Current Forest Fires in Uttarakhand and Retrospective on Covid- 19 Lockdown - A Geographical Perspective through the Google Earth Engine (2010-2024)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36808/if/2025/v151i9/170778Keywords:
COVID-19, Pandemic, Fires, GEE, Human-activity, Uttarakhand, Vegetation.Abstract
Raging forest fires have become a characteristic feature of mountainous regions of India. Constant information is received on these as damaging the existing ecology but no direct works are observed in literature for analysing the geographical dimensions of the issue. This is aggravated by inaccessibility of the regions experiencing them. The state of Uttarakhand is a glaring example of forest fire activity which is majorly attributed to anthropogenic factors along with certain natural causes. Studying these through a spatial and temporal perspective can provide a very crucial insight into their occurrence and also the role of economic activities in impacting them.
While the earth is reeling severely under the negative externalities generated by human actions, the COVID-19 pandemic marks a distinct phase of 'nohuman activity' across the world. This has, in turn, lead to unimaginable outcomes on natural features and processes. In the light of economic layoffs, examinations can further help in outlining indirectly and directly whether lockdown was effective enough in curbing issues such as these and also in observing if such outcomes are independent of human operations. The Google Earth Engine lends itself as a useful and latest technology to analyse the inaccessible phenomena of forest fires and is attempted here. To make the observations more representative, an extended time period is taken for a comparative analysis. Results from about 1,000 satellite imageries and 89,294 fire detections from 2010-2024 indicated that forest fires exhibited an unprecedented decline in space and time for Uttarakhand during the lockdown period; clearly supporting the fact that human activities are mainly responsible for this problematic issue for the state's environment.
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