Vegetation Indices Monitoring of Sundarbans: An Integrated Assessment Using Fusion Techniques

Abstract

The research spell out various dynamics of the Sundarbans, including the distribution of vegetation, the soil and the drainage channels. The work throws knowledge to understand the growing changes and decline in the vegetation cover over time in Indian Sunderbans. The Sentinel-2 datasets, topography informations, with applications of GIS and RS have been used for the land use and land cover classification. The methodologies included are downloading of Sattellite imagery, and other procedures are applying image processing and fusion methodologies. Present study touches the trail of anastomosed creeks and drainage channels, soil characteristics. The analysis LU and LC and the vegetation indices through an integrated study with geology has been done for various indices by using various geo informatic formulaes through fusion technique of Geographic Information Systems/Remote Sensing (GIS?RS) Technologies. Various satellite imagery band fusion and manipulation techniques such as band overlaying, Normalised diferential vegetation Index (NDVI), Soil adujusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), Normalised differential Moisture Index, (NDMI), Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI), density slice and spatial profiling. The results indicate the existence of various land profiles and vegetation indices in present Sunderbans than the past. The depretiation in vegetation cover are due to slamming of different storms, high floods and climate changes.This change shall have impact on essential services on the blue carbon ecosystem like flora, fauna, aqua fauna, avifauna with coastal protection, and carbon sequestration to attain a sustained ecosystem and biodiversity by restring the anthropogenic intervention to nature.