Long-term climate change analysis in northeast and eastern India

Abstract

Global climate change and landform alteration are correlated with a high impact on rainfall, land surface temperature (LST), vegetation conditions, and soil moisture. This study examines rainfall, temperature, vegetation condition, moisture, and drought index to identify the decadal change from 2002 to 2021 using Landsat and global Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index-base (SPEIbase) data in Google Earth Engine (GEE). In between 20 years, 50.54 mm of mean rainfall decreased in the study area while 6.31 °C of LST increased in the entire region. The most affected states are Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. Similarly, in northeast India, Assam, Tripura, and Meghalaya have huge effects on temperature variation. The green space (0.158), and moisture (−0.082) fluctuated mainly in Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Tripura states. The SPEI has increased (−0.232) in Bihar, Manipur, Tripura, Assam, and Meghalaya. The analysis observed that decreased rainfall and high-temperature variation may impact crop production, moisture loss, cyclonic affected in West Bengal coastal areas, floods in the Brahmaputra River basin and Bihar, droughts, and urban heat island-related effects. Some policies like reduction of forest fire (northeast), flood (Assam), urban planning (West Bengal, Bihar, and Assam), industrial pollution, and jhum cultivation decrease can improve the climate change in those states, India.

Keywords

• Thermal condition
• climate variables
• precipitation
• vegetation condition
• remote sensing