Forest Landscape Dynamics in West Bengal: A Social-Ecological Perspective (Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research)

Forests breathe life into landscapes regulating climate, sustaining livelihoods, and binding communities to the land they call home. This book embraces that full complexity, weaving together scientific rigor and human sensitivity to examine West Bengal's forest ecosystems through a genuinely social-ecological lens. At its technical core, the book demonstrates how remote sensing platforms, GIS software, and spatial analysis tools from Landsat and Sentinel imagery to fragmentation modeling and machine learning algorithms are transforming how we measure forest health, estimate biomass and carbon stocks, and track land-use change across time. As West Bengal's forests store roughly 87.5 million tons of carbon and support over three million people, accurately capturing their dynamics is not merely academic it is urgent.

Yet the book never loses sight of the human story. Each chapter navigates the layered relationships between forest-dependent communities and the landscapes they inhabit from pre-colonial indigenous stewardship and colonial dispossession to post-independence Joint Forest Management experiments and the still-contested Forest Rights Act. The struggles of tribal communities in Jhargram, the livelihood paradoxes of Binpur-II, the ecological unraveling around Siliguri, and the fragile resilience of the Sundarbans all find careful, grounded treatment here. Across ten thematic chapters, the book moves fluidly between field surveys, satellite-derived evidence, and policy analysis-covering forest fragmentation, biomass estimation, urban encroachment, biodiversity valuation, livelihood dependency, participatory governance, and climate-adaptive management. The Jangal Mahal carbon study, Bankura's ecosystem service decline, and Arabari's JFM legacy each illuminate broader truths about conservation and equity. Moreover, this volume is an essential resource for forest planners, policymakers, NGOs, and researchers, as well as students across geography, environmental science, forestry, botany, wildlife management, and remote sensing disciplines.

Pravat Kumar Shit is an Assistant Professor in the Postgraduate Department of Geography at Raja Narendralal Khan Women’s College (Autonomous), West Bengal, India. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Geography from Vidyasagar University and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Remote Sensing and GIS from Sambalpur University. His research interests include applied geomorphology, soil erosion, groundwater studies, forest resources, wetland ecosystems, environmental contaminants and pollution, and the mapping and modeling of natural resources. He has authored and edited 26 books (including 19 with Springer, 4 with Elsevier, one with CRC Press, and others), published more than 100 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, and contributed over 100 book chapters to reputed volumes. Four Ph.D. scholars have successfully completed their doctoral degrees under his supervision. He has also completed four research projects funded by WBDSTBT, UGC, ICSSR, and SERB-ANRF. He currently serves as the Editor of the GIScience and Geo-environmental Modelling (GGM) Book Series, Springer Nature.

Md Hasanuzzaman is a Ph.D. scholar in the Postgraduate Department of Geography at Raja Narendralal Khan Women’s College (Autonomous), affiliated with Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India. He holds an M.Sc. in Geography from Aliah University and an M.Phil. from the University of Gour Banga. His research interests include applied geomorphology, soil erosion, forest resources, environmental contaminants and pollution, as well as the mapping and modeling of natural resources. He has published more than twenty research papers in peer-reviewed journals.