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10. Status of tree cover in
Nagar Palikas
There are a total of 159
Nagarpalikas
(municipalities)
in
Gujarat
State
with
geographical area of about 212,440 ha. Total
tree counting was done in all
Nagarpalikas
in
2011. A total of 32,44,155 trees having Girth at
Breast Height (GBH) above 10 cm were counted
in these municipalities with average tree density
of about 15.3 trees per hectare. The towns/
Nagarpalikas
in Gujarat have been classified
into four categories of tree density, as given at
the bottom of the page.
Salient features of the survey are given below.
(i)
Some of the
Nagarpalika
s like Kanjari,
Ankleshwer, Umreth, Balasinor, Anklav,
Chansava,
Vallabhipur,
Dakor
and
Porbandar have very good tree cover with
density above 50 trees/ha. Tree density in
Porbandar is high due to the presence of
mangroves within the area of the city.
(ii) Average tree density of all
Nagarpalikas
in Gujarat is 15.3 trees/ha, which is below
the average tree density of Tees Outside
Forest (TOF). The average tree cover in the
nagarpalikas
is about 5.4% of their total
geographical area.
(iii) About half of the total
Nagarpalikas
have
poor tree cover, and 70 of them have tree
density below 10 trees/ha. Of them, 27
Nagarpalika
have very poor tree cover-
tree density below 5 trees/ha.
Tree density class
Number of
Nagarpalika
Tree cover- percent of
geographical area
1. Tree density above 50 trees/ha
8
Above 17.7 %
2. Tree density between 30 to 50 trees/ha
23
Between 10.6 % and 17.7 %
3. Tree density between 10 to 30 trees/ha
58
Between 3.5 % and 10.6 %
4. Tree density below 10 trees/ha
70
Below 10.6 %
Total
159
5.4 % (average of all Nagarpalikas
(iv) Presence of tree is extremely poor
in five
Nagarpalikas-
Dhandhuka in
Ahmedabad
,
Maliya in Rajkot
,
Rapar in
Kachchh, Radhanpur in Patan, Tharad in
Banaskantha as they have tree density
below 2 trees/ha.
(v) Sixteen
Nagarpalikas
have tree cover
above 15 % of their geographical area and
52
Nagarpalikas
have tree cover between
5% and 15% of their geographical area.
The condition of the rest the
Nagarpalika
s
in term of tree cover is very poor, and
eight of them even do not have 1% of their
geographical area under tree cover.
(vi) The urban development areas around the
nagarpalikas have been identified and
this opportunity may be used to provide
enough space of tree growth like it was
done in Gandhinagar.
(vii) About three dozen
Nagarpalikas
have tree
cover above 10% of the geographical area
and the rest have poor tree cover.
(viii) To achieve at least 10 % of the
Nagarpalika
areas under tree cover, the number of
trees should increase by 27.3 lakh (from
32.4 lakh trees at present to about 59.8
lakh trees).
(ix) To achieve a target of 15% geographical
areas in Nagarpalikas under tree cover,
the population of trees should increase
by 41 Lakh (from about 32.4 lakh trees at
present to about 73.4 lakh.
