Human consumption and management of land, i.e., how people transmit to a landscape as a source of livelihood, shelter, recreation, or industry, are powerful forces shaping patterns and dynamics in human-occupied landscapes. Understanding and managing landscape change, therefore, requires a thorough knowledge of the developmental processes the area is undergoing, causing the change in the land use pattern over time. In this study land use/cover dynamics of the Central Highland of Deccan Peninsula and Semi-Arid zone of Gujarat Rajputana bio-geographic regions of India was assessed using a combination of hybrid classification, markov analysis approach within the time frame of 2000-2013. In this time frame, major changes have been identified in dense forest, open forest, cropland, fallow land and in the barren landforms. The landscape has witnessed a substantial increase in built-up areas from 31317 sq. km. in 2000 to 52338 sq. km in 2013. The scrubland has largely declined from 35713.06 sq. km in 2000 to 23003.88 sq.km in 2013; it might have resulted from the transition of scrubland to the fallow land which was predicted as more than 70% in the first phase and more than 30% in the later phase. The area under dense forest constantly decreased in the studied time (84027 sq. km to 71225.37 sq. km). The Markov analysis estimated a probability of changing of open forest types to fallow land (36% in 2000-2006 and 20% in 2006-2013). As the environmental damage is irreversible due to industrialization, therefore a sound strategy needs to be implemented for sustainable use of natural resources that can go hand in hand.

Invasive alien species are one of the most significant threats to biodiversity of the earth ecosystem. Spatial modeling has played a vital role in predicting and mapping the suitable areas of the species habitat for management implementation. Lantana camara is one of the ten worst invasive weed enlisted by IUCN., and has its distribution in more than 154000 sq. km area in India. We predicted the distribution of Lantana camara using Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) in MaxEnt software for Rajaji- Corbett landscape in the lower Shivalik region of the state of Uttarakhand, India. The predicted area for the invasion was classified into four categories high, good, medium, and low potential areas. The distribution hotspots were identified using Getis Ord G* method in ArcGIS 10.5 by calculating plot-wise species occurrence. Major hotspot areas under threat of high infestation are Dholkhand, Gohri, Ramgarh, Motichur, and Chilla from Rajaji Tiger Reserve, Palain, Mandal and Maidavan from Kalagarh Tiger Reserve and Bijrani, Dheela, Dhikala, Jhirna and Kalagarh from Corbett Tiger Reserve. This study provides a current status of the invasive species in the landscape with identified areas that need immediate actions to control the spread of the species. The study results can help the policymakers and stakeholders build an efficient and strategically weed management plan.

The population boom increases land-use requirements, and shrinking regions are available to preserve natural biodiversity. Unfortunately, scientific knowledge does not seem to have and might never get a correct solution to how much territory will be sufficient for satisfying the various biodiversity conservation goals. Prioritization of habitat, primarily for threatened species, is a critical management challenge. Habitat management efforts are gradually being performed over broader geographic regions, emphasizing the necessity of spatial and strategic prioritization. Habitat prioritization is a technique popular for identifying critical areas needing conservation initiatives. To develop a strategic conservation framework, key issues must be identified based on the ground knowledge and present land use status, which are difficult to gather for highly rough terrain areas. Incorporating spatial data sets thus helps to get the desired knowledge of the site on a large scale. This study used a grid-based multicriteria approach to create a spatial conservation management framework for the Rajaji-Corbett landscape (RCL) in Northern India. A grid-based prioritization assessment was conducted to identify priority areas for the RCL, keeping invasive species and fire as significant threats. The indicators or criteria were selected by looking at present vital concerns in the landscape. We took 20 indicators for our multicriteria assessment for landscape prioritization of RCL using 2 × 2 km grids for the evaluation and classified them according to low, medium, and high priority areas using Arc GIS Pro. The results identified 931 sq. km area of this landscape needs immediate management interventions where frequent fire incidents and presence of invasive species are high. RCL is well known for its biodiversity wealth and assemblage of various wildlife populations.