Using geoinformatics to link forest fire severity and fragmentation in India's Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary

Many wildlife sanctuaries in India are suffering from the effects of increasing urbanization and agricultural expansion. In recent decades, the Jamshedpur industrial township, which is located near the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary (DWS) in Jharkhand, has seen a significant increase in pollution because of increased industrial activity. In this study, authors used pixel integration of two indicators, connectedness (Pf) and density (Pff), to simulate forest degradation due to fragmentation in DWS. The Forest Fire Severity (FFS) was calculated using the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) Index on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform from 1995 to 2019. Using parametric and non-parametric advanced statistics, the trend and connection between FFS and forest fragmentation were investigated. The change of the core region to perforated (+ 2.72%), edge (+ 10%), transitional (+ 4.75%), and patch (+ 5.3%) was shown by the fragmentation study. Around 70% of the area is experiencing an increasing (positive) trend in FFS. Forest fragmentation in the DWS was found to impact the intensity of forest fires as the amount of fragmentation increased. Forest fires are more likely to occur in patches of transitional forest along the margins. The goal of forest management strategies should be to maintain forest connectedness via collaboration.