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Assessment and Monitoring of Deforestation and Land-Use Changes (1976-

2014) in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Article in Current Science · November 2016

DOI: 10.18520/cs/v111/i9/1492-1499

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Assessment and monitoring of forest resources advocates that conservation efforts should
maintain a focus on sustainable forest management prac-
deforestation and land-use changes tices. The ever-growing human population is considered
(1976–2014) in Andaman and as a major threat to forests. Agricultural expansion, plan-
Nicobar Islands, India using remote tation development, logging, mining, industry, urbaniza-
tion and road construction are primarily responsible for
sensing and GIS deforestation in tropical regions3. The total yearly uptake
of carbon by terrestrial ecosystems is 2.9 Pg per year, but
C. Sudhakar Reddy*, K. V. Satish, land-use and land-cover change acts as a source of 2.2 Pg
S. Vazeed Pasha, C. S. Jha and V. K. Dadhwal carbon per year4 . New simulations have shown that an-
National Remote Sensing Centre, Indian Space Research Organization, thropogenic land-cover change should be considered a
Balanagar, Hyderabad 500 037, India first-order climate forcing1. Islands which constitute less
than 5% of earth’s land mass are at risk due to natural
Andaman and Nicobar Islands are part of Indo- disasters, unsustainable development and invasive alien
Burma and Sundaland global biodiversity hotspots. species being compounded by the serious threat of cli-
This study provides spatial information on forest mate change5.
types, deforestation and associated land-use changes There is an increasing awareness that forest monitoring
in Andaman and Nicobar Islands during 1976 to 2014. is required at national, regional and global levels. Satel-
Satellite remote sensing and geographical information lite remote sensing data is useful because of its synoptic
system (GIS) techniques have been used to analyse
view, repetitive coverage and real-time data acquisition.
forest cover changes, rate of deforestation and to map
patterns of forest cover distribution in Andaman and The satellite imageries enable to accurately map various
Nicobar Islands. Classified maps prepared for 1976, land use categories which is very essential for monitoring
1989, 1993, 2000, 2006 and 2014 indicate that the for- change. Remote sensing and geographical information
est cover accounts for an area of 7086.1 (85.9%), system (GIS) approaches could form part of a conserva-
6969.2 (84.5%), 6941.1 (84.1%), 6934.6 (84.1%), tion and decision support management system that
6617.8 (80.2%) and 6407.3 sq. km (77.7%) respec- informs management actions on the ground for prioritiz-
tively. It was found that the area occupied by ever- ing efforts and then quantifies whether these interven-
green forests is very high, consisting of 3065.1 sq. km tions have reduced deforestation. Remote sensing and
(32.2%) followed by semi-evergreen (1531.6 sq. km), GIS support advanced ecosystem management6. Remote
moist deciduous (1133.4 sq. km) and mangrove forest
sensing provides valuable tools for modelling of forest
(677.2 sq. km) in 2014. There is large-scale deforesta-
tion in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which has been changes7. Global gross forest cover loss was accounted to
estimated as 678.8 sq. km during the last four decades. be 0.6% per year from 2000 to 2005 (ref. 8). A historical
The loss of forest cover is high in moist deciduous spatial dataset on forest cover and land-use change is
forests which has been estimated as 312.2 sq. km in required to understand the trends and thereby to identify
Andaman Islands; whereas in Nicobar Islands, opportunities for management intervention and to analyse
the highest loss was found in evergreen forests implications on carbon pools9.
(244.6 sq. km). The rate of deforestation in Andaman India is one of the top 12 mega-biodiversity nations
and Nicobar Islands was high during 2000–2006 (0.78) and accounts for 6% of the world’s forests. The net and
indicating major influence of the tsunami of 26 gross rates of deforestation in different parts of India
December 2004. The annual rate of deforestation from have been summarized by Reddy et al. 10. Studies on bio-
2006 to 2014 was 0.40. The geospatial analysis of areas
diversity characterization have mapped vegetation types
of forest cover change provides baseline information
for restoration and conservation planning. and assessed landscape-level fragmentation and biologi-
cal richness in India11,12. As part of the national carbon
project, a few studies have analysed long-term forest
Keywords: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, deforesta-
cover change over Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Central India
tion, forest, GIS, remote sensing, land use.
and Eastern Ghats of India9,13–15. We attempt to create
such a spatial data for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
DEFORESTATION is a global environmental problem and
