Fig. 1 Methodology used for generation of Map Atlas
State-wise vegetation type maps were collected from participating and collaborating institutes. Edge matching was done between boundaries of adjoining states with standard false colour composite as a reference to eliminate the sharp edges. State-wise legends of the vegetation map were then standardized for each region. The corrected maps were mosaiced into a single map and same procedures were followed for each region. The customized package Bio_CAP developed at The Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun was used to carry out multi-criteria spatial analysis. The satellite data provided key input i.e. vegetation type, which is used for deriving several landscape indices (fragmentation, porosity, patchiness, interspersion, and juxtaposition) depicting status of forest ecosystem (Roy et al., 2002). Ancillary database on roads and settlements has been used to prepare proximity buffer map. The above parameters were used to derive disturbance index map. Digital elevation model was used to prepare terrain
complexity map. All these parameters were integrated together with the field data on species richness, ecosystem uniqueness and biodiversity value.
The resultant map is the biological richness. Out of all the results only the mot important layers like vegetation type, fragmentation, disturbance regimes and biological richness were considered for map composition. Simplified methodology is given in the Fig. 1. District, state and international digital boundary of Survey of India (SOI) at 1:250,000 were over layed on the raster layers. Each map consists of vegetation type map, fragmentation map, disturbance regimes map, biological richness map, location map of the region with respect to India, IRS 1C LISS-III path and row reference and participating and collaborating institutions. Scale of each map varies with respect to its spatial extent. General map scale ranges from 1: 2,00,000 to 1:20,00,000 and uniform map frame of 70 cm´ 55 cm is followed for all the maps (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3).
Fig. 2 Map Atlas of North Eastern Region, Western Ghats and Western Himalayas
The Map Atlas allows to identify gaps in the conservation and management areas, and can help in biodiversity conservation planning by setting priority areas
