Dr. Narendran Kodandapani

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Kodandapani, Narendran Researcher Telephone: +91-413-2334168, Ext – 128 Fax: +91-413-2339534 E-mail: naren@ifpindia.org French Institute of Pondicherry, 11 Saint Louis Street, P.O. Box – 33, Pondicherry – 605 001

Research fields:

Focus themes: Monitoring land use land cover changes, tropical fire ecology, spatial data analysis of environmental phenomena, landscape ecology, climate change and biodiversity, natural resource management, biogeography, and human dimensions of environmental change.

General overview: My research interests are multi-disciplinary and can be grouped into two broad categories both relating to human-environment interaction themes. The first broad research effort is related to forest ecology and management with emphasis on disturbances in ecosystems. I apply geospatial techniques such as remote sensing and GIS to map, monitor, and assess environmental change in ecosystems. A critical component of my research strives to link information obtained from remotely sensed techniques to actual field measurements. The second broad interest of mine is human dimensions of environmental change. I am especially interested in assessing and modeling the magnitude and interactions of landscape scale environmental changes such as forest fires, future climate change and their effects on biodiversity and communities in landscapes.

Recent publications:

1. Kodandapani, N., Mark A. Cochrane and Sukumar, R. 2009. Forest fire regimes and their ecological effects in seasonally dry tropical ecosystems in the Western Ghats, India. In Cochrane, M.A. (Editor), Tropical Fire Ecology: Climate change, Land use and Ecosystem Dynamics. Springer-Praxis, Heidelberg, Germany.

2. Kodandapani, N., Mark, A. Cochrane and Sukumar, R. 2008. A comparative analysis of spatial, temporal, and ecological characteristics of forest fires in a seasonally dry tropical ecosystem in the Western Ghats, India. Forest Ecology and Management. 256: 607-617.

3. Kodandapani, N., Mark A. Cochrane and Sukumar, R. 2004. Conservation threat of Increasing fire frequencies in the Western Ghats, India. Conservation Biology. 18(6):1553-1561.

4. Kodandapani, N., Indu K. Murthy, Suresh, H.S., Dattaraja, H.S., Ravindranath, N.H., and Sukumar, R. 2001. Non timber forest product extraction, utilisation and valuation: A case study from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, Southern India. Econ. Bot. 55(4): 528-538.

5. Kodandapani, N. 2001. Forest Fires: Origins and ecological paradoxes. Resonance. 6(11):34-41.

Curriculum Vitae in PDF format.

Projects:

• Pl@ntnet
• Tropical Fire Ecology