Forests are crucial for mitigating climate change, but many forests continue to be driven from carbon sinks to sources through human activities. To support more sustainable forest uses, we need to measure and monitor carbon stocks and emissions at high spatial and temporal resolution. Forest biomass is an essential indicator for monitoring the Earth’s ecosystems and climate. It is a critical input to greenhouse gas accounting, estimation of carbon losses and forest degradation, assessment of renewable energy potential, and for developing climate change mitigation policies such as REDD+, among others. Wall-to-wall mapping of aboveground biomass (AGB) is now possible with satellite remote sensing. However, remote sensing methods require extant, up-to-date, reliable, representative and comparable in situ data for calibration and validation. We develop and exemplify new methods for estimating a range of vegetation traits including canopy chlorophyll, leaf area index, canopy height, and biomass, useful for carbon estimation and modelling.
Species distributions and abundances are undergoing rapid changes worldwide. This highlights the significance of reliable, integrated information for guiding and assessing actions and policies aimed at managing and sustaining the many functions and benefits of plant species offer. We brought out the spatial variations of plant diversity, and quantified the contribution of climate drivers for the first time in Indian context, using over 5500 species from 15500 sampling locations.
We contribute to the fields of phytogeography and ecological climatology through theorizing, modeling and conducting innovative experiments; and proved that large-scale variation in phytodiversity is optimized to precipitation and temperature seasonality at regional scale across Indian Himalayas and Eastern Ghats. We illustrated a methodological protocol to monitor land and water resources developmental activities using satellite data that has been adopted by Tripura State Forest Department, India.
We are developing a Dynamics Vegetation Model (KgpDVM) by integrating field measurements with satellite data.
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Estimate of the global distribution of stratiform supercooled liquid water clouds using the LITE lidar Hogan RJ, Behera MD, O'Connor EJ and Illingworth AJ By Geophysical Research Letters 31 1-6 (2004)
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Estimate of the global distribution of stratiform supercooled liquid water clouds using the LITE lidar Hogan RJ, Behera MD, O'Connor EJ and Illingworth AJ By Geophysical Research Letters 31 1-6 (2004)
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Energy determines broad pattern of plant distribution in Western Himalaya Panda R. M., Behera M. D., Roy P. S. By Ecology and Evolution - (2017)
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Energy determines broad pattern of plant distribution in Western Himalaya Panda R. M., Behera M. D., Roy P. S. By Ecology and Evolution - (2017)
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New Vegetation Type Map of India Prepared Using Satellite Remote Sensing: Comparison with Global Vegetation Maps and Utilities Roy PS, Behera MD, et al. By International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 39 142-159 (2015)
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New Vegetation Type Map of India Prepared Using Satellite Remote Sensing: Comparison with Global Vegetation Maps and Utilities Roy PS, Behera MD, et al. By International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 39 142-159 (2015)
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An indirect method of estimating leaf area index in a tropical deciduous forest, India using LAI 2000 Plant Canopy Analyzer Behera S, Behera MD and Tuli R. By Ecological Indicators 58 356-364 (2015)
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An indirect method of estimating leaf area index in a tropical deciduous forest, India using LAI 2000 Plant Canopy Analyzer Behera S, Behera MD and Tuli R. By Ecological Indicators 58 356-364 (2015)
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Pattern of angiosperm plant dispersal profile of India Behera M. D., Roy P. S., Mahanand S. , Panda R. M., Padhee S. By Environmental Monitoring and Assessment - (2019)
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Pattern of angiosperm plant dispersal profile of India Behera M. D., Roy P. S., Mahanand S. , Panda R. M., Padhee S. By Environmental Monitoring and Assessment - (2019)
Principal Investigator
- Biodiversity and Climate Change
- Biotechnological Interventions for management of Protected Areas
- Development of Forest Fire Spread Model using Satellite Remote Sensing and Computational Models including Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in Sikkim Himalayas using High Performance Computing System
- Modelling Forest Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics under the Integrated Effects of Plant Invasion and Climate Change
- Modelling Forest Phenological Parameters from Time Series Remote Sensing Data in Simlipal Biosphere Reserve
- Study on Young Children and Climate
Co-Principal Investigator
- Establishing Control Parameters on Flammability of Plant Species for Reduction of Forest Fire Events and Scientific Management Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)
Ph. D. Students
Abhishek Kashyap
Area of Research: Modelling in remote Sensing
Ambadipudi Jaya Prakash
Area of Research: Vegetation Carbon
B Jagadish
Area of Research: Carbon Studies using Satellite Data
Ishita Sharan Srivastava
Area of Research: Remote Sensing of Water and Vegetation
Roma Varghese
Area of Research: Remote Sensing and Modelling
Somnath Paramanik
Area of Research: Hyperspectral Remote Sensing and Mangrove Chlorophyll Estimation
Veera Sri Naga Sai
Area of Research: Dynamic Vegetation Model
Vinod P V
Area of Research: Machine Learning in Remote Sensing
Yogesh
Area of Research: Forest Fire
