Change detection in Land use/cover of a hilly area by Remote Sensing and GIS technique: A study on Tropical forest hill range, Baramura, Tripura, Northeast India

The extensive human intervention and their growing demand have accelerated the environmental degradation through destruction of the highland tropical ecosystem during the last four decades. Present study is trying to analyze the changes of the forest cover in the Baramura hill range of Tripura. A methodology has been developed to map and monitor the land cover changes using multi-temporal Land sat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Multi Spectral Scanner (MSS) data of the Baramura hill range of Tripura for 1975, 1995 and 2014 period. The study indicates that during the period the dense forest cover has been changed exponentially whereas the open forest and degraded forest has been increased tremendously. The NDVI generation also implies that the healthy forest has been declined throughout this study area. The findings of the present research explained that presence of shifting cultivation, over interference of forest dwellers and growing settlement regarded as the main driving force for such kind of encroachment of the forest area in the study area.