to assess land use/land cover, forest types, rate of defor-
has multifaceted links with other issues such as biodiver-
estation and spatial changes in forests during 1976 to
sity, human population, air and water quality, the carbon
2014.
cycle and climate change1. The significance of forests in
Andaman and Nicobar Islands are located between lat.
earth’s functioning is reflected in the United Nations
640N and 1445N and long. 928E and 941E with
Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Con-
the total geographical area of 8249 sq. km. These islands
vention on Biological Diversity2 . The decline of natural
are categorized into two groups; Andaman and Nicobar
represent an area of 6408 and 1841 sq. km respectively.
*For correspondence. (e-mail: [email protected]) Andaman and Nicobar Islands rank first amongst union
1492 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 111, NO. 9, 10 NOVEMBER 2016
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territories of India in terms of highest forest area, i.e. pelago are tropical evergreen, semi-evergreen, moist de-
6711 sq. km as per 2011 assessment, which includes for- ciduous forests along with littoral forests and mangroves.
ests and plantations as per definition of Forestry Survey Common tree elements in Andaman evergreen forests are
of India (FSI). This accounts for 81.36% of the total geo- Dipterocarpus grandiflorus, Dipterocarpus kerrii, Arto-
graphical area of the island16. Andaman and Nicobar con- carpus chaplasha, Sideroxylon longepetiolatum and Ca-
sist of fragile ecosystems, high biological diversity and lophyllum soulattri. In the semi-evergreen forests,
endemism covering two global biodiversity hotspots, i.e. Dipterocarpus alatus, Pterocymbium tinctorium, Ptery-
Indo-Burma and Sundaland. It represents over 2000 gota alata and Lagerstroemia hypoleuca are dominant
indigenous species of flowering plants including 353 species. Moist deciduous forests are mainly represented
endemic species17. These islands comprise 572 chains of by Pterocarpus dalbergioides, Terminalia bialata,
islands or islets. A total of 9 national parks and 96 wild- Tetrameles nudiflora, Dillenia pentagyna and Semecar-
life sanctuaries cover 18.5% of the total protected area pus kurzii. Mangroves consist of Rhizophora mucronata,
network of India. The major islands in Andaman are Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, Sonneratia caseolaris, Xylocar-
North Andaman, Middle Andaman, South Andaman, pus molluccensis and Nipa fruticans18,19. Human popula-
Baratang and Little Andaman. Nicobar Islands consisting tion statistics of Andaman and Nicobar Islands from 1931
of Car Nicobar, Chowra, Teresa, Nancowry, Katchal, Lit- to 2011 showed a continuous population increase from
tle Nicobar and Great Nicobar (Figure 1). The soil types 19,223 to 381,000 and the population growth was more
of this archipelago range from sandy clay to sandy loam. than 90% (ref. 20). The islands were exposed to agricul-
Saddle peak is the highest altitudinal point (730 m) which tural activities in 1901 when forest land was cleared for
is located in North Andaman. The mean annual tempera- cultivation21.
ture is roughly 26.4C, mean annual precipitation is Multi-temporal remote sensing datasets have been
around 3100 mm, the relative humidity varies from 65% used. Landsat MSS (1976), Landsat TM (1989), Landsat
to 89%. However, these landscapes consist of fascinating ETM+ (2000) and Landsat OLI (2014) provided by Glob-
flora and fauna and show maximum affinity with Myan- al Land Cover Facility Programme (http://glcfapp.umiacs.
mar and Malaysia. The major forest types in this archi- umd.edu) and United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Earth explorer Programme was downloaded from the
websites22,23. IRS 1A/1B LISS I (1993) and IRS P6 LISS
III (2006) were procured from National Remote Sensing
Centre. Hybrid classification techniques (combination of
visual interpretation and supervised classification) were
used to map land use/land cover classes based on Landsat
data of 2014. This spatial data was used as a base for
classifying the other four years (1976, 1989, 1993, 2006)
through visual interpretation technique. The present study
considers natural forest definition, i.e. forest is defined as
land spanning more than 1 ha, dominated by composition
of indigenous tree species having a minimum stand
height of 5 m with an overstorey canopy cover of greater
than 10%. The images were georeferenced to the Lambert
Conformal Conic coordinate system and WGS84 datum.
Image enhancement and vegetation ratio techniques are
used in digital image processing as a first step after recti-
fying the scene. The present study has followed the clas-
sification scheme of Champion and Seth (1968) to map
major forest types18. ERDAS Imagine 2013 and ArcGIS
10.1 were used for digital image processing and GIS ana-
lyses respectively. Figure 1 shows Landsat OLI False
Colour Composite image of Andaman and Nicobar
Islands.
To calculate annual rate of deforestation, the area
under forest cover was compared in two different time
periods, using compound interest formula 24.

