Impact of Land Cover Changes on the Ecosystem Services Provided by the Renuka Wetland
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IMPACT OF LAND COVER CHANGES ON THE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE RENUKA WETLAND Major project 2 Thesis Submitted by AKASH GAUR For the partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Technology in WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT Submitted to Coca-Cola Department of Regional Water Studies TERI School of Advanced Studies (May 2020) 1 | P a g e DECLARATION This is to certify that the work that forms the basis of this project “IMPACT OF LAND COVER CHANGES ON THE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE RENUKA WETLAND” is an original work carried out by me and has not been submitted anywhere else for the award of any degree. I certify that all sources of information and data are fully acknowledged in the project thesis. AKASH GAUR Reg. no. 1800257MTWR Date: 29th May 2020 2 | P a g e CERTIFICATE This is to certify that AKASH GAUR has carried out his major project 2 in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Technology in WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT on the topic “IMPACT OF LAND COVER CHANGES ON THE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE RENUKA WETLAND” during January-May 2020. The project was carried out at CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH (CEDAR), Dehradun, India. Date: 29th May 2020 Ms. Anvita Pandey (External Supervisor) Dr. Arun Kansal Coordinator Head of the Department Centre for Ecology Development and Coca-Cola Department of Regional Water Studies Research TERI School of Advanced Studies Vasant Vihar, Dehradun New Delhi 3 | P a g e ACKNOWLEDGMENT The completion of this project could not have been possible without the participation and assistance of my External supervisor Ms. Anvita Pandey, Internal supervisor Dr. Sherly M.A., Executive Director of CEDAR Dehradun, Dr. Vishal Singh, and fellow Mr. Manish Kumar. Their contributions are sincerely appreciated and greatly acknowledged. I express sincere gratitude for the support, feedback, and encouragement of Dr. Arun Kansal, Ms. Ranjana Ray Choudhury, and Dr. Fawzia Tarannum during the interim presentations. Lastly, to the unconditional moral support of family and friends, I’m forever indebted to them. Thank you. 4 | P a g e Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................. 7 1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 8 2. Background .................................................................................................... 9 3. Material and Methods .................................................................................. 12 3.1. Study Area ................................................................................................ 12 3.2. Objectives ................................................................................................. 13 3.3. Data and Methodology ............................................................................. 13 4. Results and Discussions ............................................................................... 18 4.1. Land cover change over the past three decades ....................................... 18 4.2. Ecosystem services provided by the wetland ........................................... 22 4.2.1. Spatial Map of the villages within the Renuka wetland.................... 23 4.2.1.1. Bedon Village ................................................................................ 23 4.2.1.2. Dhar Village .................................................................................. 24 4.2.1.3. Khala Village ................................................................................. 25 4.2.1.4. Kyar Village .................................................................................. 26 4.2.1.5. Taran Village ................................................................................. 27 4.2.2. Identification of ecosystem services ................................................. 28 4.2.3. Timeline of Renuka Ji ....................................................................... 29 4.2.4. Trend analysis of ecosystem services ............................................... 30 4.2.5. Seasonality of ecosystem services .................................................... 32 4.2.6. Prioritization of ecosystem services .................................................. 32 4.2.7. Challenges, Prioritization, and Impacts ............................................ 33 4.3. Temporal variation of rainfall .................................................................. 35 4.3.1. Seasonality of rainfall ....................................................................... 35 4.3.2. Change of annual rainfall pattern over the years .............................. 36 4.3.3. Anomaly Plots ................................................................................... 37 4.3.4. Seasonal trend decomposition using the Loess algorithm ................ 38 5. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 39 6. References .................................................................................................... 41 7. Annexure(s) .................................................................................................. 43 5 | P a g e List of Figures Figure 1. Study Area – Renuka Ji ....................................................................... 12 Figure 2. LULC Map, 1990 ................................................................................. 19 Figure 3. LULC Map, 2008 ................................................................................. 19 Figure 4. LULC Map, 2018 ................................................................................. 20 Figure 5. The spatial distance of villages wrt the Renuka Wetland .................... 22 Figure 6. Map of Bedon Village .......................................................................... 23 Figure 7. Map of Dhar Village ............................................................................ 24 Figure 8. Map of Khala Village .......................................................................... 25 Figure 9. Map of Kyar Village ............................................................................ 26 Figure 10. Map of Taran Village ......................................................................... 27 Figure 11. List of ecosystem services ................................................................. 28 Figure 12. Trend analysis of ecosystem services ................................................ 30 Figure 13. Box-whisker plots across months for seasonality .............................. 35 Figure 14. Time-series annual rainfall plot ......................................................... 36 Figure 15. Anomaly plots for annual rainfall ...................................................... 37 Figure 16. Seasonal trend decomposition ........................................................... 38 List of Tables Table 1. Satellite data acquired for the study ...................................................... 15 Table 2. Land Use Land Cover Classes of Renuka Ji ......................................... 18 Table 3. Accuracy Assessment for classification ................................................ 21 Table 4. Timeline events of Renuka Ji and nearby villages ................................ 29 Table 5. Seasonality of ecosystem services in Renuka Ji.................................... 32 Table 6. Ranking and scoring of ecosystem services .......................................... 33 6 | P a g e Abstract Ecosystem services are the benefits that we people obtain from the ecosystem. These services are a critical component of human survival. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, these services are classified into four major categories. These include provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services, and supporting services. So these services range from necessities like food, fuel, and water to inherent services like soil formation. The study focusses on a high altitude wetland and wildlife sanctuary in the western Himalayas, Renuka Ji. With the place getting its name on the list of Ramsar sites, it has experienced rapid growth in developmental activities and the conversion of forest cover into barren lands which is destroying the ecosystem landscape and functions. To maintain the present condition and understand the causes of increased siltation, a land cover analysis was done for an area of 16 km2 within close proximity to the wetland. The satellite images for 1990, 2008, and 2018 were used for LULC supervised classification. For the classification, five LULC classes were taken. Accuracy assessment and Kappa analysis was done to ensure better reliability on this classification. The most extensive class of the area is forest cover i.e. 69.95%, followed by barren land at 23.93%. The overall accuracy of the classification for 1990, 2008, and 2018 is 92.50%, 95%, and 95% respectively and Kappa statistics is 0.9062, 0.9375, and 0.9375 for the following years. This quantitative data was then followed by the qualitative data in the form of PRA exercises which tells the trend of the change in ecosystem services. It complements the LULC data and the changes observed through exercises such as spatial mapping, the timeline of the events, trend analysis, seasonality, and ranking and scoring method. The long-term variation in rainfall provides seasonality and changes in the trend