Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in the Hindu Kush Himalaya

Xu, Jianchu; Badola, Ruchi; Chettri, Nakul; Chaudhary, Ram Prasad; Zomer, Robert J.; Pokhrel, Bharat Mani; Hussain, Syed Ainul; Pradhan, Sunita; Pradhan, Rebecca

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-92288-1_5

Cited by 87 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 225 publications

(307 reference statements)

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“…Scrutiny of the literature revealed that the forests in the KL have high species diversity (Sundriyal and Sharma, 1996, Sundriyal et al., 1994, Singh and Sundriyal, 2005). Although the KL consists of only a small fraction of the total area of the Himalayas, it contains half of the 10,000 floral species of the Himalayas (Xu et al., 2019). Similarly, the number is close to the total flora of Nepal, viz.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant diversity of the Kangchenjunga Landscape, Eastern Himalayas

et al. 2019

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The Kangchenjunga Landscape (KL) in the Eastern Himalayas is a transboundary complex shared by Bhutan, India, and Nepal. It forms a part of the ‘Himalayan Biodiversity Hotspot’ and is one of the biologically richest landscapes in the Eastern Himalayas. In this paper, we use secondary information to review and consolidate the knowledge on the flora of the KL. We reviewed 215 journal articles, analysed the history of publications on the flora of the KL, their publication pattern in terms of temporal and spatial distribution and key research areas. Our review shows that the landscape has a long history of botanical research that dates back to the 1840s and progressed remarkably after the 1980s. Most of the studies have been carried out in India, followed by Nepal and Bhutan. The majority of these have been vegetation surveys, followed by research on ethnobotanical aspects and Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). This paper describes the forest types and characteristic species of the KL and details the species richness, diversity and dominant families of seed plants. A total of 5198 species of seed plants belonging to 1548 genera and 216 families have been recorded from the landscape, including 3860 dicots, 1315 monocots and 23 gymnosperms. Among families, Orchidaceae is the most diversely represented family in terms of species richness. This paper also draws attention to the threatened and endemic flora of the KL, including 44 species that are threatened at national and global level and 182 species that are endemic. Finally, the paper reviews the major challenges facing the KL, the conservation efforts and practices that are currently in place and recommends systematic and comprehensive floral surveys, particularly long-term data collection and monitoring and transboundary collaboration, to address the existing knowledge gaps on floral diversity of the KL.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant diversity of the Kangchenjunga Landscape, Eastern Himalayas

et al. 2019

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“…As an extremely vulnerable region to climatic hazards 750 million people of South Asia were affected between 1990 and 2006 and experiences 230,000 deaths and damages that cost about $45 billion [60]. Countries in the Hindukush Himalayan region, includes India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan are facing increased frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events and more extreme weather events are likely due to climate change in future, and this will worsen the situation of South Asia over the next decades [61,62]. Extreme temperature reduces yields of agricultural crops and exposes the land for weed and pest proliferation whereas changes in the precipitation pattern increases the chance of crop failure and ultimately causes production decline in the long run and will ultimately threatens food security [63].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indicator-Based Assessment of Resilience and Vulnerability in the Indian Himalayan Region: A Case Study on Socio-Economy under Different Scenarios

Dasgupta

Badola

2020

Sustainability

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The Indian Himalayan region is vulnerable to climate change because of its geospatial fragility. The present study gives a framework for the analysis of household and village-level resilience and vulnerability in the Bhagirathi Basin of Indian Western Himalayan region under different climate change scenarios. Villages were selected depending on different biophysical criteria to have a good representation of the study area. Household-level survey using the household economy approach was done in 646 households of 30 villages to collect information on indicators of natural, physical, financial and human capital assets and scores were generated for each category. A cumulative resilience score was obtained for each household and village. Future climate projections on mean annual temperature were also accessed under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 to estimate the change in mean temperature of the studied villages and probable change in agricultural production. The result shows that most of the villages of Tehri Garhwal are clustered in vulnerable classes in comparison to Uttarkashi villages and vulnerability scores of 11 and 8 villages changed under climate shock and future agricultural production change scenarios, respectively. The study has manifold implications on further research and policy implementation under socioeconomic vulnerability in the Himalayan region.

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“…The significant aspect of livelihood in HKH is inherent to mountain specificities (limited accessibility, unique richness, greater fragility socioeconomic inequalities, indigenous knowledge, and vulnerability). It is home to native people who are most marginalized socially and economically and vulnerable to ongoing environmental changes [20,39,40], in particular global warming [1,41–43], [44,45]. Traditional knowledge may help local people to find solutions helping them to cope with impending changes [42,46,47].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Response of Culturally Important Plants to Experimental Warming and Grazing in Pakistan Himalayas

Karimi

Nawaz

Naseem

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The response of wild plants towards climate warming is taxa specific, but overgrazing could also be a determining factor for the alpine ecosystems. Overgrazing and climate warming are important drivers of alpine grassland degradation worldwide. Local indigenous peoples will be the first impacted by such degradation due to impacts on animal production and the availability of local medicinal plants. Studies on plant responses to overgrazing and climate change are rarely performed to assess threats to these biological and cultural systems. Long-term observations or manipulative experiments are promising, but rarely use strategies to evaluate the sensitivity and vulnerability of such ecosystems to climatic change. We studied the combined effects of overgrazing and increased temperatures on culturally important medicinal plants of Khunjerab National Park, Pakistan. Three experimental treatments were used (control, warming through an open-top chamber, and exclusion of grazing animals vs. the control). These experimental plots were installed at different elevations (3352-4969 m) and were monitored routinely. Grazing reduced vegetation cover & biomass by 2.3% and 6.26%, respectively, but that was not significant due to the high variability among study plots. However, warming significantly increased the overall percentage cover and biomass of all target plant species, ranging from 1±0.6% in Bistorta officinalis to 18.7 ± 4.9% in Poa alpina. Thus, warming may increase the availability of therapeutic plants for indigenous people while overgrazing would have deteriorating effects locally. This research illustrates that vegetation sensitivity to warming and overgrazing is likely to affect man– environment relationships, and traditional knowledge on a regional scale.

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Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in the Hindu Kush Himalaya

Cited by 87 publications

References 225 publications

Plant diversity of the Kangchenjunga Landscape, Eastern Himalayas

Plant diversity of the Kangchenjunga Landscape, Eastern Himalayas

Indicator-Based Assessment of Resilience and Vulnerability in the Indian Himalayan Region: A Case Study on Socio-Economy under Different Scenarios

The Response of Culturally Important Plants to Experimental Warming and Grazing in Pakistan Himalayas

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