The Himalayan ecosystem is vulnerable and susceptible to the impacts and consequences of changes on account of natural causes, climate change resulting from anthropogenic emissions, and developmental paradigms of modern society.

The tragic death of nine tourists in a landslip in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh is an alarming pointer to the fragility of the ecology of the Himalayan States. This article focuses on the impacts of climate change on the Himalayan ecosystem and causes of climate change and other related issues.

What is climate change?

• Climate Change is a periodic modification of Earth’s climate brought about due to the changes in the atmosphere as well as the interactions between the atmosphere and various other geological, chemical, biological and geographical factors within the Earth’s system.
• Climate change can make weather patterns less predictable. These unforeseen weather patterns can make it difficult to maintain and grow crops, making agriculture-dependent countries like India vulnerable.
• It is also causing damaging weather events like more frequent and intense hurricanes, floods, cyclones, flooding etc.
• Due to the rising temperature caused by climate change, the ice in the Polar Regions is melting at an accelerated rate, causing sea levels to rise. This is damaging the coastlines due to the increased flooding and erosion.
• The cause of the current rapid climate change is due to human activities and threatening the very survival of humankind.

What are the factors that cause climate change?

Earth’s temperature is influenced by the energy entering and leaving the planet’s system. Both natural and anthropogenic factors can cause changes in Earth’s energy balance.

Natural Factors

(1) Continental drift

• The continents are formed when the landmass began gradually drifting apart millions of years back, due to Plate displacement.
• This drift also had an impact on the climate because it changed the physical features of the landmass, their position and the position of water bodies like changed the flow of ocean currents and winds, which affected the climate.

(2) Variation in the earth’s orbit

• The seasonal distribution of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface is directly related to Earth’s Orbit and a slight variation in Earth’s orbit leads to variation in distribution across the globe.
• This leads to the strong changes in the geographical and seasonal distribution.

(3) Plate tectonics

• Due to temperature variation in the core of the Earth, the mantle plumes and convection currents force the Plates of the Earth to adjust which causes the reconfiguration of the earth Plate. This can affect both global and local patterns of climate and atmosphere.

(4) Volcanic activity

• When the Volcano erupts, the outburst of gases and dust particles partially block the incoming rays of the Sun which lead to the cooling of the weather.

(5) Ocean currents

• Ocean currents are the major component of the climatic system which is driven by the horizontal wind forces causing the displacement of the water against the sea surface. Due to temperature variation of the water, the climate of the region is largely influenced.

Anthropogenic (Human Caused) Factors

(1) Greenhouse Gases

• Increased emission of huge amount of Green House Gases led to more absorption of heat being retained in the atmosphere thus an increase in global Temperature.
• Green house gases while largely transparent to incoming solar radiation, absorbs most of the infrared emitted by the earth’s surface.

(2) Atmospheric Aerosols

• Atmospheric aerosols affect climate in two important ways:
• They cause scattering and absorbing the solar and infrared radiation.
• They change the microphysical and chemical properties of clouds and possibly their lifetime and extent.
• Aerosols have the ability to influence climate directly by absorbing or reflecting incoming solar radiation, but they can also produce indirect effects on climate by modifying cloud formation or cloud properties.

(3) Land-use change

• Cutting down forests to create farmland led to changes in the amount of sunlight reflected from the ground back into space which greatly affected the climate.

What are the effects of climate change?

Global warming has caused a change in the climatic and weather conditions like change in the rainfall pattern, increased flooding, drought, heatwaves, etc. Some of the current impacts of rapid climate change are as follows:

• Agricultural productivity/ food security
• Economic losses
• Increased risk of fires, floods and drought
• Wildlife and ecosystem at risk
• Oceanic acidification/ Rising sea level
• Change in landscapes

How climate change is impacting the Mountain ecosystem and how it is impacting human livelihood?

