A study of fragmentation trends further reveal the loss of corridors," attributing it to construction of dams, felling of trees for commercial plantation and denudation of forests.
The fragile ecosystem of Maharashtra's Western Ghats, a bio-diversity treasure trove,has come under severe pressure from unabated developmental activities leading to a loss of its forest cover over a period of 20 years since 1985, notes a recent study.
Annually, the region has lost dense and open forests at 0.72% and 0.49% respectively till 2005, says the study prepared by a team of scientists from Dehradun-based Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Pune.
The report is a comprehensive account of forest cover change since 1985 using satellite remote sensing technique in the eco hotspot stretching nearly 1450 km along south-west peninsular India.
IIRS experts Rabindra K. Panigrahy, Manish P Kale, Upasana Dutta, Asima Mishra, Bishwarup Banerjee and DAC expert Sarnam Singh in their report have noted that, "the decrease in the area of dense forest and increase in open forest and scrublands are indicators of pressure on the core forest.
A study of fragmentation trends further reveal the loss of corridors," attributing it to construction of dams, felling of trees for commercial plantation and denudation of forests.
The increase in water bodies including dams mainly to cater the needs of the growing population has altered the ecosystem and there is need to investigate the socioeconomic impacts of the same, reports the study published in the latest issue of Current Science.
The hill chain of the ghats has been recognised as one of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots threatened by man-made activities with the results indicating a decrease in the dense forest class by 610.2 sq km contributing to 10.57 per cent of the total dense forest cover in 1985?"87; out of which, 599.45 sq km has been changed to open forest, and the rest to classes like scrublands (90.78 sq km) and forest blanks/grassy lands/permanent cultivation (130.26 sq km).
A small fraction (18.28 sq. km) of dense forest has also been converted to water bodies whose overall area has been increased from 1199.44 sq km to 1681.33 sq km leading to 40.17% change, which is mostly contributed by the new river valley projects developed in the past two decades.
A total of 163.27 sq km of highly dense tree farm land has been degraded to less dense tree farm land. Simultaneously 123.99 sq km area of less dense tree farmland has been found to be transformed into highly dense tree farmland.
In addition, around 24 sq. km area of forest blanks/grassy lands/ permanent cultivation has also been transformed to highly dense tree farm land.
The scrubland class area has increased by 193.1 sq km in 20 years.
The forest cover change statistics pertains to the entire hotspot region of Maharashtra, irrespective of the administrative boundaries.
Giving details, the study points out that Thane district has reported the highest (29.29%) decrease in dense forest followed by Nashik (22.5%) and Ratnagiri (16.45%). Only Raigad district shows marginal increase (2.79%) in dense forest. All other districts follow a decreasing trend.
The major chunk of dense forest is transformed to open forest and scrublands. Thane district shows large increase (30.67%) in open forest, which is mostly contributed by the degradation of dense forest.
Except Mumbai and Kolhapur, all other districts follow increasing trend. The water body area has increased more or less in all the districts out of which Kolhapur (by 10 times) and Sangli (by six times) show the highest change, says the study.
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