Assessing and Predicting Decadal Forest Cover Changes and Forest Fragmentation in Kinnerasani Wildlife Sanctuary, Telangana, India

This study aims to analyse the spatial pattern of deforestation and fragmentation in forests of Kinnerasani wildlife sanctuary and surroundings, Telangana, India. This study has found the annual deforestation rates between 2005 and 2015 as 1.38% and 1.50% inside and surroundings of the study area respectively. The fragmentation analysis reveals the high reduction in large core areas over the period of 2005–2015. Temporal forest cover change analysis was linked with predictive modelling to generate future forest cover scenario. The multi-layer perceptron neural network modelling was used for forecasting the deforestation for 2025. This study evaluates the nature of changes in deforestation and its affecting explanatory drivers such as slope (in degrees), elevation (in m), and the shortest distance to roads (in m), the shortest distance to nearest settlements (in m) and the distance from water bodies (in m). Spatial modelling has forecasted the annual change rate of forest as 0.19% in Kinnerasani wildlife sanctuary which indicates decreasing trend of forest loss in near future. The results of the study are useful as spatial input for conservation of forests in Kinnerasani wildlife sanctuary, Telangana, India.