Figure 2: Work flow of e-green watch portal
Major Finding of Forest survey report
The entire forest and tree cover of the country is 80.9 million
hectares, accounting for 24.62 percent of the country’s geographical
area. The total forest and tree cover of the country has increased by
2,261 square kilometers since the previous assessment in 2019. The
increase in forest cover is 1,540 square kilometers, and the increase in
tree cover is 721 square kilometers. .
There has been an increase in forest cover in open forest, followed by
deep forest. Andhra Pradesh (647 sq km), Telangana (632 sq km), and
Odisha are the top three states with increased forest cover (537 sq km).
Area-wise Madhya Pradesh has the country’s highest forest cover,
followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Maharashtra.
Mizoram (84.53 percent), Arunachal Pradesh (79.33 percent), Meghalaya
(76.00 percent), Manipur (74.34 percent), and Nagaland are the top five
states in terms of forest cover as a proportion of total geographical
area (73.90 percent).
Forest cover covers more than 33% of the geographical area in 17
states/UTs. Five states/UTs, namely Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Andaman &
Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya, have more than 75
percent forest cover, while 12 states/UTs, namely Manipur, Nagaland,
Tripura, Goa, Kerala, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Dadra & Nagar
Haveli and Daman & Diu, Assam, and Odish
The country’s total mangrove cover is 4,992 square kilometres. Mangrove
cover has increased by 17 square kilometres since the previous
assessment in 2019. Odisha (8 sq km), Maharashtra (4 sq km), and
Karnataka are the top three states with increased mangrove cover (3 sq
km).
Total carbon stock in country’s forest is estimated to be 7,204 million
tonnes and there an increase of 79.4 million tonnes in the carbon stock
of country as compared to the last assessment of 2019. The annual
increase in the carbon stock is 39.7 million tonnes.
Monitoring through e-green watch portal has certain technological
limitations.
Although several technological advances in the past have alleviated the
constraints and improved thoverall quality. The following work cannot be
ascertained through satellite data:
- Civil Works such as repair, maintenance and widening of forest roads,
repair works Forest quarters, buildings etc.
- Works like painting, whitewash, construction of boundary wall, barbed
wire fencing, desilting of tank, polythene bag seedling, maintenance
of plantation etc.
- Weeding and Hoeing works and replacement of plants.
- Artificial Natural Regeneration (ANR) and Natural Generation (NR)
works, Gap plantations works cannot be ascertained through satellite
imageries.
- Satellite data constraints such as satellite data insufficiency, lack
of time series data of certain places on google earth.