Scenario-Based Assessment of Policy Interventions in Karnataka State, India

Nature functions holistically. A great diversity of biotic species, including humans, have been associated with each other for long periods, and co-evolution is at the centre of all ecosystems. The individual cannot live independently of the living environment, and individuals’ actions have an impact on the environment. On the contrary, today's human societies override the integrity of ecosystems, shaking the very foundations of life itself to their detriment. For the lasting well-being of human societies, they need to learn more about the ecosystems. They form a part, assess their complexities and carrying capacity, and modify or derive resources from them without straining their capacity to provide goods and services perpetually. The Karnataka State, India, gifted with enormous natural resources potential, and the mandate of sustainable development based on the foundation of prudent management of ecosystems, is yet to be a reality. Various developmental programmes, which proclaimed to be functioning on sustainability principle, on looking back, have only been fraying the complex web of life, disrupting ecosystems and causing a decline in overall productivity. This is true in four major sectors such as forestry, fisheries, agriculture and hydrology. In this context, the sustainable development concept has evolved to balance the ecosystem and its environment and development. This underlines the need to improve the quality of human life at the same time, which must be within the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. The sound environment is achieved by implementing stipulated procedures related to the environment, and actions adopted and/or enacted by the government or governing bodies. This involves laws, rules, methods, administration, and legislative decisions related to the sustenance of the environment. They address the key issues of quality, control, and mitigation of pollution in the air, water, soil, noise, and issues like conservation and preservation of habitat quality, wildlife, national parks and sanctuaries, forests, and prevention of illegal trafficking of wildlife, etc. These policies are based on the guidelines from international conventions, international statutes, central and state governments, local bodies, and, to a certain extent, from culture and history. Most often, policies consider inputs from interdisciplinary allied subjects like sociology, economics, ecology, natural sciences, geology, etc. In order to have guidelines for regulating and mitigation considering functional components of the environment, environmental policies are being formulated by authorities for; Sustainable development of a region requires a synoptic ecosystem approach related to the dynamics of natural variability and the effects of human interventions on key indicators of biodiversity and productivity. The concept of cumulative effects of the incremental reduction and erosion of natural systems’ integrity from the interactions of developmental activities provides a perspective to redirect impact analysis to deal with the driving causes of unsustainable development. The conservation importance of an area is determined by assessing its ecological values and functions. This necessitates inventorying, mapping and monitoring natural resources to determine viable management strategies. This is achieved through the accounting of ecosystem extent and conditions using temporal remote sensing data coupled with field data. Integrating environmental dimensions into land-use planning and management processes can greatly contribute to the sustainability of natural resources. Sustainable landscape management requires advanced information on likely land-use changes, which would help in evolving mitigation strategies to sustain dependent communities’ livelihoods. This entails modeling and visualization of landscape transitions with temporal-spatial data. Change detection analyses have gained prominence with the availability of spatial data since 1970’s. Multiresolution spatial data with advances in modeling techniques would aid in the geo-visualization of likely land uses with the policy decisions, which is vital for sustainable resource management. This would help to examine and statistically define the spatial patterns of LULC changes at a precise interval. Modeling helps identify the most appropriate spatial pattern of future land uses. This information helps assess resource availability and serves as a decision support system (DSS) for managers, planners, and decision-makers. Modeling and visualization will satisfy numerous sustainable development conditions, such as the conservation of biological and cultural diversities through ecosystem protection. Apart from inventorying, mapping, monitoring, and change analyses, modeling, and visualization would empirically interpret the consequences of spatial changes. Predictive statistical and geospatial models used widely for modelling landscape dynamics are logistic regression models, spatial dynamic models, spatial Markov chains (MC), Cellular automata (CA), and multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques, etc. modeling and visualization of landscape dynamics in Karnataka has been done by considering (i) Business As Usual Scenario-BAU, (ii) Agent based land use transition scenario-ALT, (iii) Reserve Forest Protection scenario-RFP, (iv) Afforestation scenario-AFS and (v) Sustainable Development Policy Scenario -SDP. The spatiotemporal land use analysis was carried out from 1985 to 2019 using temporal remote sensing data (LANDSAT and IRS) through the Gaussian maximum likelihood algorithm. The districts of the Western Ghats region have higher forest cover than other districts. The State has only 15% of the geographical area under forest compared to 21% in 1985. Post-1990s, the state witnessed large-scale land-use transitions due to industrialization, urbanization, an increase in horticulture crops, conversion from agriculture to market-based crops (higher economic), etc. BAU depicts a likely increase in built-up area by 11.5% from 3% (2019). The forest cover, and agriculture areas would lose the major tract for the possible expansion of built-up cover. The dry and moist deciduous forest cover was shown higher changes with a loss of 6.5% forest cover. The existing infrastructure and the built-up cover might transform deciduous forests, and agriculture areas along highways across the state. Cities such as Bangalore, Mangalore, Dharwad depicted compact growth, whereas Mysore, Belgaum, Hassan, Tumkur (Tier-2) cities have indicated peri-urban growth. The ALT scenario incorporates the likely developmental activities - upgrading of urban infrastructure (roads, commercial establishments, information networks, industrial units, sports/recreation), which shows an increase in built-up cover of 15% compared to BAU. ALT scenario presents a more compact urban growth than the BAU, considering that new, high-density