IMPACT OF COAL MINING ON TIGER HABITATS IN INDIA INTRODUCTION STATES WITH MOST ENDANGERED TIGER HABITATS RESULTS As India’s popula- The Singrauli coalfield data tion is rising, so is shows that there is 11% of coal- its energy demand field overlapping on Tiger habi- and dependency on tats. Hutar and Auranga area coal. For India, data results prominently display coal is the primary source of energy that 29% of area is extending because it is inexpensive and abundant- over the Tiger habitat. The rest ly available as a natural resource. How- of the coalfields in both the re- ever, extraction of coal is not only car- gions are precariously close to bon intensive but also requires diver- the habitat region, which may sion of large scale forestlands. Im- have significant impact on the portantly, the loss of forestlands have Tiger routes and movements. huge repercussions on the tiger popula- tion. The purpose of this project is to pro- duce a map identifying the most num- ber of coalfields impacting Tiger habi- tats. As a number of coal re- SINGRAULI COALFIELD RESULTS serves lie in the central re- gion of India which are also home to 35% of Tigers, the project is studying the states of Madhya Pradesh, Jhar- The state with highest percent- khand, Chhattisgarh and Ma- age of coalfield overlap is Ma- harashtra while giving sam- harashtra with 66.91%. Jhar- ple results from three coal khand has 41.70% of coalfield fields: Singrauli (Madhya extension to Tiger area where- Pradesh), and Hutar and Au- as Madhya Pradesh and ranga (Jharkhand). Chhattisgarh have 6.91% and 1.25% accordingly. METHODOLOGY Select by attribute tool was used to choose the three coalfields HUTAR AND AURANGA COALFIELDS to study: Singrauli, Hutar and Auranga. CARTOGRAPHER: Reclassify tool was utilized to reclass Spandana Battula the values as per water, forests and DATE: 10 May 2016 COURSE: GIS for non-forest areas. Intersect tool was International Applications used to combine Tiger presence and COORDINATE SYSTEM: WGS 1984 UTM Zone 44N coalfield layers to show the overlap SOURCES: features. To calculate the area, calcu- ML Infomap, Global Land Cov- er Facility (Univ. of Maryland), late geometry tool was applied to IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Greenpeace India, Bar- know the area of each coalfield. Over- croft India, and CoalPost lay analysis of Singrauli, Hutar and ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Prof. Patrick Florance, Auranga coalfields was done by com- Aishwarya and Caroline bining the specific coalfields and Tiger presence data. Then the statistics of the Tiger presence and coalfield overlap areas were taken and divided to the to- tal coalfield area. .