Journal of American Science 2010;6(11) Gap Analysis for Protected Areas of Andhra Pradesh, India for conserving biodiversity C. Sudhakar Reddy Forestry and Ecology Division, National Remote Sensing Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Balanagar, Hyderabad -500 625, India [email protected] Abstract: A gap analysis was carried out to assess the Protected Area (PA) network system in Andhra Pradesh, India. The decisive factors of vegetation type distribution, elevation and endemism was used to determine the representativeness of PA system. In Andhra Pradesh, vegetation cover occupies 23.03% of geographical area and distributed in Coastal Plains, Deccan Plateau and Eastern Ghats. There are 27 PAs for conservation in Andhra Pradesh. The total area protected for biodiversity is about 12,555 km2 or 4.56% of geographical area of Andhra Pradesh. Of the three physiographic regions, Eastern Ghats represents very high area under PAs which was estimated as 7811.38 km2 followed by Deccan plateau of 3526.89 km2. Three main forest types (semi evergreen forests, thorn forests and dry evergreen forests) missing in the existing PA network were identified. Moist deciduous forests of Eastern Ghats of northern Andhra Pradesh were under-represented in PAs. The land area in an elevation range of 900m-1527m was not included in PA network. Of the 103 species of endemics, 64 species were not included in PA system. Many PAs are experiencing threat from invasive species, forest fires, grazing pressure etc. There is a need to consider for possible ways for effective conservation and to extend the present PA network system in India. [Journal of American Science 2010;6(11):472-484]. (ISSN: 1545-1003). Keywords: gap area; vegetation; protected area; semi evergreen forests; Andhra Pradesh; India 1. Introduction India is one of the mega-diversity nations in the International treaties call for the world. India has 590 PAs (ca. 500 wildlife conservation of biodiversity in all its manifestations sanctuaries and 90 national parks. PAs of India cover including ecosystem level diversity. Conservation 156,700 km², roughly 4.95% of the total geographical biology is concerned with developing the scientific area (http://en.wikipedia.org.2010). There is a support for conservation policy and management pressing requirement to identify gap areas of high decisions. Conservation efforts have focused on biological richness to declare new Protected Areas in maintaining biodiversity through establishment of India. Spatially explicit inventories of vegetation networks of protected areas. Protected areas (PAs) types and land cover permit comparisons between are the priority centers of biodiversity and wildlife particular vegetation distributions and distributions of conservation. The criteria of biodiversity inventory, land cover, land-cover change, expected changes and vegetation type distribution, topographic variability, issues of protected areas. With the current trend of climatic gradient and biotic pressure are basic stuff in increasing rate of deforestation and loss of habitats in conservation planning. These surrogates can be densely populated developing countries, there is a effective at representing other aspects of biodiversity, urgent need to generate database which is available such as ecological uniqueness, species distributions, for planning, decision making and further objective species diversity and contiguous intact natural oriented requirements. Satellite remote sensing along habitats (Kirkpatrick and Brown, 1994, Wessels et al. with Geographic Information System (GIS) provides 1999). Conservation planning exercises also call for a cost and time effective solution to collect, process data on the distribution of PAs. But many PA and integrate database in an effective manner. systems across the world were chosen based on In the present study, an attempt was made to identify socio-economic and aesthetic criteria (Oldfield et al. ‘gap areas’ in PA network of Andhra Pradesh, India 2004). Gap analysis is a comprehensive approach for which covers a major part of Deccan Plateau, Eastern assessing conservation needs. The gap analysis has Ghats and East Coast regions by integrating spatial been undertaken by few researchers (Hunter and and non spatial databases. Yonzon, 1993; Fearnside and Ferraz, 1995; Powell et al. 2000; Scott et al. 2001; Bon and Gaston, 2005) 2. Material and Methods http://www.americanscience.org 472 [email protected] Journal of American Science 2010;6(11) The study was conducted in Andhra Evergreen, Moist Deciduous, Dry Deciduous, Dry Pradesh, is the largest State of southern India. The Evergreen, Thorn, Teak mixed, Bamboo mixed, State of Andhra Pradesh (The land of Telugu people) mangrove, riverine forest, woodland, savannah and is situated in the middle of eastern half of the Indian forest plantation (Table 2). Most abundant forest type Peninsula lying between 120 41' - 190 