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Biodiversity Characterization at Land- scape Level in North-East India using

Satellite Remote Sensing and Geo- graphical Information System. Indian
Institute of Remote Sensing

Article · April 2003

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 BOOK REVIEWS
rich diversity is facing various threats for known for genetic, ecological and eco-
its very survival. Even before we fully nomic prudence. One of the major chal-
describe the species richness, we are lenges for us is to conserve and
losing many species, due to the alarming sustainably manage this rich biodiver-
rate of extinction. It is hard to develop a sity, which is fast depleting. India being
measure of extinction rates of the entire a signatory to the Convention on Bio-
flora and fauna due to the scant knowl- logical Diversity needs to take up imme-
edge of the species pool before the im- diate measures to check the current rates
pact. Even though speciation and of biodiversity loss. In recent times,
extinction processes (as many as 12 mass laudable attempts have been made to
Biodiversity Characterization at Land- extinctions have taken place so far natu- identify biodiversity hot-spots and
scape Level in North-East India using rally) are part of the evolutionary proc- unique habitats, and to preserve, protect
Satellite Remote Sensing and Geo- ess, extinction is overtaking speciation. and propagate them through in situ and
graphical Information System. Indian Humankind has to realize that what is or ex situ measures.
Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, lost is lost forever, and cannot be brought Assessing biodiversity in the regions
2002. xix + 296 pp. Price not mentioned. back. Human development should be of megadiversity is a gigantic task. De-
without interfering with natural ecosys- piction of ecosystems in India, harbour-
tems that exist, rather should be in har- ing around 120,000 known plants and
Biodiversity or biological diversity gen- mony with nature, conserve it for the perhaps another 400,000 as yet unde-
erally refers to the variability among future generations. scribed species of plants, microbes and
living organisms from all sources in- Why are species going extinct at a animals is possible with the recent tech-
cluding, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and phenomenal rate? The loss of biodiver- nological advances in spatial and tempo-
other aquatic ecosystems and the eco- sity could be attributed to the expanding ral analyses. In early 90’s, efforts were
logical complexes of which they are a human population activity by way of focused on supplementing field-based
part. This includes diversity within spe- habitat destruction through fragmentation observations with remote sensing obser-
cies, between species and of ecosystems. and degradation, overexploitation of vations. The challenge was to prove that
Thus, biodiversity is the totality of ge- species for human use, introduction of units identified on remote sensing data
netic, species, ecosystem and habitat exotic species, increased spread of dis- represent a unique composition. The
diversity in a region that has evolved ease, predators and many other complex advantage of remote sensing is that it
through millions of years of evolutionary unexplored factors. also identifies the vegetation/landuse
history. It changes across environmental The fundamental questions that need units which are likely to be missed dur-
gradients like latitude, altitude, depth, to be addressed for conservation are – ing field surveys because of limitations
aridity, etc. Inventorying and monitoring Why conserve biodiversity? What to in sampling techniques. The technology
of biodiversity is done at different conserve? Where to conserve? How rap- that has given vast scope to the applica-
organizational levels from genes to eco- idly can ecosystem be conserved? What bility of remote sensing-based vegetation
logical systems (landscapes), and at should be the priorities and strategies? maps is ‘Geographic Information System
different spatial scales from a few square How well can a conservation and (GIS)’. The availability of spatial and
meters to continents. Hence, the recog- management project be designed and temporal technologies like GIS and re-
nition and characterization of biodiver- implemented? How best can the mote sensing (RS) has immense applica-
sity depends critically on taxonomy, interdisciplinary and contemporary latest tion in landscape ecology.
genetics and ecology. Taxonomy pro- technologies/methodologies be applied? Landscape ecology considers vegeta-
vides the reference system and depicts and how accurately can patterns of bio- tion as a mosaic of patches of vegetation
the pattern or tree of diversity for all diversity be predicted by applying these with unique landform, species composi-
organisms. Genetics gives a direct technologies? The book under review tion and disturbance gradient and focuses
knowledge of the gene variations found provides useful guidelines for answering on parameters such as patch sizes, patch
within and between species. Ecology most of these questions. shapes, patch isolation, interspersion (ad-
provides knowledge of the varied eco- Biodiversity is important to human- jacency of various landuses/landcover),
logical systems in which taxonomic and kind in fulfilling its needs by way of juxtaposition (relative importance of
genetic diversity is located, and of which providing food (80,000 species), medi- adjacent patches), fragmentation, patchi-
it provides the functional components. cine (20,000 species), drug formulations ness, etc. All these parameters have di-
The origin of life is a consequence of (8,000 species) and raw materials (90% rect bearing on the status of biodiversity
pre-biotic evolution of organic material from forests) for industry. India is one of within a forest ecosystem. Ecological
to cellular forms. The present complexity the mega-biodiversity countries in the parameters like forest fragmentation,
that life has developed by successive world (hosting 75,000 species of fauna porosity, patchiness, juxtaposition, inter-
evolutionary optimization took 3.5 to 4.0 and 45,000 species of flora). India is also spersion, etc., are required to compute
billion years (earliest fossil record of life a Vavilovian centre of origin and diversi- disturbance index. Field data with re-
on earth is 3.6 billion years ago). An fication of cultivated plants (with ap- spect to species richness, ecosystem
estimated 1.7 million species have been proximately 167 species of agri-horti- uniqueness, biological values, etc., and
described to date, and conservative esti- culutral crops and 320 species of their collateral data, help to arrive at biologi-
mates suggest that around 12.5 million wild relatives). India is identified as one cal richness of the forest types in each
species must be existing on earth. This of the important biodiversity pools, region. Based on these parameters, pros-

