State of Forest in Similipal Tiger Reserve, Odisha, India: A Case Study

Similipal Tiger Resrve, Odisha, was designated as a Tiger Reserve in 1973. As of December, 2006, core area of the Reserve constituted 906.26 km² and buffer area was 1304.49 km². The forest cover of Similipal for the year 1997, 2003 and 2006 was assessed using the satellite data of IRS-1D, sensor LISS-III, spatial resolution 23.5m x 23.5m and spectral resolution 4 bands. The results of such assessment have been presented in this paper. Dense forest constitutes 87.81% area of Similipal forests, whereas open and degraded (scrub) forest constitute 5.65% and 3.24% respectively. Grassland, crucial for wild ruminants is only 0.04% and it is available in the core area. Barren rocky/stony waste constitutes 2% of Similipal forests. Water bodies, mostly in the form of streams flowing inside Similipal form 0.23%. Tree-clad area is 0.12%. Agricultural land and built-up land is 0.9%. Similipal witnessed decrease of 252.71 km² dense forests in six years from 1997 to 2003 and increase of 347.87 km² in three years from 2003 to 2006. There is increase of open forests of 343.82 km² from 1997 to 2003 and decrease of 330.56 km² from 2003 to 2006. Degraded forests have decreased by 34.56 km² between 1997 and 2003 and 27.47 km² between 2003 and 2006. Forest biomass carbon stock of Similipal has been estimated to be 16-31 million tonnes of carbon. The dense forest cover of Similipal has the high potential to mitigate CO₂emission in the locality.