Geo-spatial Analysis of Habitat Suitability for Common Leopard (Panthera pardus Linnaeus, 1758) in Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park, Nepal

Abstract

Existence of predators like common leopard (Panthera pardus) is associated with high biodiversity, so the protection of their habitats is one of the most effective ways to conserve biodiversity globally. Considering the facts above, the main objective of this research is to predict and map the possible habitat for Common Leopard in Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park by using remote sensing and GIS approach. In order to achieve that, Species Distribution Modeling (MaxEnt) was demonstrated to predict the Common Leopard's distribution and was applied to figure out possible suitable area in Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park. By using presence-only data of Common Leopard (Panthera pardus) occurrences, 138 observation points alongside several environmental variables which consist Distance from Settlement Area, Forest, Bush, Road, Sparse Forest and Agricultural Area were developed in to MaxEnt Programme. Remotely sensed imagery of ResourceSat-2 imagery used by applying supervised classification in order to determine land use land cover characteristics of the study area. Image processing and feature extraction was done by Erdas Imagine 2011 and maximum likelihood supervised classification was done. The contribution of variable "Distance from Settlement Area (52.4%)" was highest to impact the model. The model performance was accessed through using Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) plots and Jackknife tests. The Area under Training data (ROC) curve (RUC) 0.828 and that of Test data ROC curve was 0.678 which is acceptable than the Random Prediction Model (AUC) of 0.5.