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 84, NO. 8, 25 APRIL 2003 1141

BOOK REVIEWS
pecting of regions for conservation pri- natural landscape is not depicted in con- mosaiced into a single map and same
oritization at the regional level can be ventional methods, as it focused mainly procedures were then followed for each
done by making use of GIS, remote on computation of species richness, spe- region. The satellite data provided key
sensing and landscape ecology. This cies dominance and similarity indices inputs like vegetation type, which is used
involves integrating spatial data like land based on phytosociological data or flo- for deriving several landscape indices
use, land cover, disturbance regimes and ristic survey. Landscape ecological prin- (porosity, patchiness, fragmentation,
biological richness maps with non-spatial ciples provide insight to the natural and interpersion and juxtaposition) depicting
data like taxonomic and genetic infor- anthropogenic factors that influence the the status of a forest ecosystem. Ancil-
mation; and creating landscape level in- distribution of biodiversity. In this re- lary database on roads and settlements
formation linked with a comprehensive gard, the application of GIS proved suc- has been utilized to prepare a proximity
plant species database. Advances in re- cessful in integrating spatial data like buffer map. All these parameters were
mote sensing satellite sensors with better land use, land cover, disturbance regimes used to derive the disturbance index map,
spectral and spatial resolutions, allow and biological richness maps with non- while the digital elevation model was
assessment and monitoring of vegetation spatial data like taxonomic and genetic used to prepare terrain complexity map.
cover and its related attributes. GIS al- information and creating landscape level All these parameters were integrated to-
lows the building of a comprehensive information linked with a comprehensive gether with the field data on species
database on various parameters which plant species database. This study is suc- richness, ecosystem uniqueness and bio-
govern spatial distribution of biodiver- cessful in utilizing the landscape princi- diversity value. The resultant map gives
sity. The utilization of landscape princi- ples along with remote sensing and the biological richness. For map compo-
ples coupled with remote sensing and geographical information system to sition, only important layers like vegeta-
geographical information system help characterize fragmentation, disturbance tion type, fragmentation, disturbance
characterize fragmentation, disturbance regimes and biodiversity. Bio_CAP, a regimes and biological richness were
regimes and biodiversity. The habitat customized software developed at IIRS considered. District, state and interna-
definitions in the form of vegetation for biodiversity characterization, was tional digital boundary of SOI were su-
cover types will allow for ‘what to look used to carry out multicriteria spatial perimposed on the raster layers. Each
where’. The disturbance regimes as- analysis that facilitated the rapid assess- map consisted of vegetation map, frag-
sessed across the landscape will allow ment of biodiversity and its monitoring mentation map, disturbance regimes
focusing on the ecosystems which are (loss and/or gain), assessment of nature map, biological richness map, location
under ‘stresses’. of habitats and disturbance regimes map of the region with respect to India
Detailed inventories of vegetation, therein, evolving, species–habitat rela- and IRS 1C LISS-III path and row refer-
habitats and biodiversity are useful in tionships, mapping biological richness ences. The scale of each map varies with
