scholarly journals Reconciling Mountain Biodiversity Conservation in a Changing Climate: A Hindu Kush-Himalayan Perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-27
Author(s):  
Nakul Chettri
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Economic Resilience ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Hindu Kush ◽  
Cooperative Agreements ◽  
Mountain Development

Mountains occupy 24% of the global land surface area and are home to 12% of the world’s population. They have ecological, aesthetic, and socioeconomic significance, not only for those living in mountain areas, but also for people living beyond. The Hindu Kush-Himalayan region (HKH) expanding to over four million square kilometres is endowed with rich biodiversity, culture, and sources of varied goods and services that serve more than 200 million people living in the region and 1.3 billion people living in the river basins receive services from them. The countries sharing the HKH have set aside 39% of the biodiversity rich area for different systems of protection. However, in the recent years, the HKH is facing numerous drivers of environmental change including climate change. Various studies suggest that warming in the HKH has been much higher than the global average over the last 100 years and the HKH is already facing climate change threats at ecoregions, ecosystems and species levels. While climate change is a global problem requiring a global solution, the HKH countries have initiated various reconciling initiatives to link conservation with climate change for enhancing ecological and socio-economic resilience. However, there is serious paucity of expertise, capacity and data on climate change as well as biodiversity in the HKH bringing challenges in enhancing the resilience. Considering the significance of the HKH on local, regional, and global levels, it is imperative to close the gaps to meet the challenges arising from the consequences of climate change. International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), with its partners, has conceptualised a number of innovative conservation approaches with an objective to reconcile biodiversity conservation goals with climate change challenges. These conservation approaches have a huge potential for mutual benefits from the common good practices, resources and expertise and there is a need for more formal cooperative agreements between the various institutions and communities of the countries at the regional level for addressing regional issues of conservation in the changing climate.Conservation Science Vol.2(1) 2014: 17-27  

scholarly journals Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Services in the Hindu Kush Himalaya

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eklabya Sharma ◽  
Nakul Chettri
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Landscape Conservation ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
Hindu Kush ◽  
Mountain Development ◽  
Developing Knowledge

With 22% global land surface area, the mountains ecosystem is home to 13% of the total human populations. Evolved as a unique ecosystem, the mountain adds value with diverse ecosystems; tradition and culture as well as ecosystem services for socio-economic development in the mountain areas and beyond. As it caters half of the humanity with its diverse types of ecosystem services, the realization of its significance are still limited in national, regional and global discourses. In the conservation front, there has been a significant progress in the concept and practices from species focussed interventions to habitat and ecosystem/landscape conservation approaches. The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), known as the highest mountain ecosystems in the world is also the water tower for the region often referred as the third pole. This unique ecosystem is an important repository of biological and cultural diversities and source of varied ecosystems services to 240 million people living within and about a one third of global population living downstream. The region has been in spotlight for being part of the 36 ‘Global Biodiversity Hotspot’ as well as climate change hotspot. However, our understanding the dynamics of changing landscapes and climate and its linkage to people, mostly challenged by poverty are limited. International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an inter-governmental regional knowledge and enabling centre, has been instrumental in developing knowledge about the dynamics of these fragile ecosystems and support its regional member countries through science based integrated approaches. Since its inception, ICIMOD has been engaged in developing knowledge and supporting policies for mountain development focusing on socio-economic, ecological and environmental dimensions. In this paper, we present the retrospect of our understanding and learnings in the HKH through transboundary landscape management and regional cooperation mostly focused on conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services perspectives. The paper reflects on changing paradigm and complex process for strengthening regional cooperation in the HKH.

scholarly journals Protected and other conserved areas: ensuring the future of forest biodiversity in a changing climate

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-103
Author(s):  
K. MacKinnon ◽  
K. Richardson ◽  
J. MacKinnon
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Forest Ecosystems ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Effective Conservation

Biodiversity loss and climate change are two of the greatest environmental challenges of our times and are inextricably interlinked. The most significant drivers of forest and biodiversity loss are habitat loss and fragmentation due to land use changes and overexploitation. These changes will be exacerbated by climate change with increasing land degradation and more conversion of forests to meet increasing demands for agriculture and forest resources. Protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation. Currently terrestrial protected areas cover about 15 percent of the world's land surface but this is inadequate to fully represent global biodiversity, with many forest ecosystems poorly represented in protected area networks. Ensuring effective biodiversity conservation post-2020 will require both expansion of formal reserve systems and recognition and support for other effective conservation measures, under a diverse range of governance and management regimes. Expanding forest conservation efforts will not only protect biodiversity but is increasingly recognised as an efficient and cost-effective strategy to help societies to cope with climate change and its impacts.

