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Growing stock and woody biomass assessment in Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, Delhi, India

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Abstract

Biomass is an important entity to understand the capacity of an ecosystem to sequester and accumulate carbon over time. The present study, done in collaboration with the Delhi Forest Department, focused on the estimation of growing stock and the woody biomass in the so-called lungs of Delhi—the Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in northern Aravalli hills. The satellite-derived vegetation strata were field-inventoried using stratified random sampling procedure. Growing stock was calculated for the individual sample plots using field data and species-specific volume equations. Biomass was estimated from the growing stock and the specific gravity of the wood. Among the four vegetation types, viz. Prosopis juliflora, Anogeissus pendula, forest plantation and the scrub, the P. juliflora was found to be the dominant vegetation in the area, covering 23.43 km2 of the total area. The study revealed that P. juliflora forest with moderate density had the highest (10.7 m3/ha) while A. pendula forest with moderate density had the lowest (3.6 m3/ha) mean volume. The mean woody biomass was also found to be maximum in P. juliflora forest with moderate density (10.3 t/ha) and lowest in A. pendula forest with moderate density (3.48 t/ha). The total growing stock was estimated to be 20,772.95 m3 while total biomass worked out to be 19,366.83 t. A strong correlation was noticed between the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the growing stock (R 2 = 0.84)/biomass (R 2 = 0.88). The study demonstrated that growing stock and the biomass of the woody vegetation in Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary could be estimated with high accuracy using optical remote sensing data.

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Acknowledgments

The authors sincerely thank the Director of the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Space Research Organisation, Dehradun, for the encouragement and support for this study. Grateful thanks are due to the Resource Survey and Management Division, Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, for the financial assistance for this project and the Deputy Conservator of Forests, Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, Delhi, for active collaboration and field support.

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  1. Forestry and Ecology Department, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Space Research Organisation, Dehradun, 248001, India

    S. P. S. Kushwaha, S. Nandy & Mohini Gupta

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  1. S. P. S. Kushwaha
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Correspondence to S. Nandy.

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Kushwaha, S.P.S., Nandy, S. & Gupta, M. Growing stock and woody biomass assessment in Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, Delhi, India. Environ Monit Assess 186, 5911–5920 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-014-3828-0

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