Chapter 8 Bhutan: Modeling and Adaptation in the Eastern Himalayas

Meenawat, Harsha; Sovacool, Benjamin K.

doi:10.1108/s2040-7262(2012)0000011014

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Despite their poverty, relative lack of political representation and limited education, highlands people are evolving new hybrid forms of adaptive capacity where ‘bottom‐up’ behaviors are mixing with ‘top‐down’ state and market policy in various, location‐specific blends . Specific examples (among many) include farmers in the eastern Himalaya in China adapting to climate‐driven water stress through a mix of local knowledge (changing planting patterns), market dynamics (switching to commercial crop varieties) and government support (state‐funded water storage) and highland villagers in Bhutan and Pakistan employing their traditional knowledge of local conditions while working with government and NGO support to produce community disaster risk reduction plans.…”

Section: Strategies To Support Ecosystem Resilience and Climate Chang...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Building ecosystem resilience for climate change adaptation in the Asian highlands

Grumbine

2014

WIREs Climate Change

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The Asian Highlands, the vast mountainous area from Pakistan to China including the Hindu-Kush Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, have considerable global importance; they are the source of most of the major rivers of Asia, which sustain billions of downstream dwellers, are part of four Global Biodiversity Hotspots, and support rich cultural diversity. However, climate warming in the Himalaya-Tibetan Plateau has been greater than two times the global average, and regional climate appears to be shifting with potential to trigger large-scale ecosystem regime shifts ('landscape traps'). A host of other drivers-urbanization/infrastructure development, land-use/agricultural practices, upstream/downstream water management and ongoing nation-state security conflicts-interact with climate signals to produce complex changes across ecological and social systems. In response, highlands people are evolving hybrid forms of adaptive capacity where 'bottom-up' behaviors are mixing with 'top-down' state and market policies. To increase ecosystem and livelihood resilience to future change, there is a need to link upstream and downstream conservation action with local climate adaptation. While the key problem is that institutional and government capacity for coordination is low, we present four general strategies to move forward: application of cross-sector coordinated planning, strategic integration of science-based conservation with developing local-level hybrid knowledge, recognition of the critical role of governance in support of change, and increased emphasis on environmental security. We discuss these strategies for each driver of change in the region. How to cite this article:WIREs Clim Change 2014Change , 5:709-718. doi: 10.1002 INTRODUCTION Into the 21st century as human alteration of Earth's lands and waters continues to expand, less developed regions such as the Asian Highlands are increasingly subject to ecological and social * Correspondence to: j.c. transformation. The highlands, the vast area of mountains and high plateaus above 1000 m stretching from Pakistan to China and including the Hindu-Kush Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, have considerable global importance; they are the source of most of the major rivers of Asia (Figure 1). This 'Water Tower of Asia' directly sustains approximately 150 million people and has impacts on the lives of several billion downstream dwellers.1 The Asian Highlands also host parts of four Global Biodiversity Hotspots: the Himalayas, Indo-Burma, Mountains of Southwest China, and Mountains of Central Asia. The region has some of the highest species endemism in the world. In addition, the highlands' great variation in topography and elevation gradients supports rich cultural diversity This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. expressed in multiple langu...

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Section: Strategies To Support Ecosystem Resilience and Climate Chang...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Building ecosystem resilience for climate change adaptation in the Asian highlands

Grumbine

2014

WIREs Climate Change

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“…Bhutan, part of the Himalayan region, is located between India and China. It is the smallest country in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region and one of the least developed countries in Asia (Meenawat and Sovacool 2012;. It is highly mountainous, with elevations ranging from less than 100 to 7550 m (Tshering and Sithey 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Variation of Temperature and Precipitation in Bhutan and Links to Vegetation and Land Cover

Dorji

Olesen

Bøcher

et al. 2016

Mountain Research and Development

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Integrating local hybrid knowledge and state support for climate change adaptation in the Asian Highlands

Grumbine

2014

Climatic Change

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New hybrid forms of climate change adaptation combining local and nonlocal/ scientific knowledge are emerging across the Asian Highlands region. Yet, while local adaptive capacity can be based on place-based knowledge that governments often lack, communities still need assistance from states to better adjust to climate change and socioeconomic impacts. Using a regional literature review, we evaluate the role of evolving hybrid forms of adaptive knowledge for coping with environmental and social change. The literature is clear that appreciating local knowledge is not enough; enfranchising people with representative decision-making and resource rights and responsibilities is also required so that people can employ that knowledge toward climate adaptation. Into the future, Asian Highland climate change actions must include more targeted state support for locally evolving hybrid knowledge, behaviors and institutions.

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Chapter 8 Bhutan: Modeling and Adaptation in the Eastern Himalayas

Cited by 3 publications

References 3 publications

Building ecosystem resilience for climate change adaptation in the Asian highlands

Building ecosystem resilience for climate change adaptation in the Asian highlands

Spatial Variation of Temperature and Precipitation in Bhutan and Links to Vegetation and Land Cover

Integrating local hybrid knowledge and state support for climate change adaptation in the Asian Highlands

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