|
|
Yak (Poephagus gruniens) are the cornerstone of life in mountain areas
. By providing milk, fibre, meat, transport, fuel, and labour for agriculture and tourism, yak form a foundation on which pastoralists are able to support themselves in these hostile environments. The culture and economy around yak rearing have connected people in adjacent parts of Bhutan, India, and Nepal for centuries. The transboundary movement of herders among the highlands of the three countries is an age-old practice important for the prosperity of herding communities and the vitality of their herds in the Kangchenjunga Landscape
Read More
|
|
|
The Kangchenjunga Landscape (KL) is a unique transnational ecotourism destination shared by Bhutan, India and Nepal - partner countries of the Kangchenjunga Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KLCDI)
. Adorned with spectacular natural and cultural assets and diversity, the KL is one of six transboundary landscapes identified by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. The KL as a transnational destination provides diverse offerings (natural and cultural heritage sites, parks and routes) spread across the region. The landscape also represents frontier region, characterized by specificities of isolation, inaccessibility, scarcity and marginality, presenting both challenges and opportunities for the government and communities. The transboundary ecotourism is integral for sustainable development and regional cooperation in the KL. It offers huge prospects and opportunities for inclusive and responsible economic growth, and promises achievements of the goals of protecting the environment, and sustainably empowering the communities beyond boundaries. Transboundary ecotourism also presents opportunities for regional cooperation, in due regards to mutual interests and common goals shared by the government and community, and the deep rooted shared heritage, history and people to people connectivity. Promoting transboundary ecotourism in the KL requires strengthening cross-border connectivity, branding and marketing, promoting niche segments, public-private partnership, destination plans and management, and building capacity and infrastructures.
Read More
|
|
|
Flooding is one of the most common natural disasters in India
. Typically, the Kosi and Gandak river basins are well-known for lingering flood affected basins in North Bihar every year, which lies in the eastern part of India. There were no such comprehensive studies available in North Bihar that discussed flood progression and regression at shorter time-scales like two day intervals. So in this study, we employed high temporal resolution data to capture inundation extent and further, the flood extent has been validated with high spatial resolution data. The specific objective of this study was to analyze the satellite-derived Near Real Time (NRT) MODIS flood product for spatiotemporal mapping of flood progression and regression over the North Bihar. The synthetic aperture RADAR (SAR) data were also used to validate the MODIS NRT Flood data. As a case study, we selected a recent flood event of August–September 2017 and captured the flood inundation spatial extent at two day intervals using the 2 day composite NRT flood data. The flood prognosis analysis has revealed that during the peak flooding period, 12% to 17% of the area was inundated and the most adversely affected districts were Darbhanga and Katihar in North Bihar. We estimated that in total nearly 6.5% area of the North Bihar was submerged. The method applied was simple, but it can still be suitable to be applied by the community involved in flood hazard management, not necessarily experts in hydrological modeling. It can be concluded that the NRT MODIS flood product was beneficial to monitor flood prognosis over a larger geographical area where observational data are limited. Nevertheless, it was noticed that the flood extent area derived from MODIS NRT data has overestimated areal extent, but preserved the spatial pattern of flood. Apparently, the present flood prognosis analysis can be improved by integrating microwave remote sensing data (SAR) and hydrological models
Read More
|
|
|
Werners, S.; Bhadwal, S.; Pandey, A.; Prakash, A.; Wester, P.; Mamnun, N.; Hassan, T.; Ishaq, S.; Ahmad, B.; Dahri, Z. H.
Development is occurring against a backdrop of vulnerability to climate change
. In order for development decisions to be sustainable in a changing climate they need to include choices and actions that modify climate change and its impacts and sustain development efforts over time. In the context of adaptation to climate change, adaptation pathways are proposed as a promising decision-focused approach to incorporate flexibility and account for future uncertainties (e.g. Haasnoot et al., 2013, Wise et al., 2014, Bosomworth et al., 2017). Adaptation pathways sequence measures over time and allow for progressive implementation depending on how the future unfolds, on the development of knowledge, and on stakeholder inputs and priorities. Other potentials are the ability to identify ‘no or low regrets’ interventions and to avoid lock-in, threshold effects, and maladaptive consequences. Thus, adaptation pathways may hold the promise to help plan and implement activities in an overall vision of development and climate change resilience
Read More
|
|
|
Werners, S.; Bhadwal, S.; Ahmad, B.; Gioli, G.; Regmi, B.; Pandey, A.; Mamnun, N.; Hassan, T.; Varma, N.; Saeed, B. A.
