temperature
with respect to NDVI. The LST-NDVI plot shows the inverse correlation
between the surface temperature and vegetation indicating the
importance of dense vegetation in the dry deciduous forest. These
deliverables will help policy makers in evaluating suitable habitats
for Asiatic lion and its prey base in Girnar and formulating effective
habitat enhancement and conservation strategies.