Importance and Types of Forests in India: Ecological and Economic Significance, Slides of Biology

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NATURAL

VEGETATION

Importance of natural vegetation and forests :

Forest constitute one of the most important basic natural resources of the country.

Ecological view :

Forests help in occurrence of rainfall, promote soil conservation in catchment areas, regulate runoff, improve moisture holding capacity of the soils and maintain ecological balance.

FOREST TYPES

AND THEIR

DISTRIBUTION IN

INDIA

Forest Types :

Terrain, climate, soil and water conditions greatly influence the character and type of vegetation. The Himalayan region, possesses a variety of vegetation with a distinctive character of alpine type at higher altitudes and this region is clearly distinguished from the rest of the country. Climatic factors mainly temperature and rainfall determine which plant community can flourish in a specific habitat. Soils and drainage considerably introduce modifications, and thus we have edaphic types such as the tidal forests.

Tropical dry deciduous forests occupy

the large part of peninsular plateau,

Ganga plain and area between the

Thar, the Himalayas and the Western

Ghats. They cover vast areas of plateau

and plain areas with rainfall between

70-100cms. This type of forest is found

with open formations and the

important species are teak, bamboo, sal

and khair. Docsity.com

Thorn forests are found in the plains of

Punjab, seaside's of Western ghats and

the drier parts of the Deccan plateau,

this type forests are found in dry areas

with rainfall less than 70cms. The

vegetation consists of open stunted

forests and xerophytic bushes and trees

are just 6-7mts high. Acacias and

euphoria's are common species

everywhere. Docsity.com

The Himalayan Temperate and Alpine

forests are found in all the ranges of middle

and upper Himalayas. The trees range from

100-250cms.at an elevation 1600-

3000mtsand the Alphine forests at a higher

elevation of 3500mts and above.A great

variety of species like broad leafed

temperate evergreen trees like oaks, laurels,

chestnuts, walnuts etc… The Alphine

vegetation consists of birch junifers, silver

fir and shrubby rhododendrons. Docsity.com

Distribution of Forest Lands : According to 2000-01 statistics, the forest land occupied about 675538 Sq.K.m. which accounts for 20.55% per cent of the total geographical area of the country. The largest area forest land 77265 Sq.K.m. is seen in Madhya Pradesh while the lowest 1745 Sq.K.m is in Haryana. Highest concentration of forest land is registered I Arunachal Pradesh state with 62. per cent of its geographical area while the lowest concentration is in Haryana state with 3.8 per cent. The Andaman and Nicobar islands are also found with high concentration of forest cover.

Development of Forests :

Problems:

The continuous chaotic growth of population and greed of the present man’s short sighted and unplanned commercial and subsistence gathering activities like indiscriminate lumbering, charcoal burning, firewood collection, over grazing and jhumming type of cultivation and annual forest fires have been causing considerable damage to forest wealth system in our country. Forests in India have been degenerated and degraded into barren and unproductive lands. To alleviate this serious concern, the development of different kinds of forests on war- foot lines is an important means at this end. Docsity.com