Evaluation of the dynamic trends prevailing in the forest cover changes of the Vavuniya District

Abstract

The Vavuniya District which is situated in the northern province of Sri Lanka has undergone drastic land-cover changes due to unplanned human actions. Ofparticular concern in this regard is the changes/adulterations that have been done to the forested regions of this district'. From an ecological perspective, planners agree on the fact that a minimum of 20 - 30% of any given land management system (such as that of the Vavuniya District) should be covered with virginundisturbed (i.e. 'climax) forests. this being the necessity, it is obvious that the extent of (anthropogenically induced) damages done to forest cover in this district are far beyond that of the bottom line limits of 20 — 30 C/o. As such, it is paramountly necessary to evaluate the trends that are prevailing in the changes of forest cover of this district to be able to develop a suitable silvicultural management strategy. In this regard, a comprehensive cartographic exercise becomes immensely important to map out the present extent ofthe forest cover and demarcate the areas of critical problems. This paper provides an in-depth study of forest cover changes in this district using remotely sensed spatial data from the Landsat platform through a synergistic approach employing remote sensing and GIS methodologies, where plausible, future scenarios regarding forest cover change are modeled to illustrate the influences imparted by un-planned human activities. The paper also discusses and presents a management framework for Vavuniya (in the spatial domain) where various strategies are spelt out in detail