Landscape ecological modeling to identify ecologically significant regions in Tumkur district, Karnataka

T. V. Ramachandra; Bharath Setturu; Vinayaka Bhatta

doi:10.1515/psr-2022-0154

Article

Landscape ecological modeling to identify ecologically significant regions in Tumkur district, Karnataka

T. V. Ramachandra , Bharath Setturu and Vinayaka Bhatta

Published/Copyright: October 28, 2022

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From the journal Physical Sciences Reviews Volume 9 Issue 2

Abstract

Temporal land use and land cover (LULC) information of a landscape provide an overview of the drivers of change, and impacts on the socio-ecological system. This necessitates organizing diverse data of a landscape, which provides insights into sustainable management. Spatial heterogeneity with landscape dynamics influences biotic and abiotic processes. The knowledge of LULC dynamics aids in assessing the feedback between socio-ecological systems across the urban and rural environments. Visualizing likely landscape changes through modeling help in the decision-making for sustainable landscape management. The current chapter accounts for changes in LULC patterns of the agrarian district Tumkur in Karnataka State, considering temporal remote sensing data of three decades, using geospatial techniques and modeling. Land use (LU) analyses indicate an increase in horticulture area from 0.94 (1989) to 1.02% (2019) due to an increase in commercial cropping. An upsurge of built-up cover from 0.02 to 2.11% (1989–2019) with the enhanced socio-economic activities with the industrialization and infrastructure development across the Tumkur to Bangalore highway. Spatial patterns of landscape dynamics assessed through spatial matrices highlight of increase in urbanization with land conversion from agriculture and forest cover in the outskirts of the Tumkur city center. Ecologically significant regions (ESR) were identified at disaggregated levels through aggregate metrics incorporating bio-geo-climatic, social, hydrological, and ecological aspects. The study region is divided into 9 × 9 km grids for computing metrics at disaggregated levels. ESR is delineated based on the composite metric of all variables, depicts 17 grids (11%) under ESR 1, indicating the highest sensitivity, 29% area (46 grids) as ESR 2 (higher sensitivity), 45% (70 grids) as ESR 3 (high sensitivity), and the rest is 15% (24 grids) in ESR 4 (moderate sensitivity). The outcome of the current research would provide critical management approaches required for managing natural resources and will be valuable for policy and planning purposes in pursuing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the regional scale.

Keywords: forest fragmentation; land use land cover (LULC); prediction; spatial matrices ESR

Corresponding author: Dr. T. V. Ramachandra, Energy & Wetland Research Group, CES TE 15, Centre for Ecological Sciences, New Bioscience Building, Third Floor, E-Wing, [Near D-Gate], Bangalore, Karnataka, India; Centre for Sustainable Technologies (Astra), Bangalore, Karnataka, India; and Centre for infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning [CiSTUP], Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India, E-mail: tvr@iisc.ac.in, https://wgbis.ces.iisc.ac.in/energy

Funding source: ENVIS division, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India

Award Identifier / Grant number: SP/DEOO-20-001

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the ENVIS division, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India (GoI) for the sustained support to the ecological research in the Western Ghats. We acknowledge the infrastructure support by the Indian Institute of Science. We thank Karthik Naik for the assistance during the field data collection. We thank all the stakeholders for actively taking part in the scientific discussions and cooperation during field data compilation. We are grateful to the official languages section at IISc for the assistance in language editing.

Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
Research funding: This research was supported by the grant from ENVIS division, the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change, Government of India.
Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
Data and accessibility: Data used in the analyses are compiled from the field. Data is analyzed and organized in the form of tables, which are presented in the manuscript. Also, synthesized data are archived at http://wgbis.ces.iisc.ernet.in/energy/water/paper/researchpaper2.html#ce http://wgbis.ces.iisc.ernet.in/biodiversity/.
Research ethics: The publication is based on the original research and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication or web hosting.
Animal ethics: The research does not involve either humans, animals or tissues.
Permission to carry out fieldwork: Our research is commissioned by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (ENVIS Division), Government of India and hence no further permission is required as the field work was carried out in in the non-restricted areas/protected areas.

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Received: 2022-07-30

Accepted: 2022-09-10

Published Online: 2022-10-28

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Keywords for this article

forest fragmentation; land use land cover (LULC); prediction; spatial matrices ESR