Forest Shrinkage Due To Human Interference an...

Forest Shrinkage Due To Human Interference and Its Effect on the Natural Environment of Nagaon District, Assam, India

Author Name : Khijumoni Saikia, Sailajananda Saikia, Bishmita Medhi

ABSTRACT

Nagaon district is situated in the very heartland of Assam and is situated in the south bank of the Brahmaputra and lies  between 25⁰45" and  26⁰45" North Latitudes and 91⁰ 50"and 93⁰20"East Latitude ,comprising 2287 sq.km. of geographical area. With a part of Eastern Himalaya biodiversity hotspot, consisting with variety of species habitat along with one horned Rhinoceros and the Tiger, the district has one National Park and one Wildlife Sanctuary.

This paper attempts to study the process of forest shrinkage due to human interference in the district and discuss the major causes of this shrinkage with the help of GIS technique. This study reveals the transformation of forest cover in Nagaon district, Assam from 1990 to 2020 by using Lansat TM, Lansat ETM+, Lansat 8OLI/TIRS images. The study reveals the continuous decrease of dense forest area, which was 9.77% in 1990-2000 and24.57% in 2020 of the total area. While settlement area increases  from 5.24 % to 41.87% of area of total. Human interference has incessantly transforming the forest cover of the district, mainly in negative ways, the accountability lies upon us for its mitigation and move towards a sustainable way.

Key words: Forest, shrinkage , Human interface, Sustainable development.