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Geography at Bandhavgarh

Introduction

Bandhavgarh geography

Geographically we can locate the Bandhavgarh forest in north-eastern region of Madhya Pradesh state. Bandhavgarh tiger reserve area is spread over the three districts of Madhya Pradesh i.e. Katni, Umaria and Shahdol. Its western boundary touches Katni district where as eastern border lies in Shahdol district. Majority of area is in Umaria district thus its northern and southern borders are part of Umaria district. Forest of Bandhavgarh is composed of Tropical Moist deciduous forest, North Indian Moist deciduous forest, Moist peninsular low level Sal and West Gangetic Moist deciduous forest type. This forest is spread over Vindhya hills will approx. 32 hills present in tiger reserve area.

Vegetation

As we know that tourism is allowed only in 20% area of tiger reserve thus we are exposed to a small fraction of forest area. Still as per our safari experience, we will find that Bandhavgarh forest have Sal trees as dominant species, followed by Bamboo forest. While traveling from Jabalpur airport to Bandhavgarh, we all pass through Umaria town. After traveling 10-14 kms from Umaria, we will get exposed to forest areas which indicates that we have almost reached Bandhavgarh. During last 15 kms, we will realize that this route is dominated by Sal trees. While doing jungle safari in core area, we will find good presence of Bamboo forest in Khitauli and Magadhi zone. Apart from dense forest, we will find many grassland areas also which are often referred as meadows area.

River System

Here major river is Sone which originates from Amarkantak hills and flows in north-west direction to form eastern boundary of Bandhavgarh tiger reserve. It is important southern tributary to river Ganges. Here we will notice that this forest is spread over the area in between Mahanadi (also called Choti Mahanadi) in west and Sone river in east. Due to presence of villages in western boundary, Mahanadi is often overlooked. Both river meets at a point where Bansagar Dam is located. Here we will not find any grand wide rivers but small rivers like Umrar, Damnar, Charanganga, Johila etc. Name of nearby township Umaria is derived from same Umrar river. It is contributory river of Mahanahi, meeting near Pipariya Kalan village.

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