residential development occurs inside the cities, major towns, and polycentric urban agglomeration associated with the provision of new transport, industries, and other project investments. Both BAU and ALT scenario projections indicate a significant reduction in forest areas, and agricultural land uses. ALT scenario indicates, only 9% forest cover compared to 15% in 2019. The agriculture area showed a loss of 2%, which might affect food availability in the region. The regions where dry crops are being practiced would witness higher transformation, signifying the agents/driver’s role in land use alterations. ALT scenario shows that the higher land use conversion due to transportation, and other projects, which tend to encourage more compact, peri-urban, and mixed land use developments, necessitates effective policies. The RF scenario assumes the protection of reserve forests in the regions without allowing any developmental activities and expansion of earlier land-uses. The regions covered under reserve forest protection do not favour development and other land-use conversions. The districts that are part of the Western Ghats region will not change compared to BAU and ALT scenarios. The areas with dry deciduous forest cover and not under the reserve forest area protection would experience abrupt growth due to the transportation corridors and urban clusters. The urban area of 2019 is considered another factor influencing land-use change, unlike other scenarios. RF scenario shows a likely built-up cover of 11%, while retaining evergreen forest cover of 5%. The AF scenario shows the likely improvement in its forest cover due to the plantation activities and protection of degraded forests from uncontrolled land use conversion. The forest cover shows 9.3%, a slight increase compared to BAU and ALT. The built-up cover would limit existing cities and towns by over 11%. The new plantation activities would compensate for the abrupt land-use conversion, especially in the moist, dry deciduous cover regions. The districts such as Bidar, Kolar, Koppala, etc., did not show any improvement due to the least area of forest land availability. SDP scenario signifies stringent policy implementation initiatives with the least disturbances. The forest cover would remain 11% compared to 17% in 2019, which is the least possible loss compared to all considered scenarios (BAU, ALT, RF, and AF). The urbanization process would restrict the existing tier-1 and tier-2 cities, and the least increase was shown in peri-urban areas. Districts such as Bidar, Gulbarga, Bagalkot, and Kolar might experience higher land use conversions due to existing infrastructure and the absence of any forest policy. Overall, RFP, AF, and SDP scenarios favor the protection of evergreen and moist deciduous forest categories. BAU, and ALT scenarios depict emerging urban clusters, indicating smaller clusters of paved areas are no longer available and tend to agglomerate with bigger ones to form urban centres, satellite towns, and dispersed growth at the periphery of the tier-2 city limits. New constructions might occur in the rural hinterland, which results in the loss of evergreen, moist deciduous cover and agriculture areas. Categories such as plantation, water, and open field categories had similar values across all scenarios. The scenarios would directly help decision-makers/planners reduce the impacts on the environment with stricter growth rules; otherwise, conversion of primary, secondary forest/ moist/dry deciduous forest into urban areas would be favored (BAU, ALT), which would induce ecological imbalances. Another important observation in terms of topography is that construction restrictions in the steep slope areas have played an essential role in restricting urban settlements from further infiltration into forested areas. Collectively, scenarios 3–5 are appropriate for sustainable development without altering the existing edges of agriculture, forests, water bodies, and other protected areas or conservation zones. Additionally, they emphasize a planned growth strategy for a habitable region. Integrated planning through regulated land-use conversion can support self-sufficient towns along newly provided public transport corridors, limiting the abrupt land-use conversion. The land-use dynamics involving the decline of forests have resulted in a significant change in ecosystem services. The provisioning goods (timber, NTFP, fish, fuelwood, fodder, bamboo, cane, genetic material, etc.) from the forests of Karnataka is about 613 billion INR in 2019. Due to land-use changes with the decline of forests, the provisioning services in 2033 would reduce to 524 billion INR (BAU scenario), 521 billion INR (ALT Scenario), 533 billion INR (RFP Scenario), 530 billion INR (AF Scenario) and 540 billion INR (SDP), which highlights the need to implement afforestation with the reserve forest protection (SDP scenario) to sustain the livelihood through the provision of goods. ALT scenario shows a reduction of 92 billion INR in provisional goods compared to 2019. The SDP scenario has shown improvement in ecosystem services compared to other scenarios, which highlights the role of policy decisions. Regulating services pertains to services resulting from the ability of ecosystems to regulate biological processes and influence climate, hydrological, and biochemical cycles, thereby maintaining environmental conditions beneficial to individuals and society. Regulating services (Air Quality, Climate Regulation, Carbon Sequestration, Pollination, Soil Erosion, Fertility, Ground Water Recharge, Water Purification, Waste Treatment) quantified district-wise for 2019, and various scenarios of 2033 reveal that the regulating services from forest ecosystems in 2019 are about 926 billion INR compared to 724 billion INR in 2033 (BAU Scenario), 716 billion INR (ALT Scenario), 720 billion INR (RFP Scenario), 725 billion INR (AF Scenario) and 824 billion INR (SDP Scenario), emphasising the need to implement the sustainable development programme (SDP Scenario) to sustain regulating services to support diverse biota on the Earth. Cultural services of forest ecosystems in 2019 are about 294 billion INR compared to 291 billion INR in 2033 (BAU), 291 billion INR (ALT, RFP, AF Scenarios), and 293 billion INR (SDP Scenario). The total ecosystem service value of forests in Karnataka is about 1835 billion INR in 2019. However, with the land-use changes leading to degradation of forest ecosystems, the total ecosystem services value would be 1540 billion INR (BAU Scenario), 1530 billion INR (ALT Scenario), 1546 billion INR (RFP Scenario), 1547 billion INR (AF Scenario) and 1658 billion INR (SDP Scenario), emphasizing the need to protect reserve forests and take up afforestation of degraded forest patches to sustain ecosystem goods and services. The relative share of ecosystem services for 2019 and considered policy scenarios. Regulating services dominate (47–51%) compared to the provisioning (32–34%) and cultural services (16–19%).