Ecosystem Based Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in Indian Himalayan Region of Darjeeling

Abstract

Mountain ecosystems are one of the major landforms in the world. Due to rampant industrialisation and urbanisation, mountainous ecosystem too has bore the brunt of environmental problems such as rising temperature and deglaciation. It has led to disruptions in hydrological functions, impact on forest and biodiversity and also human health implications. Ecosystem based adaptation is a nature based method which centres around environment related concerns and addresses the problem by reducing extreme weather conditions and thus enhancing sustainability and resilience. Darjeeling Himalaya is a mountainous region to the north-western side of the Indian state of West Bengal and has presence of numerous natural calamities such as Earthquakes, Landslides, Cloudbursts, etc. The local administration and the government has taken various measures and policies such as building bye laws, disaster management plan, draft development plan, limit building initiatives in order to act upon environment related hazards. With greater emphasis on EbA approaches to Eco-DRR in the regional policies of Darjeeling, mitigating the impact of climate can be drastically reduced which in turn will lead to Human and Economic Development. The EbA approach helps in (1) enhancing the community adaptive capacity or resilience, (2) improve or regenerate ecosystems to help increase value qualitatively and quantitatively of the produce for local communities and (3) integrating the current produce with market requirements,thereby increasing its economic viability. Keywords: Ecosystem, Disaster Risk, Mountain Geography, Rural Areas, Climate Change