These hills called home: quantifying urban forest dynamics in the hills of the Guwahati metropolitan area, india

Abstract

ABSTRACT Forest loss and fragmentation are critical issues that confront urban landscapes. The urban forests in the hills of the Guwahati Metropolitan Area (GMA) in India have experienced significant transformations. This study assesses the temporal changes of forests in protected and non-protected hills of the GMA. Landsat imageries between 1976 and 2018 were used to understand changes in forest composition and fragmentation using landscape metrics namely, percentage of landscape, number of patches, mean patch size, patch density and largest patch index. The results revealed that the forests of GMA were experiencing intense losses and fragmentation due to increasing non-forest anthropogenic developments. The dense and moderately dense forests declined by 44 and 43%, respectively, as non-forest area increased by 1475 ha between 1976 and 2018. Dense forest demonstrated increasing fragmentation due to the rising number of small patches from 568 to 780. Today, dense forest patches are limited to only three of the eight reserved forests within GMA. The non-protected hills reported a significant 1309% increase of non-forest landuse. Thus, both protected and non-protected forests sustained substantial losses and fragmentation. The analysis could enable policymakers to prioritize urban forest conservation efforts in the GMA.