Distribution of vegetation and the extent of land degradation in raid-marwet region an analysis through geographic information system (gis)

Over past three decades, Remote Sensing has emerged as one of the most fascinating science. The overall state of the environment and Earth’s observation through remote sensors has provided a vantage means of monitoring land surface dynamics and natural resource management. The increasing human activities with natural environmental systems have raised series of environmental issues. Remote Sensing has made remarkable progress in recent decades in solving many environmental issues. With the advances in the Geographic Information System with powerful computing systems, the studies have become easier. Distribution maps (based on GPS location and numbers of species present) through Inverse Distance Weighted of vegetation with their respective types and the extent of land degradation (hill cutting) in large scale maps (Survey of India) and (LISS-III IRS P6 satellite imagery) using GIS tools have proved significant. Hill cutting increased from 6.06 Km2 to 10.75 Km2 in site 1 and from 2.02 Km2 to 4.6 Km2 in site 2 during 2009. Dominating species belonging to family Poaceae among grass species, Asteraceae, Araceae, and Fabaceae among herbs/shrubs, and Fabaceae and Moraceae family among trees were found. The biodiversity of the region which can become locally extinct, if these act of land degradation continues henceforth.