Disturbance & Recovery of Forest Patch

Disturbance & Recovery of Forest Patch

Lilik B.PRASETYO1, Masayoshi TAKAHASHI2, and Hideki SAITO2

1)Forestry Faculty & Center for Environmental Research,

Bogor Agricultural University, INDONESIA

2)Forestry & Forest Product Institute, JAPAN

Keywords : disturbance, forest recovery, land cover change, fragmentation, Leaf Area

Index, hemispherical view

INTRODUCTION

Factors that contribute to wildlife extinction are forest habitat conversion and fragmentation (Pattanavibool & Dearden, 2002; Christiansen & Pitter, 1997; Kattan, Lopes and Giraldo, 1994). Both of them is due to disturbances such forest fire, agricultural expansion, forest plantation, settlement development and infrastructure development. Recovery of fragmented forest or forest patch is depending on the magnitude and frequency of disturbance. Huge and often disturbance will have bigger impact on recovery then small and rare disturbance. The study aim at identifying disturbance and recovery process by using Landsat satellite data couple with field data and High resolution (Quick bird & Ikonos) data.

METHODOLOGY

Study area

Study area is situated at S.Wain Protected forest & Bukit Bangkirai and its surrounding areas (Fig. 1).

Study area

Material

Data utilized were aerial photos taken in November 1981, Landsat data acquired in 11 February 1992, 26 January 1998, 11 February 1998, 11 December 1998, 13 January 2002, and 8 March 2007.

Flow of research

Disturbance & recovery process during the research period (1981-2007) was analyzed based on classification of aerial photos and Landsat satellite. As a reference, Quickbird & Ikonos image were used as well as ground truth data. The next step is to perform supervised classification, and spatial analysis to produce disturbance and recovery map of the area. Further analysis on vegetation diversity of surrounding patch with regard to LAI was performed (Fig.2). Transect line of vegetation inventory is presented in Fig.3.

Inventory was directed to collect information on ofspecies number along the transect and HemispericalView.

Transect line was situated across remnant forest and recovery forest (Fig.3).

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

1. Deforestation

In 1981 most of the area dominated by primary forest, and then fragmented by Plantation forest and agricultural expansion. In December 1998 during the ElNino period huge fire have occurred and devastated most of remnant forest. As a result primary forest were reduced & fragmented. (Fig.4). In comparison with SPOT data in 2005, it looks that process of recovery is very slow. It is due to some probabilities, such as (a) there is no any seed left in the soil after forest fire, or (b) there is no any dispersal agent to disperse the seed (Fig. 5).

Field data inventory analysis of burned forest patch area in 2008 showed that LAI derived from hemispherical view photographs (Fig. 6a) & species diversity were lower than remnant forest (undisturbed forest)(Fig. 6b). The result suggested that enrichment planting is urgently needed to speed up recovery process of burned area.

Reference

Christiansen & Pitter, 1997. Species loss in a forest bird community near Lagoa Santa, in South Easthern Brazil Biology Conservation, 80(1997) 23-32

Kattan, Lopes and Giraldo, 1994). Forest Fragmentation and Bird Extinctions: San Antonio Eighty Years Later. Conservation Biology, Pages 138-146, Volume 8, No. 1, March 1994

Pattanavibool & Dearden, 2002. Fragmentation and wildlife in montane evergreen forests, northernThailand. Biological Conservation 107 (2002) 155–164