Dr. Pravat Kumar Shit is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Vidyasagar University, India and also works in the Postgraduate Department of Geography, Raja N. L. Khan Women’s College, India. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Geomorphology from Vidyasagar University in 2013, M.Sc. in Geography and Environment Management from Vidyasagar University in 2005 and PG Diploma in Remote Sensing & GIS from Sambalpur University in 2015. His main fields of research are soil erosion spatial modelling, water resource and natural resource mapping, and geospatial modelling, and has published over 50 international and national research articles in various renowned journals. He has published three books and is an associate editor or on the editorial board of three international journals in geography and environmental science. Hamid Reza Pourghasemi is a Professor of watershed management engineering in the College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Iran. His main research interests are GIS-based spatial modelling using machine learning/data mining techniques in different fields such as landslides, floods, gully erosion, forest fires, land subsidence, species distribution modelling, and groundwater/hydrology. Professor Pourghasemi also works on multi-criteria decision-making methods in natural resources and environmental science. He has published over 230 peer-reviewed papers in high-quality journals, is an active reviewer for over 90 international journals, and has led numerous edited books. He was also selected as one of the five young scientists under 40 by The World Academy of Science (TWAS 2019). Dr Partha Pratim Adhikary, is presently a Senior Scientist in Soil Physics and Soil and Water Conservation at ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, India. He obtained his Bachelors’ degree in Agriculture from Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Masters’ degree in Soil Science from Chaudhury Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, and Ph.D. in Agricultural Physics from ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute. Dr Adhikary has over 100 publications in journals, and has worked on many edited books, and book chapters. Dr Adhikary has over 12 years’ experience in research, training and extension in the field of soil physics, spatial variability, soil and water conservation and watershed management. He has successfully used non-parametric spatial interpolation techniques such as indicator kriging and probability kriging to determine heavy metal pollution in soil and groundwater. Dr. Gouri Sankar Bhunia earned his Ph.D. in 2015 from the University of Calcutta in India. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on applying geospatial technologies to prevent infectious disease in the environment. Environmental modeling, risk assessment, natural resource mapping and modeling, data mining, and information retrieval utilizing geospatial technologies are among his research interests. Dr. Bhunia serves on the editorial boards of three international journals in health GIS and geosciences as an associate editor. Dr. Bhunia has published more than 60 articles in Scopus-indexed publications. Dr. Vishwambhar Prasad Sati, Professor, Mizoram University, Geography and Resource ManagementVishwambhar Prasad Sati, Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) and Ph.D., is a Professor of Geography and Resource Management, School of Earth Sciences, Mizoram University (Central), Aizawl. Currently, he is working on a project on Economic and Ecological Implication of Shifting Cultivation in Mizoram, India. His research interests include non-timber forest resources and poverty reduction in the Himalayan region. He has published more than 150 research paper in various reputed journals and has published 7 books.

• Part I. Geospatial-based forest resources mapping, monitoring, and modeling 1. Recent development and future challenges of geospatial approaches for enhancing forest inventories Gouri Sankar Bhunia and Pravat Kumar Shit 2. Development of a WebGIS platform to generate biodiversity data using citizen science approach Sujoy Mudi, Sambhunath Roy, Pulakesh Das and S.K. Vazeed Pasha 3. Analyzing seasonal variation in the vegetation cover using NDVI and rainfall in the dry deciduous forest region of eastern India Shyamal Dutta, Sufia Rehman, Soumen Chatterjee and Haroon Sajjad 4. Forest health assessment using advanced geospatial technology in Buxa reserve forest, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, India Asish Saha, Manoranjan Ghosh, Subodh Chandra Pal 5. An appraisal of forest degradation and future scenario in the Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh state (India) Soumen Bramha, Gouri Sankar Bhunia, S.R. Kamlesh and Pravat Kumar Shit 6. Vegetation biomass and carbon stock assessment using geospatial approach Anil Kumar Khaple, Guddappa M. Devagiri, Naveen Veerabhadraswamy, Sanjay Babu, Shashi Bhushan Mishra and Vilaskumar Patil 7. Organic carbon stock in the forest soils of Himalayas and other areas in India S.K. Gangopadhyay, T. Bhattacharyya, Tapan Kumar Mishra and S.K. Banerjee 8. Estimating aboveground stand carbon by combining Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite data: a case study from Turkey Sedat Keles, Alkan Günlü and Ïlker Ercanli 9. Tree biomass and carbon stocks of different landscape elements in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, India V. Maheswarappa, R. Vasudeva, Ramakrishna Hegde, Guddappa M. Devagiri, Javaregowda, K.S. Channabasappa and Supriya Salimath 10. Application of geospatial technology and plant diversity indices to assess the temporal change of forest covers across the Ajodhya Hills of West Bengal, India Debasis Ghosh, Manas Karmakar, Monali Banerjee and Mrinal Mandal 11. Above-ground biomass and carbon content in select bamboo species across humid and semiarid zones of Karnataka, India Sruthi Subbanna and Syam Viswanath 12. Accuracy assessment of forest mapping in MODIS land cover dataset using fuzzy set theory Maryam Naghdizadegan Jahromi, Mojtaba Naghdyzadegan Jahromi, Hamid Reza Pourghasemi, Shahrkh Zand-Parsa and Sajad Jamshidi 13. Quantifying forest cover changes in Koraput district, India using remote sensing and GIS Ch. Jyotiprava Dash, Partha Pratim Adhikary, M. Madhu and P.K. Mishra 14. Using Bayesian kriging and satellite images to estimate above-ground biomass of Zagros mountainous forests Somayeh Izadi, Hormoz Sohrabi 15. Estimation of forest ecosystem quality using GIS tool in Panchet forest division, West Bengal, India Mrinmay Mandal and Nilanjana Das ChattarjeePart II. Non-timber forest products for livelihoods and poverty alleviation 16. Do the collection and uses of NTFPs affect household well-being? Evidence from forest villages in eastern Himalaya Manoranjan Ghosh, Asish Saha, Subodh Chandra Pal and Somnath Ghosal 17. Non-timber forest produces (NTFPs) and livelihood security of people in West Bengal Debabrata Das, Pampi Ghosh and Atmaja Avirupa Das 18 NTFPs for socioeconomic security of rural households along the forest ecotone of Paschim Medinipur forest division, India Partha Pratim Adhikary, Pravat Kumar Shit and Gouri Sankar Bhunia 19. Extraction of timber and nontimber forest produce of Southwest Bengal: ecology versus economy Bindia Gupta, Punarbasu Chaudhuri and Tapan Kumar MishraPart III. Agroforestry and socio-economic issues for forest management 20. Soil and water conservation benefits of agroforestry R. Kaushal, D. Mandal, Pankaj Panwar, Rajkumar, Pawan Kumar and J.M.S. Tomar 21. Agroforestry and soil health: a mitigation process using AM fungal culture in West Bengal Pampi Ghosh, Debabrata Das and Atmaja Avirupa Das 22. Soil health status in coffee-based agroforestry systems in Western Ghats of Karnataka, India V. Maheswarappa, R. Vasudeva, Ramakrishna Hegde, Guddappa M. Devagiri, K.S. Channabasappa and Anil Kumar Khaple 23. Trees on farm lands: an underexploited source to achieve nutritional security in India Supriya K. Salimath, Manasa P.A. Clara, K.M. Nanaya, Ramakrishna Hegde and V. Maheswarappa 24. The role of communities in sustainable land and forest management Manoj Kumar, Sweta Nisha Phukon, Hukum SinghPart IV. Conflicts on forest resources and way to mitigation 25. Forests’ management for sustainable livelihoods in the Himalaya: a review of existing literature Vishwambhar Prasad Sati 26. Assessing habitat suitability of leopards (Panthera pardus) in unprotected scrublands of Bera, Rajasthan, India Varun Dutta Gupta, G. Areendran, Krishna Raj, Swagata Ghosh, Shyamal Dutta and Mehebub Sahana 27. Effects of Sonajhuri (Acacia auriculiformis) plantation on soil health in Purulia district, West Bengal, India Manoj Kumar Mahato, Narayan Chandra Jana 28. Trees and forest conservation-cum-afforestation to cope with climate uncertainties Anand Verdhen 29. Deforestation and its impact on sediment flux and channel morphodynamics of the Brahmani river basin, India Aznarul Islam, Balai Chandra Das, Sadik Mahammad, Palash Ghosh, Suman Deb Barman and Biplab Sarkar 30. Geospatial environmental modeling of forest declining trend in Eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspot region Meelan Chamling, Biswajit Bera and Sudipa Sarkar 31. Assessment of ecosystem services values in response to land use/land cover change in tropical forest Soumen Bisui, Sambhunath Roy, Debashish Sengupta, Gouri Sankar Bhunia, Pravat Kumar Shit