GIS Based Planning of Forest Road Alignment in Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala, India

Abstract

In hilly places, constructing and building forest roads requires a variety of economic and environmental criteria. To develop a solution that minimize construction, maintenance, and adverse environmental effects, road management must take into account as many alternative alignment options as they can. The idea of this research was to plan the network of forest roads in the Periyar Tiger Reserve's mountainous region using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). These techniques were applied using the study area's slope, aspect, Elevation, NDVI, drainage and susceptibility to landslides datasets. In addition, the road network created using the GIS-MCDA approach was contrasted with the existing road networks. The key elements that affect the road network in the research area were found, and the necessary maps were produced and categorized. The maps were graded using MCDA to determine the weight of both useful aspects as the next step in determining the significance and role of the aforementioned elements in the cost of road building. Second, using the Arc GIS 10.4 weighted overlay analysis tool, a forest potential map for road building was created by overlaying the weighted maps of the influencing elements. Thirdly, the competence of a map was divided into Six categories: very high, high, moderate, low, very low and Restricted roading Suitability. Finally, using a weighted overlay method to combine the road network and road planning potential map, the existing road network was analyzed. The findings of this study indicated that the majority of existing roads were located in high and moderate road Suitability. A small percentage was located in low road Suitability, which can be taken into account for alignment. These results suggested that the design of forest road planning in hilly areas can be more precisely accomplished using the multi-criteria evaluation method. Similar method as used in this study can be applied to other forested sites.

A Study On Measuring An Objective Aspect Score In Forestry Analysis: Example Of Forest Roads And Landslide Areas

“…However, in our study the score of the same forest road was found to be 0.42. For the landslide LS-26768 which is in the south aspect, while Gumus et al [2], Acar et al [81], Sathyan et al [88] and Bugday and Akay [84] gives full score, Chiteculo et al [86] scores it with 0, which is the lowest score. However, in our study the score of the same forest road was found to be 0,72.…”

“…Arabameri et al [85] gave maximum score to S aspect and minimum score to E aspect in their study. Sathyan et al [88] gave maximum points to W aspect and minimum points to E aspect in their study. The details on how the studies mentioned above scored the aspect can be seen in Table 1.…”

Prediction of Risk Zones and Wildlife Exposure Assessment in Periyar Tiger Reserve using Machine Learning Approach in Kerala, India

“…Classification was conducted using a supervised algorithm on Sentinel-2 imagery, with 70% of the ground truth dataset used for classification and 30% for testing. The overall accuracy of the classification process was determined to be 95.57% (Veeramani et al 2023). Lithology and fault: The dominant rock types in the Mullaperiyar region, forming the core and buffer areas of the PTR, are Precambrian crystalline rocks, primarily the Charnockite-Khondalite-migmatite complex.…”

E. V. Ramasamy Periyar on Women Empowerment

“…It is atrocious to subject women who form 50 percent of the population in the society to such a tyranny. 4 Periyar has discussed various factors which led to women enslavement such as, child marriage, dowry, double standards related to the notion of chastity, the notion of adultery only applicable to women and not men, remarriage not allowed for women, widowhood considered as an evil, lack of property rights, etc.…”