Vegetation Characteristics Based Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of Temperate Forests of Western Himalaya

Abstract

Forests are under stress due to variety of climatic and non-climatic factors. Therefore for suitably managing the forests, vulnerability of the forests needs to be understood. The present paper attempts to estimate the vulnerability of various temperate forests of Western Himalaya due to climate change by analyzing the patterns of different taxonomical indices, based on primary data i.e., vegetation data. The paper presents a novel approach for climate change vulnerability assessment based on field data through a bottom-up approach. The vulnerability of the forests was assessed through the IPCC framework by suitably selecting indicators (taxonomy indices and climatic parameters) for the three dimensions of vulnerability i.e., exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The field data were collected from 17 different temperate forests distributed at the elevation “1600 to 3500 m” in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, India. Abundance and richness for each forest were collected by randomly laying ten quadrats of size 0.1 ha each. The analysis resulted into identifying the most and the least vulnerable temperate forests of the western Himalaya to climate change. The analysis showed that the Neoza Pine; Moist Deodar; Ban Oak and Dry Broadleaved and Coniferous forest were the most vulnerable forests in the Himalayan temperate forests due to climate change. Moreover, the variation in the levels of the vulnerability status of the selected forests was insignificant with elevational range as well as exposure to climate. The proposed method will serve for vulnerability estimation of forests due to climate change based on the actual realization of the species in the field.