This framework document aims to introduce a proactive approach to assess adaptation needs and encourage timely adaptation
. The idea behind this approach is that if an assessment shows that specific policies and practices of stakeholders are at risk of failure due to climate change, corrections are encouraged and losses or damages can be prevented. The approach focuses on identifying whether and when the performance of policies, management, and social-cultural practices drops below a decisive level due to climate change, and adaptation is required. We call the moment at which a decisive change in performance is reached an ‘adaptation turning point’. The assessment of turning points shows there is an imperative to act, and it aims to help proactively and timely plan alternative strategies. In cases with a development or implementation deficit and where the performance of the existing policies and practices is already unsatisfactory, the turning point lies in the past. If, in these cases, changes can be attributed to climate change, the assessment of turning points helps identify the adaptation gap. With respect to new practices, the assessment of turning points shows when these practices become viable in order to facilitate a smooth transition to alternative systems and practices. For development policies, an adaptation turning point assessment asks whether development goals are achievable under climate change and can be sustained. By introducing this approach in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region we want to ascertain whether the assessment is a meaningful addition to adaptation approaches by allowing, in particular, for a substantial dialogue between stakeholders and scientists about the amount of change that is acceptable, when conditions could be reached that are unacceptable or more favourable, how likely these conditions are, and what adaptation to consider. The approach is not to be understood in isolation, but connects to other work in the HI-AWARE project, in particular the development of adaptation pathways and the assessment of critical moments. With this document we aim to deliver a framework for identifying adaptation turning points. The document offers a broad scoping of the approach, next to the identification of its potential application in HI-AWARE. This also marks the start of the dialogue in the HI-AWARE project on the applicability and value of the concept in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. The assessment of adaptation turning points will be a contribution to other research in HI-AWARE, such as adaptation pathways development
Read More
|
|
|
This study is the first of its kind that looks at the impact of endocrine-disrupting compounds on the waterbodies of Chitwan National Park
. It serves as a baseline on chemicals that severely impact aquatic biodiversity and clearly such monitoring needs to be done on a more regular basis
Read More
|
|
|
Effective quantification of land cover changes remains a challenge in Himalayan hills and mountains, and has a colossal value addition for natural resource management
. Here we present a new robust method for classifying land cover vegetation at physiognomic scale along steep elevational gradients from ~ 200 to ~ 7000 masl in the Kailash Sacred Landscape, Western Himalaya, India along with four decades of land use and land cover changes (1976–2011) using remote sensing techniques coupled with intensive ground surveys. Results show that forest cover loss was minimum ca 7.14% of existing forest in 1976; but, however forest fragmentation is high especially in montane broad-leaved and subtropical needle leaved forests. This change largely impacted the quality of valuable tree species such as Quercus spp. Post 1976, continuous migration forced conversion of high altitude agricultural lands into grasslands and scrublands. Human settlement expansion was high especially in low altitudinal range valleys between 1000 and 2000 masl and has increased 6.76 fold since 1976, leading to high forest fragmentation in spite of reduced agriculture area in the landscape. Our physiognomic level classified land cover map will be a key for forest managers to prioritize conservation zones for protecting this unique forest land
Read More
|
|
|
Groot, A.; Singh, T.; Pandey, A.; Gioli, G.; Ahmed, B.; Ishaq, S.; Raza, N.; Hassan, M.; Hassan, S. M. T.; Syed, M. A.; Mamnun, N.; Eijrond, V.
This resource kit presents a compilation of information on critical climate-stress moments in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region
. The information is based on a literature review on critical-climate stress moments in agriculture and health due to heat stress and discusses critical moments emerging from downstream and upstream floods. The literature study was carried out by the Himalayan Adaptation, Water and Resilience (HI-AWARE) research project under the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia with financial support from the UK Government’s Department for International Development and the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada
Read More
|
|
|
Land development without thoughtful water supply planning can lead to unsustainability
. In practice, management of our lands and waters is often unintegrated. We present new land-use, ecological stream health, water quality, and streamflow data from nine perennial watersheds in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, in the 2016 monsoon (i.e., August and September) and 2017 pre-monsoon (i.e., April and May) periods. Our goal was to improve understanding of the longitudinal linkages between land-use and water. At a total of 38 locations, the Rapid Stream Assessment (RSA) protocol was used to characterize stream ecology, basic water quality parameters were collected with a handheld WTW multi-parameter meter, and stream flow was measured with a SonTek FlowTracker Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter. A pixel-based supervised classification method was used to create a 30-m gridded land use coverage from a Landsat 8 image scene captured in the fall of 2015. Our results indicated that land-use had a statistically significant impact on water quality, with built land-uses (high and low) having the greatest influence. Upstream locations of six of the nine watersheds investigated had near natural status (i.e., river quality class (RQC) 1) and water could be used for all purposes (after standard treatments as required). However, downstream RSA measurements for all nine watersheds had RQC 5 (i.e., most highly impaired). Generally, water quality deteriorated from monsoon 2016 to pre-monsoon 2017. Our findings reinforce the importance of integrated land and water management and highlight the urgency of addressing waste management issues in the Kathmandu Valley
Read More
|
|
|
Cold desert regions harbor a unique habitat for a number of high-value medicinal plants (HMPs) and due to inaccessibility of medical facility, inhabitants of this region are highly dependent on medicinal plants
. Over the years, with increasing demand for trade, extraction pressure on natural populations of these HMPs has grown substantially. This consequently has made such plants threatened in their natural habitats. However, quantification of threat intensity is lacking. For the first time, this study has attempted to identify and assess the ecological and threat status of HMPs from the cold desert area of Johar valley, West Himalaya, India. For ecological assessment, rigorous field surveys were conducted along the elevation gradient. The intensity of threat was evaluated by using rapid threat assessment (RTA) approach. A total of 22 threatened and high-value medicinal plants (THMPs) were identified from the region. Results of RTA placed Betula utilis and Nardostachys jatamanasi in the highest threat category. Roots/rhizomes were the frequently (55%) used plant parts, followed by inflorescence/fruit and stem/bark (18%) each. Overall, this study provides a clear picture of ecological and threat status of THMPs of the study area, which can effectively be utilized to develop a suitable conservation model for the region
Read More
|
email alert
or subscribe to the 
RSS feed.
