Assessing Forest cover changes in Pocharam Wildlife Sanctuary, Telangana, India using Geospatial Technique

Depletion and degradation of forest resources lead to serious environmental consequences. This study aims to analyse the spatial pattern of deforestation in forests of Pocharam wildlife sanctuary, Telangana, India. The forest cover map of 2005 was prepared using IRS P6 LISS III data. The forest cover map of 2015 was generated using Landsat 8 OLI data. Hybrid classification techniques in combination of supervised classification and visual interpretation were used to map forest cover. Temporal forest cover analysis was linked with predictive modelling to help in generation of future forest cover scenarios. The Multi-layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLPNN) modeling was used for predicting the deforestation rate generated from simulated forest cover 2025. This study has found the deforestation rates changes between 2005 and 2025 as 93.8 sq.km inside and surroundings of the study area respectively. This study evaluates the pattern of changes in deforestation and its affecting explanatory variables such as slope (in degrees), elevation (in m), and the shortest distance to roads (in m), the shortest distance to nearest settlements (in m) and the distance from water bodies. The results of the study are useful as spatial input for conservation of forests in Pocharam wildlife sanctuary, Telangana, India.