Climate change impacts on glacier-fed and non-glacier-fed ecosystems of the Indian Himalayan Region: people's perception and adaptive strategies

摘要

The study aims to understand how the Himalayan communities perceive climate change and how this change has impacted the livelihood and sustenance of local people, particularly in the remote and rural areas of the region. In view of this, 994 households of 25 villages were interviewed from five basins (five, villages per basin) of the Indian Himalayan Region. Their perceptions mainly of climate change were validated/compared with the available climatic indices. People perceived rainfall pattern to be less predictable, greater change in land-use pattern, adverse impacts on forests and human health and overall reduction in their harvests. Seasonal increase in temperature was also reported. Capacity-building programmes for the inhabitants, including the most vulnerable communities, in the wake of climate change would be significantly fruitful by way of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Synthesis from a perception-based study highlights snowmelt contribution impacting river runoff. In addition, respondents were well aware of the ongoing phenomenon of climate change along with its future implications in their immediate region, as supported by analysis of seasonal climatic parameters (temperature and precipitation) for 35 years (1979-2014). The other natural resources likely to be impacted adversely were forests and change in land-use pattern. This is evident from a majority of the respondents who had supported the view that road construction, forest fires, and over-grazing have multiplier negative impacts on the forest ecosystem and land-use pattern over the years. The implementation of mitigating measures and adaptation strategies is rarely taken into account at local, regional, and national levels. In a nutshell, a number of consultation meetings/capacity building workshops were conducted throughout the IHR. The problems raised by villagers were mostly related to climate change and associated livelihood options. These communities are reacting to the changing scenario in a positive manner. They have begun some practices with reasonable adaptive measures. However, these are very few at the local level and need further expansion in states of the IHR. Therefore, a detailed study is required to plan future adaptation strategies that will improvise traditional practices with modern science and technology.