AHP-Based Multi-Criteria Assessment of Vegetation Health in Bhawal National Park

Abstract

The Bhawal National Park (BNP) is an ecologically important area which has a rich biological diversity that helps maintain equilibrium in ecology. It experienced urban expansion, agricultural encroachment, land degradation, and other issues that affected the health of vegetation. The purpose of this study was to use a multi-criterion decision-making (MCDM) framework, specifically Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), to study BNP vegetation health from 2000 to 2025. The research used various vegetation indices such as NDVI, EVI, SAVI, NDMI, PVI, SI, NDBI, NDBal, EBBI, and GI and integrated through AHP technique; where weights are assigned, normalized, combined and finally Consistency Ratio (CR) score is calculated. The final CR score of 0.09428 indicates moderate vegetation health, balancing healthy areas with those impacted by urbanization and degradation. Notable results were an improvement of 14.94% with 1,437.39 ha moving from moderate to high. In addition, 215.59 ha (2.24%) shifted from low to high while 43.66 ha (0.46%) switched from low to very high vegetation health. Conversely, the rest of the area that is 79.65 hectares (0.83%) went from moderate vegetation health to very low vegetation health. This indicates that the area is always experiencing stress particularly the southern portion of the area. According to the findings, growth in the vegetation recovery is intensifying, especially in the areas of northern and central belts. This study highlights the importance of ongoing management of the land and demonstrates the usefulness of AHP for ecological assessment and conservation planning.