formulating the strategies for biodiver- and gap analysis, prioritizing conserva- respect to its spatial extent.
sity conservation and sustainable utiliza- tion and bioprospecting and redefining The states of Assam, Arunachal
tion. The book under review ecological zones required for biodiver- Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram,
demonstrates effectively with case stud- sity conservation. Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim have been
ies the integration of landscape princi- Ancillary data used in this study in- discussed at great length with the spatial
ples with remote sensing and geographic cludes: value-added satellite data prod- information relating to their biodiversity,
information system (GIS) for biodiver- ucts on 1 : 250,000 scale for all scenes landscape, vegetation, phytosociological
sity characterization at landscape level. (hardcopy) and digital data of IRS-ID aspects, species diversity, endemic spe-
This publication gives an excellent LISS III (wherever the quality was bad, cies, ecologically important species, eco-
account of the major initiative under- IRS-1B/1C LISS-II data or Landsat-TM nomically important species, medicinal
taken by the Department of Space (DOS) data was used), DEM (Digital Elevation plants, disturbance regime, biological
and the Department of Biotechnology Models), Survey of India toposheets, richness zones, etc. Fragmentation in this
(DBT) of the Government of India (GOI) information about forest types of India, region is mainly due to jhum cultivation,
for implementation of Genes to Ecosys- biogeographical digital map (from Wild- human population pressure, industrial
tem concept in biodiversity conservation life Institute of India), climate maps of logging and ineffective government poli-
and prospecting. It presents the geospa- NATMO (from NBSS and LUP), socio- cies. Of the 16 major forest types, 13
tial database on vegetation cover types, economic data of national census, forest types and 54 ecologically stable forma-
biological richness and disturbance re- maps (from Forest Survey of India) and tions are observed. Tropical evergreen
gimes at landscape level for North-East digital data about administrative bounda- forest possesses highest diversity in
India – comprising states, viz. Assam, ries (from Survey of India), ground- Arunachal Pradesh followed by
Arunachal, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizo- based inventory and the knowledge base. Mizoram, Assam, Nagaland and Tripura.
ram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim. This State-wise vegetation maps were col- Tropical semi-evergreen forest (which is
region is often referred to as a bowl of lected from many institutions that par- highly fragmented in this region)
biodiversity due to its broad range of ticipated in this study. Edge matching has highest diversity in Arunachal
ecological habitats, floristic richness and was done between boundaries of adjoin- Pradesh, followed by Meghalaya, Assam,
high levels of endemism. This study has ing states with standard false colour Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Moist
been undertaken after reviewing similar composite as a reference to eliminate the deciduous forest has the highest diversity
endeavours and adopts improved strate- sharp edges. State-wise legends of the in Arunachal Pradesh followed by As-
gies considering the limitations of the vegetation map were then standardized sam, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura.
conventional approaches. Biodiversity of for each region. The corrected maps were Sub-tropical evergreen forest has highest

1142 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 84, NO. 8, 25 APRIL 2003

