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TERI SAS launches M.Sc. (Energy Studies & Management)
Comparative study of spatio-temporal changes in wetland in Tamil Nadu (India)

Student name: Ms Kajal Singh
Guide: Dr Neeti
Year of completion: 2017
Host Organisation: Environmental Adaptive Strategies, LLC Montclair, NJ, USA
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Prof. Eric A. Stern
Abstract: Wetlands are one of the most important ecosystems in terms of the services provided by them. Apart from supporting immense floral and faunal biodiversity, they serve as rainwater harvesting system, especially in an urban setup. India is a developing country with population growth rate highest on the globe. This has led to unplanned urbanization affecting the area covered by wetlands. The present study is a maiden attempt to analyze the annual changes in the area covered by wetlands and to compare it to the demographic changes in the area. Tamil Nadu is a state covering 3.5% (130058 sq. km) of the total national geographical area. We used moderate resolution imaging Spectro radiometer (MODIS) MOD10A1 v5.1 freely available daily from February 2000. We downloaded the images using CRAN R statistical package from February 2000 to December 2016. The images were processed in terms of clipping them to the area of Tamil Nadu and changing the format of images from HDF to Tiff using ArcGIS. These images were then subjected to analysis of count of different pixels assigned for different land covers using CRAN R. The count of pixel number assigned to “Lake” gave the total area covered by wetlands in the area in each image. The annual average of the area covered by wetland was calculated and analyzed. The results of comparison from 2000 to 2016 show decrease in the area covered by wetlands in Tamil Nadu state. There are thirty-two districts in Tamil Nadu out of which seven states which are located inland show decrease in area covered by wetland while twelve districts located in the coastal areas show increase. Remaining areas either showed no change or there was no wetland detected. The comparison of the changes detected in the wetland area with demographic changes does not show any specific trend.