Spatio-Temporal Forest Change Assessment Using Time Series Satellite Data in Palamu District of Jharkhand, India

Free availability of time-series satellite data enabled the current study to quantify decadal macro-variations (i.e., trend and percent change) in vegetation vigour in the forested environment of Palamu district based on 11 years (2001 to 2011) of fortnightly data of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI; 250 m). Further, Landsat ETM+ data of year 2001 and 2011 were also used to extract micro-level changes and as a validation reference. The inter-year comparison about standard anomalies revealed an alarming situation about persistent stress in the vegetation, especially after 2008. However, the degradation rate is slow as per anomaly frequency but steadily increasing after 2008. The study estimated that there is a loss of 293 km(2) forest which is close to the FSI estimate of 333 km(2). The current study provides a quick mechanism to reveal the spatial pattern of temporal changes in the forested region with reliable and reproducible methods.