Impact of Forest Fire in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, Western Ghats – A Geoinformatics Based Analysis Vijayan Aswathy K., Varghese Abin, Sumith Satheendran S, Mohan Mahesh* School of Environmental Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India *Corresponding author email id: maheshmohan@mgu.ac.in
Online published on 19 August, 2020. Abstract Forest fires are one of the most destructive natural hazards not only adversely affecting the ecosystem but also causing serious environmental, economic, and social problems. It is mainly influenced by the climate of the region. The changing climate and anthropogenic influences caused for an increase in the rate of occurrence and extension. The forest fire could influence the carbon and other elemental cycles in the environment. The present study assessed the impact of massive forest fire occurred at different regions of Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve during February 2019 using geoinformation technologies. The study analysed burned and unburned areas to understand the severity of impact on the protected area and also estimated the greenhouse gas (GHGs) emission from the burned forest. A 30m resolution satellite data of TM and OLI TIRS sensors of Landasat 8 was used to analyse pre, during fire and post fire changes of the study area. Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), NBR difference (dNBR), Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), Normalized Multiband Drought Index (NMDI), and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were calculated to analyze the associated changes. Results shown that dNBR method, an area of 23046.22 acres (93.34 km2) was mapped as burned with low to moderate severity damage. The biomass, GHGs like CO2, CH4 and other gases were shown maximum changes in the study area. Top Keywords Climate, Forest, Landsat, Remote sensing. Top |