Assessment of forest cover loss and impacts on ecosystem services: Coupling of remote sensing data and people's perception in the dry deciduous forest of West Bengal, India

Forest loss is one of the major environmental issues and is threatening livelihoods across the world. Understanding the drivers of forest cover loss in the different forest cover densities and its impacts on ecosystem services are relevant for sustainable management of the forest ecosystem. Extensive studies exploring topics related to spatial-temporal deforestation, little is known regarding quantitative forest loss by individual disturbance driver and people's perceptions of forest loss's impacts on provisioning ecosystem services. The present study focused on trends and patterns of forest loss by forest disturbance drivers in the different forest cover densities and its impacts on provisioning ecosystem services integrated with remote sensing data and local people's perceptions in the dry deciduous forest of West Bengal. This study employs stratified probability sampling approach using time series Landsat data on Google Earth Engine platform to quantify forest loss between 2006 and 2020 in the different pre-disturbance forest cover densities by forest disturbance drivers. Structured household interviews were used to examine local people's perceptions about forest cover loss and its impacts on ecosystem services. We found that 68.463% of forest area is cleared by disturbance drivers between 2006 and 2020. Annual rate of forest clearing is increasing trend and dominating in dense forests, followed by medium forests and open forests. Logging and agricultural clearing was the most dominant drivers over space and time. Overall 73.92% of households perceived decline in the availability of provisioning ecosystem services. Wild foods and medicinal plants were the most affected ecosystem services followed by livestock feed, construction materials and fuel wood. This study may help to the regional assessment of gross forest loss by individual disturbance driver, and its impacts on provisioning ecosystem services for supporting decision making to sustainable forest management.