Conservation priorities of forest ecosystems: Evaluation of deforestation and degradation hotspots using geospatial techniques

Spatially explicit planning is required to set focused conservation priorities and assessing future ecological implications. Spatial ecological modeling and hotspot analysis prioritizes the forest ecosystems and supports the conservation of species level biodiversity. In the present study, the hotspots of deforestation and forest fires were obtained using historical deforestation trends (1975-1985-1995-2005-2014) and fire history (2009-2014) in Andhra Pradesh, India. The priority areas were identified as deforestation and degradation hotspots using combined measures of threat from deforestation, fire hotspots and current level of forest fragmentation. The state of Andhra Pradesh represents an area of 25985 km2 (16.2% of total geographical area) under forest cover in 2014. The net deforested area was estimated as 2390 km2 (8.4%) from 1975 to 2014. We have calculated the region of influence in percentages and found deforestation hotspots covering an average of 40.2% forest, followed by 35.9% under high fragmentation and 19.2% under fire hotspots. Ecosystem level analysis has been carried out for all the forest types i.e., semi evergreen, moist deciduous, dry deciduous, dry evergreen, thorn and mangroves, indicating ecosystem vulnerability. According to the results of prioritization, about 10.5% of existing forest had severe ecosystem collapse and categorized as deforestation and degradation hotspot-I. Analysis of protected areas shows Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve, Sri Peninsula Narasimha sanctuary, Papikonda sanctuary and Sri Venkateshwara sanctuary are representing deforestation and degradation hotspot-I. Deforestation and degradation hotspots identified in the study is an excellent surrogate for understanding anthropogenic disturbances and can be effectively useful in forest management to proceed for applicable restoration measures.