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The main objective of the study is to assess land suitability for suggesting suitable crop sequences in Katihar district of Bihar, India. We first selected site-specific factors and assigned their weights using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for land suitability assessment. The layers of factors were integrated to prepare land suitability map. The findings revealed that of the total area (3.05 million ha), the largest area (48.5%) was marginally suitable for agriculture followed by moderately suitable (30.8%) and highly suitable (2.9%). Nearly 17.8% area was found unsuitable for agriculture. Rice–maize–rice, rice–maize–jute and maize–maize–rice were found suitable crop sequences in all suitability classes. Multilinear regression analysis between land suitability and factors shows that soil texture, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, pH and drainage proximity influenced land suitability. The study suggested soil reclamation, application of adequate amount of fertilizers, assured irrigation and flood control for sustainable crop sequences in the study area. Land restoration and soil reclamation measures should be taken to transform unsuitable areas for crop cultivation. Use of integrated geographical information system and AHP approach for analyzing land suitability and crop sequences may add a new dimension in spatial information science.

Forests are the most important terrestrial ecosystems providing sustenance not only to biodiversity but also to the rural communities. These resources are subjected to constant degradation and exploitation due to anthropogenic activities and changes in the climatic phenomena. Thus, present study examined the inherent forest vulnerability in one of the important Himalayan state, Uttarakhand in India. Site specific landscape parameters were chosen to analyze the vulnerability. GIS based analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was utilized to identify the important drivers of forest vulnerability in the study area. Findings revealed that of the total forested area, most of the area (61%) was under very high vulnerability followed by high vulnerability (36%). AHP analysis revealed that the main drivers of the inherent forest vulnerability were open forest cover, high disturbance in the forested areas, low biological richness and high road density. Findings of this study may help in understanding of the inherent forest vulnerability and adapting sustainable forest management strategies to control further forest degradation in the study area.

The paper explored the level of forest disturbance in the Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) of Indian tropical forest. We acquired single scene image of Landsat-5 (1989) and Landsat-8 (2015) for the analysis. Disturbance map was produced using fragmentation and canopy density models. The map was categorized into high, moderate, low, and undisturbed forest tracts. Spatiotemporal analysis of forest disturbance (1989–2015) revealed that highly disturbed tracts experienced a decrease of 43%, while medium and low disturbed tracts showed an increase of 57% and 30%, respectively. Undisturbed forest tracts witnessed decrease mainly due to a decrease in very high canopy density and increase in forest fragmentation. Within cores I, II and III of STR, undisturbed forest tracts in core I have significantly declined due to increased anthropogenic activities. Thus, the study calls for immediate attention to check forest disturbance in core I of STR. Though the government has initiated relocation program of the villages and restoration of the STR, the execution process has still a long way to achieve the goal. The methodology adopted in this study can effectively be utilized for assessing the forest disturbance tracts at spatial scales.