1 a
Figure 1. Landsat 8 OLI false colour composite image of Andaman r  ln 2 ,
and Nicobar Islands (2014).
(t2  t1 ) a1

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Table 1. Distribution of forest cover in Andaman and Nicobar Islands (area in sq. km)

Andaman Nicobar Andaman & Nicobar

Period Islands % of TGA Islands % of TGA Islands % of TGA

1976 5471.2 85.4 1614.9 87.7 7086.1 85.9

1989 5362.5 83.7 1606.7 87.3 6969.2 84.5
1993 5338.1 83.3 1603.0 87.1 6941.1 84.1
2000 5331.6 83.2 1603.0 87.1 6934.6 84.1
2006 5248.6 81.9 1369.2 74.4 6617.8 80.2
2014 5044.4 78.7 1362.9 74.0 6407.3 77.7

Table 2. Trend of annual net rate of deforestation in Andaman and

Nicobar Islands

Andaman Nicobar Andaman & Nicobar

T1 T2 Islands Islands Islands

1976 1989 –0.15 –0.04 –0.13

1989 1993 –0.11 –0.06 –0.10
1993 2000 –0.02 0.00 –0.01
2000 2006 –0.26 –2.63 –0.78
2006 2014 –0.50 –0.06 –0.40
1976 2014 –0.21 –0.45 –0.27
1989 2014 –0.24 –0.66 –0.34
1993 2014 –0.27 –0.77 –0.38
2000 2014 –0.40 –1.16 –0.56

Figure 3. False colour composite satellite image chips showing forest

cover change in Nicobar Islands.

where r is the annual rate of change (percentage per

year), a1 and a2 are the forest cover estimates at time t1
and t2 respectively.
Spatial analysis of forest cover change has been carried
out by generating grid cells of 5 km  5 km (refs 9, 13–
15). The areas of change have been evaluated across
1976–1989, 1989–1993, 1993–2000, 2000–2006 and
2006–2014. Grid cell wise change was carried out based
on the six classes, i.e. <1, 1–5, 6–10, 11–15, 16–20 and
>20 sq. km.
To evaluate the accuracy of classified maps of 2014,
we have used 200 ground samples from different loca-
tions and high resolution images available on the web25,26.
Validation of maps for 1976, 1989, 1993, 2000 and 2006
was done based on spatial consistency of sample points
on high resolution images from Google Earth.
Land cover classification has discriminated 2 classes at
Figure 2. False colour composite satellite image chips showing forest
level I (i.e. forest and non-forest) and 11 classes at level
cover change in Andaman Islands. II. Forests were split into four classes to increase their

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Figure 4. Spatial maps of forest cover: 1976 to 2014.

Figure 5. Graph showing annual rate of deforestation.

Table 3. Analysis of grid-cell-wise negative changes in Andaman and Nicobar Islands

(no. of 5  5 km cells)

Size class (sq. km) 1976–1989 1989–1993 1993–2006 2006–2014

<1 65 18 103 67
1–5 20 5 55 56
6–10 2 1 5 5
11–15 0 1 1 0
16–20 1 0 0 1
21–25 0 0 0 0
Total 88 25 164 129

separability with other land cover classes (evergreen cover for 1976, 1989, 1993, 2000, 2006 and 2014 was esti-
forest, semi-evergreen forest, moist deciduous forest and mated as 7086.1 (85.9%), 6969.2 (84.5%), 6941.1 (84.1%),
mangrove). The non-forest class includes plantations, 6934.6 (84.1%), 6617.8 (80.2%) and 6407.3 sq. km
scrub, grassland, agriculture, barren land, water and (77.7%) respectively. Selected image chips of multi-
settlements. temporal satellite data showing deforestation is given in
Statistical analysis of forest cover indicates major Figures 2 and 3. The percentage of forest cover with ref-
changes that occurred during 1976 to 2014. The forest erence to total geographical area (TGA) of the Andaman

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Figure 7. Forest type and land use/land cover map of Andaman and
Nicobar Islands: 1976 and 2014.

