Acknowledgement
The completion of this paper has come through the overwhelming help that came from many people whom mentioning each one may not be exhaustive. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all the people who offered their kind help and guidance throughout my project period.
I deeply appreciate the efforts of my supervisor at ITC, Prof. Dr. Alfred Stein, Dr. N.R. Patel, supervisor at IIRS and Dr. V.K. Dadhwal (Dean, IIRS) whose guidance, vast experience, has assisted me in production of this paper. I would also like to thank Dr. M.C. Porwal (Scientist, Forestry and Ecology Division) for providing me the data of my study area. My special gratitude also goes to Mr. P.L.N. Raju (In-Charge Geoinformatics) and Mr. C. Jeganathan (Programme Coordinator) for their immense support and help during my entire project period. My special thanks to Mr. G.C. (Gerrit) Huurneman (Assistant Professor), Earth Observation Science for his support and guidance during our stay at Netherlands. I would also like to thank our Programme Coordinator Ms. Dr. J.E. (Jantien) Stoter (Assistant Professor) for providing all the assistance during our stay at Netherlands. Thanks to Mr. Parsun Gangopadhayay (Phd. Scholar, ITC) for his help in providing project related information during my stay at ITC, The Netherlands.
My special thanks also goes to Dr. Mridul Hazarika (Director, Tea Research Association), Mr. Prasanta Bordoloi (Scientist, Tea Research Association), Dr. B.K. Lashkar (Advisory Officer, Tea Research Association, North Bank), Dr. Hareswar Goswami (Scientist, Tea Research Association), Mr. Prabitra Borpatragohain (Statistician, Tea Research Association), Mr. Sukumar Debnath (Tea Research Association) and Mr. Dipankar Borah (Research Associate, Tea Research Association) for their overwhelming help in providing relevant information and data required for my project work. I would also like to thank all the managers of the concerned gardens that I have visited for their cooperation during the data collection and field visit.
My special gratitude also goes to all the researchers of Forestry and Ecology Division of IIRS and especially to Mr. Subroto Nandy, Mr. Subroto Paul and Mr. Nikhil Lele for their kind help and guidance and to Ms Puja Narula, researcher (Geoinformatics) for her kind help and support. My special thanks also goes to my sister Barnali for her kind help, moral support and encouragement that she has shown to me during my entire project period. My special thanks also goes to my brother Uttam (Mera Bhai) who has taken his busy time out to go through my thesis and give his valuable suggestions. Thanks to him once again. Special thanks also goes to my good friend Bhaskar for providing me with all the required softwares during my project phase.
At last my special thanks to my parents specially my father for his immense moral support and help during my entire project period.
My thanks will not be complete if I do not mention my MSc classmates Ms. Aditi Sharma, Mr. Ambuja Nayak, Mr. Javed Mallick, Ms. Rashmi Kandwal, Mr. Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, Mr. S.G. Chavan and Mr. Uttam Kumar. Thanks to all of you for your kind support.
Rishiraj Dutta
MSc. Geoinformatics
IIRS, Dehradun