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Ecological Characterization of High Altitude Himalayan Landscapes in the Upper Satluj River Watershed, Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh, India

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Title Ecological Characterization of High Altitude Himalayan
Landscapes in the Upper Satluj River Watershed,
Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh, India
 
Creator Chawla, Amit
Kumar, Amit
Lal, Brij
Singh, R D
Thukral, A K
 
Subject Remote Sensing and Mapping
 
Description The Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) LISS III
satellite imagery was used to classify three landscapes
in the upper Satluj river watershed in Kinnaur region
of western Himalaya viz. Nichar, Kalpa and Pooh.
These landscapes representing different eco-climatic
zones were subjected to landscape ecological analysis
and various landscape composition, patch and edge
characteristic metrics were computed to find the
extent of fragmentation in the natural vegetation.
The natural vegetation comprised of forests (10.24%),
grasslands (31.04%) and scrublands (2.95%) as the
landscape elements (LSE). These LSEs were further
segregated into different LSE types based on the
dominant species of plant communities in the landscapes.
These LSE types were surveyed for species
diversity in the three landscapes. The total landscape
area (TLA) covered by natural vegetation in Nichar,
Kalpa and Pooh landscapes was calculated to be
651.42, 529.02 and 1,673.72 km2 making the total
area covered with natural vegetation in the district as
2,854.16 km2. The Pooh block, lying in the east of the
district, though covered the largest area of the
landscape, was poor in terms of landscape composition
as compared to the Nichar block which was rich
in landscape elements as suggested by the diversity
measures. The extent of fragmentation was found to
be highest in Nichar. The Nichar landscape was
observed to be having higher mean values of species
diversity than other blocks which is consistent with
the trends observed with patches diversity. This was
in contrast to the Pooh landscape where the patch
diversity as well as the species diversity was the
lowest. Thus, an ecological analysis utilizing landscape
metrics and biodiversity field sampling of
vegetation, was attempted for such heterogenous
landscapes in high altitudes of Himalaya, which
provided a baseline data for the management and
conservation of these virgin mountainous areas
 
Date 2012
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://ihbt.csircentral.net/1293/1/72_Ecological_31_no..pdf
Chawla, Amit and Kumar, Amit and Lal, Brij and Singh, R D and Thukral, A K (2012) Ecological Characterization of High Altitude Himalayan Landscapes in the Upper Satluj River Watershed, Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh, India. Journal of Indian Society of Remote Sensing, 40 (3). pp. 519-539.
 
Relation http://ihbt.csircentral.net/1293/