Inventory And Monitoring Of Biodiversity

The objectives of inventory and monitoring of biodiversity are the followings.
  • to develop baseline information on key biological elements in forest, alpine, freshwater, and agro ecosystems for monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of forest and biodiversity management and 
  • to identify critical areas that require immediate protection. As the forest and biodiversity information base synthesizes information from both the biophysical and social sciences, it should be accurate and complete. 

Under this subcomponent, rapid biodiversity surveys, which would display the ecosystems throughout the state, will be conducted. The survey will be carried out using both the coarse filter and fine filter approaches. The outputs will be 1) biodiversity information on four ecosystems to be used in the production of thematic maps for management so that key areas are protected and 2) data to be stored at the GIS/RS laboratory.


Implementation of Rapid Biodiversity Survey (1,000 sample plots)

Approximately 1,000 sample plots will be randomly generated throughout Sikkim for quantitative biodiversity study using the digital spatial information base (in case the randomly selected plots are the point which is not important due to the snow covered area, such plots are not necessarily included). 


Detailed Survey at Hotspots (300 sample plots)

In addition, known hotspots in forest, alpine, freshwater, and agro- ecosystems will have approximately 300 more plots to present more detailed information. Enumeration and observation of all sample plots will be conducted. 

The work above (a) and (b) will be conducted under the supervision of the Forest Department, the State Pollution Control Board, Sikkim University, and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and other agencies. For freshwater ecosystems, a separate random sampling method will be applied under the supervision of the State Pollution Control Board. All collected data will be incorporated into the spatial forest and biodiversity information base.