54' N latitudes was Dry Deciduous forest (Fig. 1) which comprises and 760 46' - 840 45' E longitudes. It is bounded by 73.36% of the total forest area, followed by Moist the Bay of Bengal in the east, Tamil Nadu in the Deciduous forest of 10.98%. Scrub/shrub land south, Karnataka in the west, and Maharashtra, occupies significant area, which is about 6.54% of Chaattisgarh and Orissa in the north. total geographical area of State. There are about Administratively, Andhra Pradesh has 23 districts 18,443 wetlands, accounts for 11,572.50 km2 which were grouped into three zones: (1) Circars or (4.21%) of total area of State. Coastal Andhra with nine districts, i.e. East Godavari, Guntur, Krishna, Nellore, Prakasam, Table 1. Areal extent of Vegetation and Land Use of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and West Andhra Pradesh, India Godavari (2) Rayalaseema with four ceded districts, Area % of i.e. Anantapur, Chittoor, Cuddapah and Kurnool (3) Sl.no. Class (km2) Area Telangana (Deccan or erstwhile Nizam's Dominions 1 Forest 44334 16.12 of Hyderabad State) with 10 districts, i.e. Adilabad, Hyderabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Mahabubnagar, 2 Scrub 17982.9 6.54 Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Rangareddy and 3 Grassland 1032.7 0.38 Warangal. Subtotal 63349.5 23.03 Geographically, the State is categorized into three regions, namely: (1) the Coastal Plains (along 4 Wetland 11572.5 4.21 the east coast, a low-lying area from from Srikakulam Other Land to Nellore) mainly of agricultural land and 5 Use 200146 72.76 mangroves (2) the Eastern Ghats, forming a chain of Subtotal 211718.5 76.97 discontinuous range of hills along the coast with Grand total 275068 100 good vegetation, and (3) the Deccan Plateau consisting of agricultural lands, scrub and deciduous Table 2. Areal extent of forest types of Andhra forests, which cover part of Kurnool (excl. Pradesh, India Nallamalais), Anantapur districts (excl. Nigidi hills) Area % of and the major part of Telangana. The total forest Class (km2) Area cover of the State is 44,419 km2, which occupies 16% of the total geographical area of 275,068 km2 (FSI, Semi Evergreen forest 1585.4 3.58 2003). The highest peak in Andhra Pradesh is Moist Deciduous forest 4865.85 10.98 Sambarikonda (1527 m), found in RV nagar range of Dry Deciduous forest 32524.03 73.36 Visakhapatnam district. Preparation of vegetation type and land use Thorn forest 66.42 0.15 map was accomplished through visual interpretation Dry Evergreen forest 221.55 0.5 of multi-season IRS P6 LISS III images as part of Teak mixed forest 461.14 1.04 project on "biodiversity characterization at landscape Bamboo mixed forest 654.02 1.48 level" (Reddy et al. 2008). The protected area information was accessed from the Protected Areas Mangrove 329 0.74 Database (Anonymous, 2007). In the present study Riverine forest 1209.09 2.73 vegetation type information, elevation data Forest Plantation 1156.99 2.61 (http://www.landcover.org/data/srtm/) and endemism was used to determine ‘gap areas’ for Protected Woodland 397.59 0.9 Areas network (Reddy et al. 2006). Savannah 862.92 1.95 Grand total 44334 100 3. Results In Andhra Pradesh, vegetation cover 3.1 Total coverage of PAs occupies 23.03% of total geographical area. While 2 There are 27 PAs declared for conservation forest cover of the State is estimated as 44,334 km . in Andhra Pradesh, comprising 22 wildlife The area under forest cover is proportionately sanctuaries and 5 national parks (Table 3; Fig.2). The 16.12% of total geographical area (Table 1). The areas of the individual PAs range from 1.42 to 3,568 forest types found in Andhra Pradesh are Semi km2. Taking into account the wildlife sanctuaries and http://www.americanscience.org 473 [email protected] Journal of American Science 2010;6(11) national parks, the total area protected for biodiversity is about 12,555 km2 or 4.56% of Dry Deciduous Peninsula geographical area of Andhra Pradesh. Of the 1030.9 8.21 forest, Scrub 100-900 2 Narasimha 63,349.5 km of natural vegetation in State, 11,773 and Pennar km2 (18.6%) of area was under PA network. Of the basin three physiographic regions, Eastern Ghats represents Dry very high area under PAs which was estimated as Sri 2 464.42 3.7 deciduous 100-800 7811.38 km (62.2% of total PA) followed by Deccan Lankamalleshwara forest, Scrub plateau of 3526.89 km2 (28%). Altogether an area of 2 1287.83 km (10.3%) was demarcated for PA system S.V. Wildlife Dry in coastal plains. Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Sanctuary and 525.97 4.19 deciduous 200-900 Reserve is largest tiger reserve of the country, National Park forest, Scrub occupies 28% of the total PA of Andhra Pradesh. Of Dry the five PAs of coastal plains, Nelapattu wildlife Kaundinya 357.6 2.85 deciduous 300-700 2 sanctuary is smallest with an area of 4.58 km and forest, Scrub Kolleru is largest with an area of 308.55 km2.