Date of Graduation

Summer 2017

Degree

Master of Science in Geospatial Sciences

Department

Geography, Geology, and Planning

Committee Chair

Jun Lou

Abstract

This research investigates land use/land cover change in central India and it’s impacts on the tiger population. Central India is situated on the Deccan plateau with tropical climate patterns and includes two large states: Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Central India has the largest tiger reserves in India. The land cover of this area is dominated by forest, agricultural land, and urban settlement. After the Green Revolution in the 1970s, the central India has undergone tremendous changes in land use/land cover. Time-series Landsat satellite imageries were processed and classified in a GIS environment to identify these land use/land cover changes. The relationships between tiger mortality and influential factors (e.g., urban settlement expansion, forest change and expanded agricultural land) are revealed with a repeated measure Poisson regression model. The results of the research showed that agriculture is having an effect on tiger mortality. More agricultural land leads to deforestation and encroachment of forest area finally resulting into increase in death of tigers.

Keywords

land use and land cover change (LULLC), central India, supervised classification, tiger mortality, Poisson regression

Subject Categories

Environmental Sciences | Geography

Copyright

© Tania Banerjee

Download

Open Access

Share

COinS