Figure 6. Grid-wise forest cover changes in Andaman and Nicobar

Islands: 1976 to 2014. The rate of deforestation was high during the recent
time phases, i.e. 2000–2006 (0.78) and 2006–2014 (0.40)
respectively. Analysis of annual net rate of deforestation
and Nicobar Islands is shown in Table 1. Classified forest from 2000 to 2006 indicates large-scale deforestation in
cover maps of 1976, 1989, 1993, 2000, 2006 and 2014 Nicobar Islands, which was recorded as 2.63. The analy-
are presented in Figure 4. sis supports that there was a strong footprint of natural
The forest cover change analysis was based on the five calamities (tsunami) on forests of Nicobar Islands (Table
time phases, viz. 1976–1989, 1989–1993, 1993–2000, 2). Annual rate of deforestation is shown in Figure 5.
2000–2006 and 2006–2014. Within nearly four decades The grid-cell-wise forest cover change data is pre-
(1976–2014), the net forest cover decline in Andaman sented in Figure 6. A total of 546 grids were identified in
and Nicobar Islands was 678.8 sq. km (9.6% of the total Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Grid-wise analysis re-
forest area). The deforested area was very high during cords the highest number of negative change grids during
2000 to 2006 and estimated as 316.8 sq. km. The ‘tsu- 1993–2006 and 2006–2014 (Table 3). Results indicate
nami’ on 26 December 2004 caused severe damage to the small-scale negative changes were more throughout the
forests of Andaman and Nicobar islands7,27 . study period.
Area-wise analysis indicates overall deforestation was The classification results revealed that the land use of
very high in Andaman Islands with forest cover loss of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has changed substan-
426.8 sq. km, followed by 252 sq. km in Nicobar Islands tially. The historical changes in forest types and land use
from 1976 to 2014. In these islands, the major anthropo- during 1976 and 2014 are shown in Tables 4 and 5. Four
genic drivers of forest loss are expansion of agricultural major forest types, i.e. evergreen, semi-evergreen, moist
activities. deciduous and mangroves were delineated.
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Table 4. Areal extent of land use and land cover (LULC) in Andaman Islands (1976 to 2014) (area in sq. km)

LULC 1976 1989 1993 2000 2006 2014 Change (1976–2014)

Forest
Evergreen 1710.5 1709.0 1709 1708.9 1707.1 1707.1 –3.4
Semi-evergreen 1553.5 1548.8 1547.3 1546.4 1540.1 1531.6 –21.9
Moist deciduous 1443.5 1352.1 1332.1 1326.7 1274.9 1131.2 –312.3
Mangrove 763.7 752.6 749.7 749.6 726.5 674.5 –89.2
Sub-total 5471.2 5362.5 5338.1 5331.6 5248.6 5044.4 –426.8

Non-forest
Plantations 68.6 90.7 93.5 93.6 101.1 102.8 34.2
Scrub 6.7 12.5 14.7 14.8 20.9 54.7 48
Grassland 6.7 11.0 12.1 12.1 15.4 27.8 21.1
Agriculture 163.9 228.6 241.7 245.3 278.1 402.5 238.6
Barren land 83.5 98.2 100.2 100.2 113.1 125.9 42.4
Water 598.2 593.5 594.8 596.8 616.3 634.4 36.2
Settlements 9.2 11.1 13.0 13.6 14.5 15.5 6.3
Sub-total 936.9 1045.6 1069.9 1076.4 1159.3 1363.6 426.8
Grand total 6408 6408 6408 6408 6408 6408

Table 5. LULC in Nicobar Islands (1976 to 2014) (area in sq. km)

LULC 1976 1989 1993 2000 2006 2014 Change (1976–2014)

Forest
Evergreen 1602.6 1596.0 1592.3 1592.3 1364.3 1358 –244.6
Moist deciduous 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 0.0
Mangrove 10.1 8.4 8.4 8.4 2.7 2.7 –7.4
Sub-total 1614.9 1606.7 1603 1603.0 1369.2 1362.9 –252.0

Non-forest
Plantations 39.6 40.5 42.9 42.9 62.3 64.5 24.9
Scrub 4.6 6.6 7.1 7.1 135.3 135.7 131.1
Grassland 91.7 92.8 93.5 93.5 119.8 120.6 28.9
Agriculture 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 4.9 4.9 3.7
Barren land 29.6 30.0 30 30.0 58.5 59.6 30.0
Water 55.1 58.7 58.8 58.7 81.7 83.3 28.2
Settlements 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.5 9.3 48.1 43.8
Sub-total 226.1 234.3 238 238.0 471.8 516.8 290.7
Grand total 1841 1841 1841 1841 1841 1841

