Anthropogenic disturbances and status of forest and wildlife in the dry deciduous forests of Chhattisgarh state in India

The advent of modem forces and the changes in socio- economic patterns of forest dwellers have increased the pressures on the forests. In order to mitigate such pressures and also to protect the forests and wildlife the model of protected areas networks has shifted and en- hanced such pressures in the unprotected natural forests due to several reasons. Being a low profile category of protected status and continuous human settlements, the present study highlights the case of dry deciduous forests of Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh state of India. The major objec- tives of this study were to quantify the status of forests and wildlife and also to determine the extent of anthropogenic disturbances faced by the dry deciduous forests of central India. Transect and silent drive count methods were used for sampling wildlife and quadrat method was used for sampling vegetation. Besides, the local uses of various forest pro- duces were also studied in view of understanding the people dependency on forests. The forest vegetation, in the study area, was pre-dominated by Shorea robusta, which had Madhuca indica, Diospyrus melanoxylon and Buchnania lanzan as the major companion species. The forest had either the high girth class mature tree species or the saplings. The low vegeta- tion cover and density were due to the high anthropogenic pressures mainly in the form of heavy livestock grazing and collection of etlmo- botanically important species. The study though reveals that the area is not rich in wildlife and the forest is fragmented, the area still supports some important species, which include many rare and endangered plants and animals. The findings of this study have been discussed in view of the management and conservation of the forest and wildlife in the dry deciduous forests.

Principal Denudation Processes and Their Contribution to Fluvial Suspended Sediment Yields in the Upper Yangtze River Basin and Volga River Basin

This paper synthesized the principal land denudation processes and their role in determining riverine suspended sediment yields(SSY) in two typical geographical environments of the Upper Yangtze River Basin in China and the Volga River Basin in Eastern Europe. In the Upper Yangtze River Basin, natural factors including topography, climate,lithology and tectonic activity are responsible for the spatial variation in the magnitude of denudation rates.Human disturbances have contributed to the temporal changes of soil erosion and fluvial SSY during the past decades. On one hand, land use change caused by deforestation and land reclamation has played an important role in the acceleration of sediment production from the central hilly area and lower Jinsha catchment; On the other hand, diverse soil conservation practices(e.g., reforestation,terracing) have contributed to a reduction of soil erosion and sediment production since the late 1980 s.It was difficult to explicitly decouple the effect of mitigation measures in the Lower Jinsha River Basindue to the complexity associated with sediment redistribution within river channels(active channel migration and significant sedimentation). The whole basin can be subdivided into seven sub-regions according to the different proportional inputs of principal denudation processes to riverine SSY. In the Volga River Basin, anthropogenic sheet, rill and gully erosion are the predominant denudation processes in the southern region, while channel bank and bed erosion constitutes the main source of riverine suspended sediment flux in the northern part of the basin. Distribution of cultivated lands significantly determined the intensity of denudation processes.Local relief characteristics also considerably influence soil erosion rates and SSY in the southern Volga River Basin. Lithology, soil cover and climate conditions determined the spatial distribution of sheet, rill and gully erosion intensity, but they play a secondary role in SSY spatial variation.