Question.
What is the difference between forest area and forest cover?
(Chapter 5 Natural Vegetation, Class 11 NCERT geography "India Physical Environment")
Answer.
Forest area and forest cover are not the same. Following are the differences between forest area and forest cover;
Forest area is the land area that is notified and recorded as forest land by the state revenue department, whereas forest cover includes all those land that is more than 1 hectare and has more than 10% tree canopy.
Forest areas are based on land records of the state revenue department while forest cover is recorded by aerial photographs and satellite imagery.
As per the state records, India's forest cover is 23.28% percent of the total land area of India whereas as per India's Forest Status Report 2011, the actual forest cover in India is only 21.05 percent.
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