Myanmar Protected Areas: Context, Current Status ... - Istituto Oikos

During all the stops the following data was collected:
• vegetation type;
• dominant tree species;
• qualitative assessment of the vegetation status;
• observations on morphology, soil and lithology;
• panoramic views of the inaccessible areas;
• observation of the possible vegetation changes in place.
For the last item the local knowledge of the RCCA expert and of all the local inhabitants interviewed
was crucial.
Topography of the Rakhine Yoma
and Ground Survey trip route
(March 2010)
The main constraint of the trip
was the lack of roads accessible
by vehicles: the team could
not enter inside the protected
area itself. Paths permitted
walking access only to the park
border and, in future, it will be
useful to plan a walking tour
of a few days within the Park,
identifying some strategic
environmental points/areas.
However, all the different
regions have been crossed
and four main transects have
been carried out to cover all
the possible situations: one
East-West transect in the
southern mountain range; one South-North in the coastal area; another one West-East in the northern
range; and finally one in the inland valley region. Although the ground-truth of the land cover were
collected far away from the PA, satellite multispectral data allowed to derive transfer keys based on
multispectral signatures, colour and spatial patterns typical of each land cover and hence to extrapolate
the information at regional level.
Land cover map of Rakhine area 1974 (left) and 2000-2003 (right)
In-depth Study of Rakhine Yoma Elephant Range Wildlife Reserve
Step 3. Land cover maps
After organizing all the data collected, 10 land cover classes were defined as indicated in the legend
below.It was possible to identify the same land cover classes in all the satellite maps utilised for the
analysis, with the exception for the 1974 map which do not include category 9 “Plantation and degraded
dry deciduous land”, that was not yet present in the past.
By means of visual interpretation of satellite images and using the previously described legend the
Land Cover map of years 2000-2003 and the Land Cover map of 1974 were drawn up.
In spite of the technical differences in the maps of different years that make difficult an accurate
comparison, the land cover maps from 1974 and 2000-2003 have been overlapped and a spatial analysis
has been carried out to underline the areas where changes have occurred. Small changes, less than 1
hectare, have been excluded because are caused probably only by an imperfect overlapping of the
maps caused by the technical differences of the dataset of satellite images used.
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