scholarly journals Climate change over the high-mountain versus plain areas: Effects on the land surface hydrologic budget in the Alpine area and northern Italy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Cassardo ◽  
Seon Ki Park ◽  
Marco Galli ◽  
Sungmin O
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
High Mountain ◽  
Transfer Scheme ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
Alpine Area

Abstract. Climate change may intensify during the second half of the current century. Changes in temperature and precipitation can exert a significant impact on the regional hydrologic cycle. Because the land surface serves as the hub of interactions among the variables constituting the energy and water cycles, evaluating the land surface processes is essential to detail the future climate. In this study, we employ a trusted Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer scheme, called the University of Torino model of land Processes Interaction with Atmosphere (UTOPIA), in offline simulations to quantify the hydrologic components changes in the Alpine area and northern Italy, on the basis of regional future climate (FC) conditions produced by the Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) via the IPCC A2 and B2 scenarios. In FCs, the evapotranspiration generally increases, especially over the plain areas, and consequently the surface soil moisture decreases during summer, falling below the wilting point threshold for one more month compared to present climate. In the high-mountain areas, due to the earlier snow melting, the land surface becomes snowless for an additional month. The annual mean number of dry (wet) days increase remarkably (slightly) in FCs; thus increasing the risk of severe droughts, and slightly increasing the risk of floods coincidently. Our results have serious implications on human life, including agricultural production, water sustainability and general infrastructures, and can be used to plan the managements of water resources, floods, irrigation, forestry, hydropower, and many other relevant activities.

STUDY OF POND STATUS IN INDIA : A REVIEW

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
V.K. YADAV ◽  
SONAM SHARMA ◽  
A.K. SRIVASTAVA ◽  
P.K. KHARE
Keyword(s):  
Fresh Water ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Habitat Destruction ◽  
Conservation Strategy ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Human Use ◽  
Over Exploitation

Ponds are an important fresh water critical ecosystem for plants and animals providing goods and services including food, fodder, fish, irrigation, hydrological cycle, shelter, medicine, culture, aesthetic and recreation. Ponds cover less than 2 percent of worlds land surface. Ponds are important source of fresh water for human use. These are threatened by urbanization, industrialization, over exploitation, fragmentation, habitat destruction, pollution, illegal capturing of land and climate changes. These above factors have been destroying ponds very rapidly putting them in danger of extinction of a great number of local biodiversity. It is necessary to formulate a correct conservation strategy for pond restoration in order to meet the growing needs of fresh water by increasing the human population. Some measures have been compiled and proposed in the present review.

scholarly journals Coastal green infrastructure to mitigate coastal squeeze

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeria Chávez ◽  
Debora Lithgow ◽  
Miguel Losada ◽  
Rodolfo Silva-Casarin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Risk Evaluation ◽  
Good Practices ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Holistic Management ◽  
Coastal Squeeze ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Coastal Risk

AbstractInfrastructure is necessary to protect and provide the goods and services required by humans. As coastal green infrastructure (CGI) aims to respect and work with natural processes, it is a feasible response to mitigate or avoid the consequences of coastal squeeze. The concept of CGI is receiving increased attention of late due to the challenges facing us, such as climate change, population growth and the overexploitation of natural resources on the coast. Terms which may be applied to encourage the construction of infrastructure, or to minimize the responsibility for poorly made decisions, often induce misunderstanding. In this paper, the concept of CGI and its use in solving coastal problems is reordered. Four categories are proposed, according to the degree of naturalness of the project: Nature reclamation, Engineered ecosystems, Ecologically enhanced engineering, and De-engineering/Relocation. Existing coastal risk evaluation frameworks can be used to design many types of CGI. Key concepts, challenges and good practices for the holistic management of coastal squeeze are presented from the analysis of successful and unsuccessful CGI projects worldwide.

