Forest Fragmentation: Framework 'Crucial For Effective Afforestation Planning', Study Reveals
A new study conducted by academicians at IIT Bombay has proposed that accounting with a framework that uses remote-sensing data and open-source digital tools to map forest connectivity at both the state and national levels is required to address deforestation and help with the process of afforestation planning.
Forest fragmentation has caused problems for the natural inhabitants as fragmented forests disrupt the movement and survival of plants and animals. Wild animals such as tigers and lions, among others, need large, connected forests to hunt, breed, and survive without coming into conflict with humans. Forest fragmentation has led to large continuous forests being divided into smaller isolated patches, mostly by human interventions, deforestation, urbanization and development activities.
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However, the largest and continuous forests are ecologically healthy as they foster rich biodiversity. The study notes that despite the Forest Survey of India (FSI) and other independent studies regularly reporting on India’s gross forest cover, there has so far been no systematic framework to understand structural connectivity and monitor forest fragmentation across the country.
In it in this backdrop that the research underlined the need for an effective framework to provide additional insights into how connected the forests are, to analyze the impact of afforestation efforts, determine the resilience of different forest types to deforestation, and identify the states undergoing severe changes in forest cover.
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The researchers applied the analysis to digital forest cover maps of India for the years 2015 to 2019, obtained from the Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS) Land Cover Map as part of the research. The result showed that from 2015 to 2019, all states in India experienced a net loss in forest cover. ‘India lost 18 square kilometers of forest for every 1 square kilometer gained. ‘Nearly half of the 56.3 sq. km. of gross forest gain occurred in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Rajasthan, while Tamil Nadu and West Bengal together accounted for almost half of the 1,032.89 sq. km. of gross forest loss,’ the study pointed out.
The study mentioned that an important part of the framework was the need to classify the forest landscape into seven types, each with distinct ecological implications. One is Cores, a relatively large and intact forest habitat. The bridges, which connect different cores, while the Loops, which connect parts of the same core. The branches are narrow extensions of the cores while the perforations are non-forest clearings within.
“The study notes that the cores are the most resilient to deforestation; afforestation activities that primarily result in the creation of islets may not meaningfully contribute to forest health or connectivity. “Our resilience-based ranking offers a practical tool for policymakers. “Rather than treating all forest areas the same, it helps identify which morphologies are most vulnerable (like islets) and which offer long-term ecological value (like cores),” says Prof. Ramsankaran added that afforestation programmes such as CAMPA or the National Mission for a Green India could benefit by focusing on strengthening existing cores and building bridges between them, which could potentially yield better-connected, more resilient, and ecologically sustainable forests.
The framework, the study highlights, also has the potential to inform infrastructure planning by helping identify areas where connectivity is most at risk, thus supporting more scientifically informed decisions and reducing ecological disruption. It depends on an image processing technique called Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) to detect and classify the structure of forest landscapes.
The result stressed that over half of the newly added forest covers are islets, which do not substantially improve structural connectivity. This suggests that even where forest cover is increasing on paper, the ecological value and resilience of those forests may be limited. The researchers then suggest that there is a need to move beyond the current quantity-based afforestation approach and explicitly incorporate structural connectivity into forest planning,
The strength of the framework lies in its scalability, cost-effectiveness, and use of open-source tools. It can be expected to give consistent results with similar datasets at finer resolutions and can be applied at different spatial and temporal scales. Prof. Ramsankaran says the framework is fully extensible to finer scales, such as districts or protected areas, and can be used to analyze the impacts of linear infrastructure like roads and rail lines on forest connectivity in a more focused manner.
