An assessment of anthropogenic impact on natural landscape –The case of Kurseong Town, Darjeeling, West Bengal

Abstract

The high altitude mountain ecosystems are very fragile and sensitive to any sort of changes introduced by human being. The critical balance of such ecosystem has largely been offset by the landuse / landcover changes for development purposes. The natural processes are accelerated out of proportion by strong anthropogenic modifications of landscape through clearance of forest for agriculture, settlement, pasturing, mining and quarrying, water resource capturing, road construction etc. to invite hazardous events which have dramatic impact on human property and lives. Thus humans have been instrumental for significant increase in the frequency and magnitude of these hazardous events. An assessment of anthropogenic impact on the natural landscape is necessary for sustainability of the mountainous landscape, particularly in those urban areas where large volume of population throng together for livelihood. The Kurseong Town occupies the east facing cliff like slope of Senchal- Mahaldiram ridge of the Darjeeling Himalayas that rises steeply from Rinchengtong Khola River Valley (a tributary of the Balason River) from an altitude of 800m, in the east, to an altitude of 2200m to the west. The present study is a humble attempt to assess the extent of human impacts in causing physical hazards like landslide, flash flood, soil erosion and social hazards like water scarcity, building congestion, traffic congestion, road accident etc. This study is based on household survey and Global Positioning System aided survey. Dumpy level survey has been carried out for drawing topographic profiles. Satellite images (Wikimapia and LISS-III) have been used to detect the changes in landuse pattern. Finally, GIS is used for data analyses and preparation of maps.