Climate change and forests: Impacts and adaption. A regional assessment for the Western Ghats, India

摘要

Potential climate change over the next 50 to 100 years could have major impacts on tropical forests. Given the significant dependence of local people and economies on forests in tropical and temperate countries, there is a need to assess the possible impacts of climate change and to develop adaption measures. The diversity of forest types in the Western Ghats ranges from wet evergreen and deciduous forest to dry thorn and montane forests with a wide range of annual rainfall regimes (from less than 65 cm to over 300 cm). The study was conducted in two regions of the Western Ghats: the Uttara Kannada district and the Nilgiris. Climate change projections for 2020 and 2050 were used in assessing the possible impacts on forests. In general, the 'most likely' projections of climate change were an increase in mean temperature in the range of 0.3-1.0 deg C and an increase in precipitation of 3-8% over the study regions by the year 2050. The 'worst case' scenario was an increase in temperature of 1 deg C and a decrease in precipitation by 8% by 2050. To assess the vegetational responses to climate change, a simple model based on present-day correlations between climatic (mean annual temperature and precipitation) and vegetation types for these regions was developed. Likely changes in the areas under different forest types were assessed for 'moderate climate' sensitivity and central scaling factor (referred to as the 'most likely scenario') for the years 2020 and 2050, and 'high climate' sensitivity and a lower scaling factor (the 'worst case scenario') for 2050 90 refs, 15 figs, 15 tabs