Assessment of forest cover change in Assam
Student name: Ms Rashmi Hazarika
Guide: Dr Anu Rani Sharma
Year of completion: 2014
Host Organisation: North Eastern Space Applications Centre, Meghalaya
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Ms H. Suchitra Devi
Abstract: The State of Assam comprised of rich forest resources upon which a wide number of habitat
depends. According to India state of Forest report (2011), 35.28% of state’s geographical
area is under forest cover.
The study over forest cover in Assam says that in recent decades, the pattern of forest of
Assam has been changing continuously & these changes are partly due to natural causes &
mainly due to human activities. Human activities like timber collection, clearing of forest for
agricultural land & other forestry production led to degradation of forest cover.
The depletion of forest of forest cover has become a major threat both in environmental &
socio-economic perspectives. So, it has become quite necessary to analyze the pattern of
forest cover change over past decades and take required measures to conserve the forest
resources. To study the changing pattern of forest, remote sensing & GIS has proved to be an
important technology.
Therefore, this study is carried out to assess the forest cover change over Assam, from the
year 1989 to 2013. In order to study the changes over these periods, satellite imageries of
LISS III (2013) & Landsat TM (1989) has been taken. Change detection analysis was
performed using Delta Cue software of ERDAS Imagine & along with that post classification
change detection was also done. And a comparative study has been done to see which of the
change detection technique gives better result.
Apart from that spatial pattern of landscape changes were studied using FRAGSTAT
Software & with the help of this software, forest fragmentation has been analyzed & studied.
