| Abstrakt: |
Wetlands play a crucial role as ecosystems, supporting life on Earth by providing diverse habitats and essential ecological services. One such internationally significant wetland is the Vembanad Kol Wetland in Kerala, known for its unique natural or near-natural wetland type within the biogeographic region. The northern part of this wetland, known as Kole land experiences most fertile soil due to nutrient rich alluvium which gets deposited from rivers. Accurate delineating the boundaries of Kole lands has remained a challenge, for effective management and conservation efforts in the region. Without reliable spatial data, it is difficult to regulate land use activities, allocation of resources such as water, agricultural inputs, and infrastructure investments, prioritizing conservation efforts. So, this study aims to digitize kole lands by employing field surveys, stakeholder consultations and geospatial analysis techniques. All the 132 padasekhararams were digitized in GIS environment. The digitized north Kole land gives a area of 8084.60 hectares, resulting in a variation of 0.16%. Chazhur grama panchayath has the highest number of padasekhararams (22 Nos). Block-wise distribution of padasekhararam shows that in Anthikad block panchayath has the highest number of padasekhararams (50 Nos) with Arimbur gramapanchayath has the largest Kole area of 1142.7 ha. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