Figure 7 shows the classified forest types and land ricultural land use shows increasing trend in Andaman
use/land cover maps for 1976 and 2014. In Andaman and and Nicobar Islands during study period (Tables 4 and 5).
Nicobar Islands, the dominance of evergreen forests is The people still use the land for farming purposes.
evident, comprising an area of 3065.1 sq. km (32.2%) fol- Forest cover is mostly converted to agriculture in
lowed by 1531.6 sq. km (18.6%) of semi-evergreen, Andamans, while in Nicobars, it is converted to planta-
1133.4 sq. km (13.7%) of moist deciduous and mangrove tions. In Andamans, barren land increased from 83.5 to
forest occupies 677.2 sq. km (8.2%) of the forest cover in 125.9 sq. km, scrub from 6.7 to 54.7 sq. km and grass-
2014. In Andaman Islands forest types, i.e. moist decidu- lands from 6.7 to 27.8 sq. km during 1976 to 2014. In
ous forests, mangroves, semi-evergreen forests and ever- Nicobar, changes are evident in increase of scrub from
green forests showed significant reduction of an area of 4.6 to 135.7 sq. km, barren land from 29.6 to 59.6 sq. km
21.6%, 11.7%, 1.4% and 0.2% respectively. Whereas in and grasslands from 91.7 to 120.6 sq. km during 1976 to
Nicobar, mangroves and evergreen forest shows massive 2014.
reduction accounted as 73.3% and 15.3% respectively, The area under settlements indicated an increase of
during 1976 to 2014. As per area analysis of change in 50.1 sq. km from the actual area of 13.5 to 63.6 sq. km
Nicobar, the loss of evergreen forests is very high from 1976 to 2014. The maximum conversion gain to
(244.6 sq. km) followed by mangroves (7.4 sq. km). Ag- settlements was from forests and agriculture. Most of the

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RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Figure 8. Major changes in forest types and land use/land cover of Andaman Islands (1976–2014).

Figure 9. Major changes in forest types and land use/land cover of Nicobar Islands (1976–2014).

settlements are still small and scattered. It is very inter- high (0.64) followed by mangroves (0.35%), evergreen
esting to observe development of settlement area around forest (0.20%) and semi-evergreen forests (0.04%). A net
Port Blair, capital city of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. rate of deforestation of 0.09% accounted for the man-
The massive increase of barren land, scrub and grass- groves during 1976 to 2000, 0.65% during 2000 to 2006
lands due to natural and anthropogenic factors indicates a and 0.92% during 2006 to 2014. The increased loss of
need for restoration programmes in Andaman and Ni- mangroves during 2000 to 2006 was mainly due to natu-
cobar Islands. ral calamity (tsunami). Figures 8 and 9 show major
In Andamans, Little Andaman shows 55.17 sq. km of changes in forest types and land use/land cover of Anda-
loss of forest cover, followed by Havelock island man Islands and Nicobar Islands (1976–2014).
(10.51 sq. km), Rutland island (6.55 sq. km) and Neil Despite the protection efforts of the forest department,
island (5.06 sq. km) during 1976 to 2014. In Nicobars, forest cover change in islands is primarily attributed to
92.76% of forest cover loss was recorded during 2000 natural disasters, clearance of forests for agriculture and
and 2006. Great Nicobar island (biosphere reserve) has plantations, logging, infrastructure development and con-
undergone large-scale deforestation during 1976 to 2014 struction of dams for irrigation and electricity needs. The
which was estimated as 143.1 sq. km, followed by Kat- earth quake (9.0 Richter scale) which struck Andaman
chal island (33.9 sq. km), Camorta island (26.6 sq. km), and Nicobar Islands on 26 December 2004 and the con-
Car Nicobar (23.2 sq. km), Little Nicobar (8.6 sq. km), sequent tsunami had caused considerable change on the
Trinket island (6 sq. km), Nancowry island (4.4 sq. km), mangrove stands of Andaman Islands. The mangroves of
Teressa island (3.7 sq. km) and Bompoka island south Andaman was affected in various degrees based on
(1.8 sq. km). In Andaman Islands, the primary economic their physiological response to the continuous inunda-
resource is moist deciduous forests which have high tion/exposure under the changed scenario; whereas, in the
timber value species and accounted for the greatest loss. North Andaman due to the elevation of land, the sea
Annual rate of deforestation of moist deciduous forests is water did not affect some of the mangrove stands28. The
1498 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 111, NO. 9, 10 NOVEMBER 2016
 RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS
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an area of 32.9 sq. km (ref. 7). The study showed that deforestation rates in India. Curr. Sci., 2013, 105(11), 1492–1500.
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monitoring of long-term forest cover changes in Odisha, India

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