Mapping of Physical Vulnerability in Tiger Habitat Areas: A Case Study of Tiger Corridor of Rajasthan, India

Abstract. Nowadays, biodiversity is very rapidly diminishing from all over the globe due to unsustainable practices of natural resource by anthropogenic activities. It is an unhealthy for ecosystem services. In the biodiversity, tiger is an icon of healthy wildlife, which is known as a vital factor for maintaining universal food chain system. The research paper is focused on “Mapping of Physical Vulnerability of Tiger Habitat Areas: A Case Study of Tiger corridor of Rajasthan, India” it’s a micro level Study based on primary and secondary data through GIS mapping, habitat ranking and Q-Q plot. All five physical factors to inter-connect and overlay of the ranking of tiger habitats for the physical vulnerability. Especially, core and periphery of vulnerability have obtained from the Multispectral images from ETM and ETM+ sensors of Landsat and LISS-III and AWiFS sensors of Resourcesat-satellites. The study examines the spatial pattern physical vulnerability and suitability of tiger corridor of Rajasthan. Tiger Landscape change within all ecological zones has been evaluated. The Landsat TM and ETM imagery has been used to produce LULC classification maps for both areas utilising a hybrid supervised/unsupervised methods. LULC changes are measured using landscape metrics and change maps created by post-classification through change detection. Using all the raster maps and the final change detection of the reserve has been done through spatial analysis using the raster calculator tool in ArcGIS, Erdas, Statistical tool and MS Excel 13. The study comes out with physical vulnerability in core and periphery areas of the tiger corridor. The research addressed vulnerability of tiger habitat, human encroachment, impact on tiger habitat, intervene of domestic animals, and the migration in core and periphery areas, finally, the situation of physical vulnerability would be alarming for biodiversity of tiger corridor, specially buffer areas.