Papers by Pratheesh C Mammen
Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences,Pondicherry University, 2015
Environmental Sustainability
Safety in Extreme Environments
Journal of Geovisualization and Spatial Analysis, 2022
Wildfires pose a major threat to the forest ecosystems and species of the Western Ghats’ protecte... more Wildfires pose a major threat to the forest ecosystems and species of the Western Ghats’ protected areas. Fires have also ravaged the Silent Valley National Park in the past. This study aimed to map the fire risk zones using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method, to assess the effect of each factor on the occurrence of fire and to assess the effectiveness of the forest management regime on fire prevention and mitigation. The causative factors selected for the risk modelling are land cover types, slope, aspect, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), water ratio index (WRI), normalized difference water index (NDWI), proximity to the settlement, proximity to the road and proximity to the anti-poaching camp shed. AHP is utilized to calculate weights, and GIS is utilized to identify the risk zones. The area covered by the fire risk map is classified into five zones and was validated using the fire incidence data collected for the period 2002–2020. According to the study, 72% of all fires occur in areas categorized as high or very high risk on the prepared map. The result of the validation revealed that the AHP model is effective (with an AUC value of 78.79% for the training dataset and 77.64% for the validation dataset) in identifying the fire risk zones in Silent Valley National Park. The vast majority of fires in this region have been proven to be caused by human activity. This study confirmed that the forest management initiatives are effective in the core zone of the national park. The findings of this study will aid planners, managers and decision-makers in determining the location of fire lookout towers, installing sensors and constructing firebreaks, etc.
GeoHealth, 2021
Since the first reporting from Wuhan, Hubei province, China, the coronavirus disease has spread t... more Since the first reporting from Wuhan, Hubei province, China, the coronavirus disease has spread to more than a 150 countries across the globe, with a varying case-fatality ratio among them (WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard | WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard With Vaccination Data, n.d; World
Journal of Threatened Taxa, 2015
This study was funded by a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (ASE-0485) to study elepha... more This study was funded by a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (ASE-0485) to study elephant habitats of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. We thank the Tamil Nadu Forest Department (TNFD) for granting us permission to carry out this study. We especially grateful to the Field Director, Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, the Divisional Forest Officers of the Nilgiri North and South Divisions for permitting access to their database. The field staff of TNFD helped track documents and location of carcasses. Mr. Wilfred Lamuel and Mr. J. Duraimurugan provided field support, and Mr. Tito Joseph collated data from WPSI's wildlife crime database.
Wetlands, 2020
In a tropical coastal environment, mangrove ecosystems store large amount of atmospheric carbon i... more In a tropical coastal environment, mangrove ecosystems store large amount of atmospheric carbon in biomass and soil. West coast of India host 29% of the mangrove ecosystems of the country. Putting aside the few scientific studies about the Indian mangroves system, there exist gaps in our scientific knowledge of Blue Carbon domain. This study aims to quantify the ecosystem carbon stocks potential and community structure of mangrove vegetation/ ecosystem species of Vypin– Cochin, a coastal region of the Southwest coast of India. The information on species-specific carbon storage will benefit to choose best species in the afforestation and conservation initiatives. Distribution, community structure and carbon pools of above and below ground biomass of the study area were assessed. From the analysis, it is evident that the amount of carbon stored in mangroves varies according to species, functional attributes (basal area, DBH, mean height etc.) and region. Avicennia officinalis, Rhizoph...
Journal of Geovisualization and Spatial Analysis, 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41651-021-00083-w
Croatian journal of forest engineering
Forest fire is one of the most common natural hazards occurring in the Western Ghats region of Ke... more Forest fire is one of the most common natural hazards occurring in the Western Ghats region of Kerala and is one of the reasons for forest degradation. This natural disaster causes considerable damage to the biodiversity of this region during the dry fire season. The area selected for the present study, Eravikulam National Park, which is predominantly of grassland vegetation, is also prone to forest fires. This study aims to delineate the forest fire risk zones in Eravikulam National Park using remote sensing (RS) data and geographic information system (GIS) techniques. In the present study, methods such as Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Frequency Ratio (FR) were used to derive the weights, and the results were compared. We have used seven factors, i.e. land cover types, normalized difference vegetation index, normalized difference water index, slope angle, slope aspect, distance from the settlement, and distance from the road to prepare the fire risk zone map. The area of the...
Forest fires are one of the most common natural hazards that occur in the Western Ghats region. T... more Forest fires are one of the most common natural hazards that occur in the Western Ghats region. There are many protected areas in this part of the Western Ghats; therefore, fire can pose a serious threat to habitats and wildlife. In the past, fires have also affected the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve. The objectives of this study are to demarcate the fire risk zones using GIS techniques and to evaluate the influence of each factor on fire initiation. The following factors are selected for the analysis: land cover types, slope angle, aspect, topographic wetness index, distance from the settlement, distance from the road, distance from the tourist spot, and distance from the anti-poaching camp shed. The analytical hierarchy process method is used to determine the weights, and the ArcGIS and ERDAS Imagine software tools are used to create the fire risk zone map. The area of the prepared map is divided into the following five risk zones: very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. The ri...
