IAPRS & SIS, Vol.34, Part 7, "Resource and Environmental Monitoring", Hyderabad, India,2002 
  
ASSESSMENT OF OPTIMAL FODDER RESOURCE AVAILABILITY-DEMAND USING 
REMOTELY SENSED DATA AND GIS — A CASE STUDY IN THE MANDAKINI 
SUB-WATERSHED, GARHWAL HIMALAYA 
T.V.R. Murthy’, M.M. Kimothi®, T.S. Singh?, Srinivas Singh”, A. K. Pandey”, 
D.C.S. Rawat’, G.C.S. Negi®, Varun Joshi, R.K. Maikhuri? and J.K.Garg?* 
  
"FED/FPLG/RESA, Space Applications Centre (ISRO), Ahmedabad — 380 015 (India) 
*GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, P.Box No. 92, Srinagar - 246174 (India) 
KEY WORDS: Fodder, Optimal, Remote sensing, GIS, Spatial, Non-spatial, Overlay techniques 
ABSTACT 
The Mandakini sub-watershed in the Garhwal Himalayas has been chosen for the present investigation, with an objective to analyse 
the utilisation pattern of fodder resources use. For assessing the resource availability, the land cover / vegetation maps have been 
prepared using IRS LISS-III data of March/October, 1999. The ANPP values as obtained from field studies were used to estimate 
the total and optimal extractable biomass as fodder. For the purpose of socio-economic data collection these villages were stratified 
into clusters based on altitude, distance from road head and distance from resource. These two updated spatial themes (land 
cover/vegetation maps and village maps) were integrated using overl 
joined and amenable to retrieve village-wise fodder availability. 
ay techniques in which, the spatial and non-spatial databases are 
The Mandakini sub- watershed occupies 163235 ha of area 
comprising revenue land of 51333 ha and non-revenue land of 111902 ha. There are 451 villages out of which 14 are uninhabited. 
The total fodder availability in the Mandakini sub-watershed is 263635 t/year. However, when looked separately for village area 
(revenue land), it is 107322 t/year and for non-revenue land it is 156313 t/year. Based on the ecological principles, the sustainable 
amount (optimal) that can be extracted (30 % of ANPP) is limited to 119609 t/year for the entire Mandakini sub-watershed. For 
village area (revenue land), it is 62803 t/year and for non-revenue land it is 53806 t/year. Certain interesting facts emerge from the 
surplus / deficit analysis of fodder availability in the Mandakini sub-watershed. The scenario seems to on surplus side in terms of 
fodder availability (73565 t/year) when total extraction is considered which is seldom suggested. On the other hand optimal 
extraction scenario indicates grim picture with availability as low as 
—73461 t/year. These aforesaid figures are far from truth if, one 
looks at the availability within the revenue land which is -127267 t/year (at optimal extraction) and -82748 t/y (at total extraction). 
However, the overall surplus / deficit of fodder is —73461 t/year at optimal level of extraction and +73565 t/year at total level 
extraction. 
1. BACKGROUND 
All ecosystems, whether natural or semi-natural show a certain 
degree of diversity related to environmental heterogeneity 
(spatial variation) and system’s dynamics (temporal variation). 
Although, information on static aspects is often available in 
greater or lesser detail, much less is known about the processes 
that play a role in ecosystem (Toxopeus and Wijngaarden, 
1994). It warrants need for the incorporation of the dynamics in 
any description of ecosystems and formulation of management 
plans optimal for resource utilisation. Fodder is considered in 
the present study, first to understand their utilisation pattern 
followed by investigations leading to suggest optimal usage of 
these resources on sustainable basis in the Mandakini sub- 
watershed of Garhwal Himalayas. 
1.1 Fodder 
India has to its credit the largest number of cattle population of 
the world (approximately 198 millions in 1982), with an 
alarming rate of 10.7 % growth, which accounts for 80 animals 
per 40 ha of arable land (Bhatt and Rawat, 1993). This cattle 
population became 257.01 million in 1995 while sheep/goat 
were estimated to be 143.57 million. Out of the total fodder 
production in India about 85 % is being used as green-fodder, 
though the requirement is 121.5 million tonnes of green fodder 
and 23.86 million tonnes of dry fodder (Ravindranath and Hall, 
1995). On the other hand, fodder resources of the country 
  
: Corresponding author: (jkgarg@indiatimes.com) 
674 
cannot even meet half of the requirement and animals may not 
get even maintenance ration (i.e. just sufficient to maintain the 
health of the animal without loss or gain of weight when it is at 
rest ie. when it does no work or produces milk) and 
consequently, affects the health and productivity of animals. 
However, the truth remains that additional ration (production 
ration) is required for producing milk or for doing work. This is 
only indicative of wider problem, which would become 
complex when nutritional value is considered. 
Before arriving at management plans the first step is to analyse 
and understand the said resource use vis-à-vis availability - 
demand in the study area. The grasslands in the study area are 
cumulative consequence of biotic and anthropogenic 
interference. The grasslands/grazinglands in this region are 
apparently stable and indicate gaps between forested and 
deforested regimes (Melkania and Tandon, 1988). May be 
alpine pasture/ meadows (locally called ‘buggyal’) are 
exception and thought to be the climatic climax. However, 
Dabadghao and Shankarnarayan (1973) stated that, ‘even the 
alpine grasslands have been subjected to such intensive summer 
grazing for centuries that we can not venture to suggest what 
species might be represented in the truly climax formation 
there’. The study carried out by Kimothi (1994) brought out 
resource utilization vis-d-vis availability — demand in four sub- 
watersheds namely Nagolgad, Amritganga, Menagad and 
Kalpganga comprising 70 villages.