Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

MANGROVE MAPPING OF DIFFERENT ESTUARIES ALONG RATNAGIRI BLOCK USING REMOTE SENSING

Ajay D. Nakhawa, Vichare Priyanka S., Sandip Markad, Punam A. Khandagale, Mangesh Shirdhankar and Manoj Pandit Brahmane

Abstract

The mangroves along the estuaries of Ratnagiri, India have remained largely investigated. The present study described the Mangrove of the different estuary located in Ratnagiri block, Maharashtra. The mangrove maps of estuaries were prepared using the unsupervised classification of principal components technique of Landsat-TM, Landsat-ETM, ASTER, IRS-P6 (LISS III) satellite data 1989, 1999, 2004 and 2009 respectively.The mangrove coverage of Ratnagiri block in 2009 was about 9.49 sq. km, while mangrove coverage in 1989, 1999 and 2004 were 7.17, 7.56 and 6.52 sq. km respectively. The largest extent of mangrove coverage was observed along the Jaigad, Sakhartar, Bhatye and Purnagad estuaries, while small extent of mangrove coverage was observed along the Varvade, Malgund, Nevare, Arey, Ranpar and Ganeshgule estuary. The highlight of the study is the occurrence of eleven mangrove species viz., Sonneratia alba, Rhizophora mucronata, R. apiculata, Kandelia candel, Bruguiera gymnorihza, Avicennia spp., Ceriops tagal, Lumnitzera racemosa, Excoecaria agallocha, Aegiceras corniculatum and Acanthus ilicifolius which makes it one of the most diverse mangrove patches in the Maharashtra.