Emissions from grassland burning in Kaziranga National Park, India – analysis from IRS-P6 AWiFS satellite remote sensing datasets

Abstract

Biomass burning from vegetation fires is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, we quantify biomass burning emissions from grasslands from the highly sensitive Kaziranga National Park, Assam, Northeast India. Most of the fires in the park are ‘controlled burning fires’ set by the park officials for management purposes. We evaluated the short-term impacts of fires and the resulting air pollution through integrating biomass burnt information from satellite remote sensing datasets. IRS-P6 Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) data during March and April corresponding to dry season were evaluated to delineate the burnt areas. These burnt area estimates were then integrated with biomass data and emission factors for quantifying the greenhouse gas emissions. Results suggested that of the total study area of 37,822 ha, nearly 3163.282 ha has been burnt during March, 2005. Within one month, the burnt area increased to 7443.92 ha by April, i.e., from 8.36% to 19.68%. In total, biomass burning from the grasslands contributed to 29.65 Tg CO₂, 1.19 Tg CO, 0.071 Tg NOx, 0.042 Tg CH₄, 0.0625 Tg total non-methane hydrocarbons, 0.152 Tg of particulate matter, and 0.062 Tg of organic carbon and 0.008 Tg of black carbon during April. The importance of ‘fire’ as a management tool for maintaining the wildlife habitat has been highlighted in addition to some of the adverse affects of air pollution resulting from such management practices. The results from this study will be useful to forest officials as well as policy makers to undertake some sustainable forest management practices to maintain an ideal habitat for Kaziranga's wildlife.

Keywords:

• biomass burning
• air pollution
• remote sensing
• burnt area
• emissions

Acknowledgements

We sincerely acknowledge the help received from Kaziranga park officials for providing us valuable information on controlled burning practices and habitat characteristics of wildlife. We also thank them for valuable help rendered during ground truth surveys and validation exercise of remote sensing imagery. We thank scientists from forestry and ecology division, National Remote Sensing Centre (Dept. of Space, Govt. of India), for initial discussions and helpful comments on vegetation mapping in the study region. Finally, we thank Director, NRSC and Dy.Director (RS&GIS–AA) Hyderabad, India, for providing the facilities.