Application of remote sensing in alpine grasslands cover mapping of western Himalaya, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

Grasslands are the world’s most extensive terrestrial ecosystem, which provides a variety of services for humans, such as carbon storage, food production, crop pollination, pest regulation, and are a major feed source for livestock. However, grasslands are today one of the most endangered ecosystems due to land-use change, agricultural intensification, land abandonment, as well as climate change. Grasslands are an integral part of human societies across the globe, which are broadly known as tropical savannah and temperate grasslands. In the Himalayan region, grasslands are found in more than 55% of the area and different climatic conditions lead to different varieties of grasslands like Danthonia grasslands, kobresia sedge meadow, etc. Grasslands deal with the spatial and temporal distribution of heterogeneous landscapes, which support a high diversity of various species. Owing to very rugged terrain and inaccessibility, the information on the extent of alpine grassland and percent grass cover (%) across the meadows is limited. Therefore, the present attempt was made to assess the current status of grassland in the alpine region of Uttarakhand above 3000 m asl. LANDSAT-8 (OLI and TIRS sensors) satellite data were used to delineate the grasslands using normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVIs) of the alpine region with the help of over 179 ground truth points out of which 50 points are testing points and 129 points are training points. Grass covers (%) were also assessed in the whole alpine region of Western Himalaya of Uttarakhand which nearly consists of over 75 meadows by using random plots (1 × 1 m, total 10 per site) in each meadow. Overall, 89.52% accuracy was achieved based on 50 randomly selected testing points. A total of 4949.25 sq. km area is under the different percentage of grass cover in the alpine region of Uttarakhand, Western Himalaya. Danthonia grasslands below 4000 m and Kobresia sedge meadows above 4000 m elevation are dominant in the state. In the alpine region, over 1056 sq. km grassland area have less than 10% grass cover indicating higher degraded and cold desert areas and only 565.69 sq. km area have more than 60% grass cover, which is highly favorable for rich biodiversity and grazing.