Climate change ecological vulnerability and hotspot analysis of himalayan forests in North-Eastern region, India

Abstract

The Himalayan forests are vulnerable to climate change leading to disturb the current flow of critical ecosystem services to the dependent population. Present study attempts to evaluate the current vulnerability status of major forest types in Nagaland, India due to climate change along with identifying the hot spots for mitigating the vulnerability of the forests. Vulnerability of mixed moist deciduous, pine, wet hill and wet temperate forests were evaluated using the IPCC framework. Local Moran's I analysis, hot spot analysis and a histogram analysis of the vulnerability were made in QGIS. Field data such as Shannon-Wiener Index and Importance Value Index along with secondary data such as edaphic factors, vegetation factors and climatic variables were used for vulnerability analysis. Analysis results that mixed moist deciduous forests had the highest area in under high-high clusters, hot spots and was highly vulnerable. The result suggests that very dense or moderately dense forest cover were less vulnerable than low density forests in the region. The study provides baseline information along with identification of vulnerable hot spot forests for future climate change policy and management of resources at the division level. The study suggests strengthening the less dense forests along with increasing the biodiversity through suitable strategy for mitigating the vulnerability.

Keywords

• Ecosystem services
• Forest functioning
• Forest resilience
• Forest susceptibility
• Impact on forests