Journal of Threatened Taxa, 2015
This study was funded by a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (ASE-0485) to study elepha... more This study was funded by a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (ASE-0485) to study elephant habitats of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. We thank the Tamil Nadu Forest Department (TNFD) for granting us permission to carry out this study. We especially grateful to the Field Director, Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, the Divisional Forest Officers of the Nilgiri North and South Divisions for permitting access to their database. The field staff of TNFD helped track documents and location of carcasses. Mr. Wilfred Lamuel and Mr. J. Duraimurugan provided field support, and Mr. Tito Joseph collated data from WPSI's wildlife crime database.
GeoHealth
Abstract Many of the respiratory pathogens show seasonal patterns and association with environmen... more Abstract Many of the respiratory pathogens show seasonal patterns and association with environmental factors. In this article, we conducted a cross‐sectional analysis of the influence of environmental factors, including climate variability, along with development indicators on the differential global spread and fatality of COVID‐19 during its early phase. Global climate data we used are monthly averaged gridded data sets of temperature, humidity and temperature anomaly. We used Human Development Index (HDI) to account for all nation wise socioeconomic factors that can affect the reporting of cases and deaths and build a stepwise negative binomial regression model. In the absence of a development indicator, all environmental variables excluding the specific humidity have a significant association with the spread and mortality of COVID‐19. Temperature has a weak negative association with COVID‐19 mortality. However, HDI is shown to confound the effect of temperature on the reporting of the disease. Temperature anomaly, which is being regarded as a global warming indicator, is positively associated with the pandemic's spread and mortality. Viewing newer infectious diseases like SARS‐CoV‐2 from the perspective of climate variability has a lot of public health implications, and it necessitates further research.
We assessed collection intensity of forest products in three regions of the Western Ghats: Kogar,... more We assessed collection intensity of forest products in three regions of the Western Ghats: Kogar, Sigur and KMTR with differing population densities and levels of forest protection. Fuel-wood was intensively collected in all three regions; fodder and green leaves in pre-dominantly agricultural regions and cattle manure in Sigur. Agriculture, wage labour and local and regional markets were associated with resource harvesting. Collection intensity decreased with increasing levels of protection, regardless of human density. Extensive for-est degradation in these regions suggests that the in-tensive use of forests for sustenance and consumption is no longer viable.
Biological Conservation, 2010
In India, conservation of biodiversity goes hand in hand with human welfare, as millions of peopl... more In India, conservation of biodiversity goes hand in hand with human welfare, as millions of people live adjacent or within protected areas and depend upon forests products. The high density and biomass requirements of these households could result in the degradation of forests and loss of biodiversity. We assessed the collection of forest products among households in five sites in the Western and Eastern Ghats of peninsular India: the Kogar region of the Central Western Ghats, the Bandipur and Sigur regions of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, the Kalakad–Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve of the southern Western Ghats and Similipal Tiger Reserve of the northern Eastern Ghats, and tested whether extraction pressure on forests was associated with the proportion of agricultural households, wage labour and population density. We also examined whether data on loss of cover as stated by the State of the Forest Reports was supported by field data. The regions differed in land use: Kogar, KMTR and Similipal were primarily agricultural regions, whereas households engaged in wage labour or in running small businesses were predominant in Sigur and Bandipur. Fuel–wood was collected ubiquitously for household use in all sites, used mainly for domestic requirements and secondarily for generating income. Green leaves for making fertilizer and fodder were collected for household use and did not enter the market. Cattle manure for the global organic coffee industry was a major forest product in Bandipur and Sigur. Extraction pressure on forests was positively associated with the availability of wage labour and was negatively with the proportion of agricultural households. Data from official sources seem inadequate to measure forest degradation in protected forests. Accurate estimation of forest condition through field assessments and remote sensing, and understanding the socio-economic variables associated with forest loss and degradation are needed for the sustainable management of Indian protected areas.
We assessed collection intensity of forest products in three regions of the Western Ghats: Kogar,... more We assessed collection intensity of forest products in three regions of the Western Ghats: Kogar, Sigur and KMTR with differing population densities and levels of forest protection. Fuel-wood was intensively collected in all three regions; fodder and green leaves in predominantly agricultural regions and cattle manure in Sigur. Agriculture, wage labour and local and regional markets were associated with resource harvesting. Collection intensity decreased with increasing levels of protection, regardless of human density. Extensive forest degradation in these regions suggests that the intensive use of forests for sustenance and consumption is no longer viable.
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Papers by Pratheesh C Mammen