ISPRS SIPT DEVELOPMENT OF BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR NORTH EAST INDIA USING INTERNET GIS

Table of contents Table des matières Conservation of Biological Diversity will be major challenge for the ecologist in the forthcoming century. In-situ conservation, biotechnology tools for conservation and prospecting, understanding genetic variability, species habitat relationship and allowing evolutionary process of speciation are some of the challenges. India is one of the mega biodiversity centers and is also known for its traditional knowledge of conservation. The varied regions of the country, with unique floristic and faunal richness, their vastness, endemism, heterogeneity and also inaccessibility of large areas have necessitated creation of authentic baseline data on biodiversity. This information system is essential to monitor, analyze and plan action oriented programs for conserving and preserving our biological wealth. North Eastern India is one of the three mega diversity hotspots in the country. The region is referred as a cradle of flowering plants as it lies in the region of conjunction of biogeographical zones of India viz. Indo-China, Indo-Malayan and Gondwana land masses. The spatial characterization of landscape structures and its linkage with attribute information on the floristic composition, economic valuation, endemism has been developed in the form of Biodiversity Information System (BIS) on sharable environment. The BIS is integration of large databases using a concept of Internet based Geographical Information System commonly known as Internet GIS. The development of BIS involves the basic framework of concept, selection, and aggregation of fundamental and processed data. The information generated as a part of project entitled “Biodiversity Characterization at Landscap

New vegetation type map of India prepared using satellite remote sensing: Comparison with global vegetation maps and utilities

International audienceA seamless vegetation type map of India (scale 1: 50,000) prepared using medium-resolution IRS LISS-III images is presented. The map was created using an on-screen visual interpretation technique and has an accuracy of 90%, as assessed using 15,565 ground control points. India has hitherto been using potential vegetation/forest type map prepared by Champion and Seth in 1968. We characterized and mapped further the vegetation type distribution in the country in terms of occurrence and distribution, area occupancy, percentage of protected area (PA) covered by each vegetation type, range of elevation, mean annual temperature and precipitation over the past 100 years. A remote sensing-amenable hierarchical classification scheme that accommodates natural and semi-natural systems was conceptualized, and the natural vegetation was classified into forests, scrub/shrub lands and grasslands on the basis of extent of vegetation cover. We discuss the distribution and potential utility of the vegetation type map in a broad range of ecological, climatic and conservation applications from global, national and local perspectives. We used 15,565 ground control points to assess the accuracy of products available globally (i.e., GlobCover, Holdridge’s life zone map and potential natural vegetation (PNV) maps). Hence we recommend that the map prepared herein be used widely. This vegetation type map is the most comprehensive one developed for India so far. It was prepared using 23.5 m seasonal satellite remote sensing data, field samples and information relating to the biogeography, climate and soil. The digital map is now available through a web portal (http://bis.iirs.gov.in)