scholarly journals Integrating dark diversity and functional traits to enhance nature conservation of epiphytic lichens: a case study from Northern Italy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Pires Ferraz Trindade ◽  
Meelis Pärtel ◽  
Carlos Pérez Carmona ◽  
Tiina Randlane ◽  
Juri Nascimbene
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nature Conservation ◽  
Functional Traits ◽  
Growth Form ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Epiphytic Lichens ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
High Elevations ◽  
Harsh Conditions

AbstractMountains provide a timely opportunity to examine the potential effects of climate change on biodiversity. However, nature conservation in mountain areas have mostly focused on the observed part of biodiversity, not revealing the suitable but absent species—dark diversity. Dark diversity allows calculating the community completeness, indicating whether sites should be restored (low completeness) or conserved (high completeness). Functional traits can be added, showing what groups should be focused on. Here we assessed changes in taxonomic and functional observed and dark diversity of epiphytic lichens along elevational transects in Northern Italy spruce forests. Eight transects (900–1900 m) were selected, resulting in 48 plots and 240 trees, in which lichens were sampled using four quadrats per tree (10 × 50 cm). Dark diversity was estimated based on species co-occurrence (Beals index). We considered functional traits related to growth form, photobiont type and reproductive strategy. Linear and Dirichlet regressions were used to examine changes in taxonomic metrics and functional traits along gradient. Our results showed that all taxonomic metrics increased with elevation and functional traits of lichens differed between observed and dark diversity. At low elevations, due to low completeness and harsh conditions, both restoration and conservation activities are needed, focusing on crustose species. Towards high elevations, conservation is more important to prevent species pool losses, focusing on macrolichens, lichens with Trentepohlia and sexual reproduction. Finally, dark diversity and functional traits provide a novel tool to enhance nature conservation, indicating particular threatened groups, creating windows of opportunities to protect species from both local and regional extinctions.

scholarly journals Sharing Lisboa: A Digital Social Market to Promote Sustainable and Energy Efficient Behaviours

Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Catarina C. Rolim ◽  
Patrícia Baptista
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Urban Mobility ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
New City ◽  
Social Market ◽  
The City ◽  
Academic Year ◽  
Change Mitigation

Several solutions and city planning policies have emerged to promote climate change and sustainable cities. The Sharing Cities program has the ambition of contributing to climate change mitigation by improving urban mobility, energy efficiency in buildings and reducing carbon emissions by successfully engaging citizens and fostering local-level innovation. A Digital Social Market (DSM), named Sharing Lisboa, was developed in Lisbon, Portugal, supported by an application (APP), enabling the exchange of goods and services bringing citizens together to support a common cause: three schools competing during one academic year (2018/2019) to win a final prize with the engagement of school community and surrounding community. Sharing Lisboa aimed to promote behaviour change and the adoption of energy-saving behaviours such as cycling and walking with the support of local businesses. Participants earned points that reverted to the cause (school) they supported. A total of 1260 users was registered in the APP, collecting more than 850,000 points through approximately 17,000 transactions. This paper explores how the DSM has the potential to become a new city service promoting its sustainable development. Furthermore, it is crucial for this concept to reach economic viability through a business model that is both profitable and useful for the city, businesses and citizens, since investment will be required for infrastructure and management of such a market.

scholarly journals Debris Flows Occurrence in the Semiarid Central Andes under Climate Change Scenario

Geosciences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Stella M. Moreiras ◽  
Sergio A. Sepúlveda ◽  
Mariana Correas-González ◽  
Carolina Lauro ◽  
Iván Vergara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Debris Flows ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Central Andes ◽  
Semiarid Region ◽  
Change Scenario ◽  
Permafrost Degradation ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
Negative Impacts

This review paper compiles research related to debris flows and hyperconcentrated flows in the central Andes (30°–33° S), updating the knowledge of these phenomena in this semiarid region. Continuous records of these phenomena are lacking through the Andean region; intense precipitations, sudden snowmelt, increased temperatures on high relief mountain areas, and permafrost degradation are related to violent flow discharges. Documented catastrophic consequences related to these geoclimatic events highlight the need to improve their understanding in order to prepare the Andean communities for this latent danger. An amplified impact is expected not only due to environmental changes potentially linked to climate change but also due to rising exposure linked to urban expansion toward more susceptible or unstable areas. This review highlights as well the need for the implementation of preventive measures to reduce the negative impacts and vulnerability of the Andean communities in the global warming context.

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