Himalayan ecosystem is
very complex and fragile in nature, which can be characterized by highly
differentiated climatic conditions when going vertically, with a huge store of
snow as a glacier and snow sheet thus the abundance of water, very rich in highly
sensitive biodiversity. The mountain ranges of Himalaya are highly risky areas
for human being due to the threat of natural hazards, like glacial lake
outburst floods, high precipitation in forests, vulnerability to earthquake and
landslides. The complexity in forest prevents the free access to remote areas
which hamper the development in mountain region. The growth and sustainability
of agro-biodiversity is mainly influence by the altitude and exposition and
crop selection in the region.
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| Figure-1: Himalaya, India |
The localized people of
Himalayan region have developed some sophisticated techniques for farming,
forestry, for water use and restoration, and communication over steep slopes.
The Himalayan ecosystem directly or indirectly affects the life of million people
residing in Gangatic region and nearby hill by supplying them drinking water
and required minerals to sustain river ecosystem thus the human dependence over
it. The inhabitants of Himalaya region also developed with different cultural
values. People residing down-slopes of Himalaya and in big cities are also most
preferably visit to hilly region for recreation.
The regional and global
climatic changes may alter the capacity of Himalayan ecosystem, thus increase
threat to supply of goods and services for the inhabitant of Himalaya itself
and also for low land people. For a example if we talk about the Himalayan
glacial retreat, it exerts a threat of future fresh water supply as we all know
that glacier are the huge store of fresh water contains about 75% of total
fresh water. Himalaya has the maximum
concentration of glaciers. 9.04% of the Himalaya is covered with glaciers, with
30-40% additional area being covered with snow(3). Also the
increase glacial retreat increases the disaster vulnerability in area because
of having large glacial outburst threat thus increases the concern of human
safety.
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| Figure-2: Glacier Retreat over Himalayan region |
Ladakh,
state of India is highly dependent over snow, as snow supports its people’s survival
over there. Recent changes in climate cause increase in less snow fall, so
there is a decrease in moisture in ground, which severely affects the crops.
Some of the villages have left the farming profession because of increased
moisture due to melting of snow. Reduction in snow fall also means that less
amount of snow fall in glacier but in summers higher rates of snow melting can
be observed due to the lack of formation of hard ice crystals of snow because
of short period snow fall. The changed pattern of precipitation in the form of
rain over high altitudes besides of snow fall, thus increases the rate of
glacial melting (2).
The instability of
mountainous slopes affects the frequency and magnitude of land slides in
region. Landslides are the common event in the steep slopes of Himalaya due to
heavy rainfall which restrict the communication in remote areas by jamming
roads. Climatic changes in terms of increase temperature in Himalayan region
boosted the frequent and severe fires. According to the sixth five year plan,
the forest survey has reported that 55% of forested areas is affected by fires
and 78% by grazing. Forest Survey of India
Report says that about 50 percent of forest areas in the country are fire prone
(ranging from 50 percent in some states to 90 percent in the others). About 6
percent of the forests are prone to severe fire damage (2).
From a scientific point
of view, the highly sensitivity of mountain ecosystem provides an opportunity
to study, model and analyse the global climatic changes, processes and effects
on socio-economic conditions of mountain area(1). The scenario of awareness
about the fragile nature and vulnerability of Himalayan ecosystem has increased
in last few decades, The importance of fragile resources in context of changing
climate and difficult living condition of inhabitant of Himalaya has
significant role in understanding the global changes over time. With the time
the need of understanding the global change processes and in the same aspect of
understanding Himalayan ecosystem and global change impacts over it, caught a
fire.
References:
1) Global Change and Mountain Regions: An Overview of
Current Knowledge
edited
by Uli. M. Huber, Harald K. M. Bugmann, Mel A. Reasoner
2) http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/iffn/country/in/in_5.htm
3) http://www.navdanya.org/climate-change/in-the-himalayas
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