Analysis of forest health and socioeconomic dimension in climate change scenario and its future impacts: remote sensing and GIS approach Firoz Ahmad 1 • Md Meraj Uddin 2 • Laxmi Goparaju 1 Received: 4 October 2018 / Revised: 8 December 2018 / Accepted: 10 January 2019 Ó Korean Spatial Information Society 2019 Abstract The present study examined the relationship among various diversified datasets using remote sensing and GIS. About 72% of the total forest area of Chhattisgarh state (59,935 km 2 ) has shown a trend of negative change between the periods (1982 and 2006). Around 50% of the total forest fires of the state were found in the two tehsils of Narayanpur and Bijapur with two major forest fire hot- spots. Approximately 86% of the total forest fire event of the state occurred in the category of ‘‘tropical mixed deciduous and dry deciduous forests’’ whereas the intensity of forest fire events was found 2.2 times in the category ‘‘tropical lowland forests, broadleaved, ever- green, \ 1000 m’’ when it was compared with the category of ‘‘tropical mixed deciduous and dry deciduous forests.’’ The highest poverty percent was found in the tehsil of Bijapur (65.9%) which retains a significantly high per- centage of the tribal population (73.1%). The adaptive capacity of Raipur tehsil (state capital) is high whereas it reduces significantly towards north and south from the state capital. The climate anomaly data evaluation for the year 2030 showed variation such as reduction in rainfall and increase in temperature will significantly maneuver the forest fire regime in future is a matter of serious concern. The outcomes of the present study would certainly guide the policymakers of the state of Chhattisgarh to prepare a meaningful, transparent and robust plan for the betterment of people keeping in mind of future climate change impact. Keywords LULC Á NDVI Á Forest fire Á Poverty Á Tribal population Á Forest vulnerability Á Climate change anomalies 1 Introduction Increase in human population and their activities have changed the Earth’s climate at both globally and region- ally. In recent years the potential impacts of climatic change and variability have received a lot of attention among the researchers and scientists around the globe. The climate (rainfall and temperature) spatial distribution pat- terns and its changes are an important parameter which significantly affects the economy, livelihood [1] distribu- tions of plant species and vegetation [2]. Climate change severity events such as droughts, forest fires and floods [3] impact the productivity of food grains, diminish livelihood, increase poverty [4] and deteriorate the forest. Vulnerability to climate change is defined as the degree to which geophysical, biological and socio-eco- nomic systems are susceptible to and unable to cope with, adverse impacts of climate change [5]. Forest is vulnerable to climate change; therefore scientific evaluation of forest with respect to climate change is of great significance for the formulation of an effective adaptation strategy [6]. Geospatial technology plays an important role in the management and monitoring process, as land resources are directly affected by anthropogenic and natural disturbances which leads to changes in its shape, size, extent and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s41324-019-00245-5) contains sup- plementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Firoz Ahmad adfiroz@yahoo.com 1 Vindhyan Ecology and Natural History Foundation, Vindhya Bachao Secretariat, 36/30, Shivpuri Colony, Station Road, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh 231001, India 2 University Department of Mathematics, MCA, Ranchi University, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India 123 Spat. Inf. Res. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41324-019-00245-5