 BOOK REVIEWS
diversity in Arunachal Pradesh followed practical information and serves as a ready ume is indeed a difficult task, as they are
by Sikkim, Mizoram and Meghalaya. reference to practising ecologists, conser- controlled by divergent differential
Sub-tropical semi-evergreen forests are vation researchers, managers, planners and equations with very little in common in
observed in eastern part of Arunachal policy/decision makers. their solutions. The editors should be
Pradesh with high diversity. Temperate congratulated on these grounds.
T. V. RAMACHANDRA*
mixed forests are least disturbed in many The book is divided into seven sections
A. V. NAGARATHNA†
states as they occur in higher altitudes and 19 chapters, authored by nine scien-
away from human habitation. Riverine Energy & Wetlands Research Group, tists. While nine chapters amounting to
forests have average species diversity. Centre for Ecological Sciences, 40% of the volume of the book were au-
Thus, species diversity observed in this Indian Institute of Science, thored by the editors themselves, 30% of
region indicates that it has a unique Bangalore 560 012, India the material was supplied by Singh and
phylogenetic, geographic and ecological Biodiversity Unit, Reddy on the basics of elasticity and
history that has shaped contemporary Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced mathematical details of modelling.
biodiversity. Overall rate of endemism Scientific Research, Rai has dealt with the modelling of
declined from tropics to sub-tropics, Jakkur, groundwater flow, Ramana has explained
temperate and alpine zone. Bangalore 560 064, India heat and mass transport modelling, and
Twelve chapters in this book are well *For correspondence. Manglik and Gupta have authored the
framed, systematically and meaningfully e-mail: [email protected] chapters related to dynamics of the fluid
arranged, and lucidly written with nu- core. Most of the material presented is
merous references to date. A brief intro- collected from the published works of
duction to landscape ecology, satellite the respective authors. While the deriva-
remote sensing and geoinformatics (cha- tion of the equations is lucid and com-
pters 1–5) helps the reader to familiarize plete, additional care should have been
with the basics of these disciplines and taken to elaborate the utility of the equa-
how best these can be applied to tions, data needed for their solutions, and
biodiversity conservation, management the approaches involved.
and planning. The schematic repre- The chapter on plate tectonics by
sentation through flowcharts and colour Gupta Sarma is quite informative, even
maps/photos are very informative and to a beginner. The chapters on elasticity
appealing. State-wise list of endemic and faulting, and fluid mechanics are
species, economically and medicinally Dynamics of Earth’s Fluid System. S. useful to a wider readership. The chap-
important plant species are very useful N. Rai, D. V. Ramana and A. Manglik ters on reservoir-induced seismicity and
and informative. Methodology adopted (eds). Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. volcanic constructs appear to be isolated
in sampling, image classification, land- Pvt. Ltd., 66 Janpath, New Delhi from the book.
scape analyses, computation of distur- 110 001. 2002. 291 pp. Price: Rs 875. More care should have been taken in
bance and biological indices which are editing the material, particularly since
presented in the ninth chapter impart new Fluids are present in the earth at different both the printing and get-up are excel-
directions and approaches to biodiversity levels, in different forms and scales. lent. For example, the first paragraph on
research. Intra- and inter-chapter link- While groundwater is the most important page 3 gives the impression that the book
ages provide a complete state of devel- fluid in the shallowest parts of the earth’s is all concerned with the fluid core, al-
opment. Tenth and eleventh chapters crust, oil and gas floating on hot water though its scope is clear right from the
give comprehensive picture of the biodi- migrate at a couple of kilometres deep preface. This would, probably, be the
versity status in all north eastern states inside the earth to be collected at struc- case if chapters 3.1 and 3.2 were deleted
with landscape analysis, variation in tures obstructing their flow. Most domi- from the book. It appears to me that the
diversity in spatial scales, interpretation nant and massive is the fluid in the outer editors should have explored an alterna-
of situations, illustrations and synthesis core with its regular heat loss by con- tive title that should have reflected its
of a complex phenomenon of biopros- vection producing plate motions, earth- dominant thermal structure component.
pecting for defining ecological zones quakes and geomagnetic fields. In addi- Avoidable typographical errors can be
required for biodiversity conservation. tion, fluids leading to mineralization and located on several pages (e.g. p. 200, …
This book provides a basic technical and development of ore deposits also fall of length and 1 the other…).
scientific introduction to an important within the purview of the book. The The book may be useful to geophysi-
scientific activity, so that readers will editors tried to explain the dynamics of cists working on the thermal structure of
understand better the need for spatial and the fluids through deriving differential the earth and in groundwater modelling.
temporal analyses in addressing the equations, offering analytical and nu- It is recommended for libraries and in-
problem of conservation and sustainable merical solutions for them and providing stitutions.
management of ecosystem, and stimulate examples of their application in selected
I. V. RADHAKRISHNA MURTHY
discussion on the potential of GIS and cases. Processes controlling the ground-
RS for inventorying and monitoring of water movement and fluid motions in the Department of Geophysics,
variation in biological diversity. core are not normally available in a sin- Andhra University,
This book is informative and well writ- gle book. The exercise of consolidating Visakhapatnam 530 003, India
ten and offers a fine compilation of useful, the dynamics of fluids into a single vol- e-mail: [email protected]

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 84, NO. 8, 25 APRIL 2003 1143

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