• Climate change has a strong influence on the precipitation over the Himalayas as well as melting response of glaciers or snow cover in Himalayas.
• This, in turn, affects the runoff pattern of rivers draining from the glaciated catchments of Himalayas.
• These rivers support the life and livelihood of more than 500 million people living downstream in Indo-Gangetic plains, but also support several industries located in these plains.
• The melting of glaciers threatens water sustainability for hundreds of millions of people in counties, including India.
• These impacts become severe due to the increase in pressure on water resources for irrigation and food production, industrialization, and urbanization.
• Glacier melting, resulting in an abrupt rise in water causes floods and impacts the local society. Increased incidences of forest fire are also linked with warming of Himalayan region.
• Almost 33% of the country’s thermal electricity and 52% of hydropower in the country is dependent on the water from rivers originating in Himalaya.

Building dams: Choking up the Himalayas

• By planning hydropower projects, India and China are placing the region at great risk. Recently China announced that it is planning to build a major hydropower project on the Yarlung Zanbo River, in Tibet.
• On Indian side, there are two hydropower projects being built in Arunachal Pradesh on the tributaries of the Brahmaputra: the 600 MW Kameng project on the Bichom and Tenga Rivers and the 2,000 MW Subansiri Lower Hydroelectricity Project.
• High seismic zones coincide with areas of high population concentration in the Himalayan region where landslides and glacial lake outburst floods are common.

Havocs created due to these earthquakes

• About 15% of the great earthquakes of the 20th century occurred in the Himalayan region.
• The northeast Himalayan band has experienced several large earthquakes of magnitude 7 and above in the last 100 years, more than the share from other parts of the Himalayas.
• The 2015 Gorkha earthquake of magnitude 7.8 in central Nepal resulted in huge losses in the hydropower sector. Nepal lost about 20% of its hydropower capacity consequent to the earthquake.
• About 30 projects with a capacity of 270 MW, mostly located along the steep river valleys, were damaged.

What are the issues of high concern?

• Seismic sensitivity: The main mechanisms that contributed to the vulnerability of hydropower projects were found to be landslides, which depend on the intensity of seismic ground shaking and slope gradients.
• Siltation: Heavy siltation from giant landslides expected in the project sites and headwater region from future earthquakes will severely reduce the water-holding capacity and life expectancy of such dams.
• Land degradation: Even without earthquakes, the steep slopes made of soft rocks are bound to slide due to deforestation and road-building. These activities will get intensified as part of the dam-building initiatives.

Melting of Himalayan glaciers

• The number of glaciers in the Himalayan area has increased in the last five decades and this is an indicator of how severe glacier melting has been due to global warming.
• The increase in the number of glaciers is primarily due to glacier fragmentation. This is happening due to consistent loss in areas the glaciers occupy. It has ramifications for the global climate.
• Along with the Tibetan Plateau, this influences the Indian summer monsoon. So, any changes in this region would have a bearing on the monsoon itself that already shows signs of changes in spread and distribution.
• It could trigger a multitude of biophysical and socio-economic impacts, such as biodiversity loss, increased glacial melting, and less predictable water availability—all of which will impact livelihoods and well-being in the region.
• Faster snow and glacier melting due to warming is already manifesting in formation of glacial lakes. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) are becoming frequent and causing huge casualties and loss to local infrastructures.
• Most of the lakes in high altitudes have also reported water level rise by 0.2 m/year besides their surface areas expanding.

Threat to the Himalayan Ecology

(1) Increased intensity and frequency of natural disaster

• The Himalayan landscape is susceptible to landslides and earthquakes.
• Formed due to the collision of Indian and Eurasian plates, the northward movement of the former puts continuous stress on the rocks, rendering them weak and prone to landslides and earthquakes.
• This, combined with steep slopes, rugged topography, high seismic vulnerability, and rainfall, makes the region one of the most disaster prone areas in the world.

(2) Unsustainable Exploitation

• From the mega road expansion project in the name of national security (Char Dham Highway) to building cascading hydroelectric power projects, from unplanned expansion of towns to unsustainable tourism, the Indian States have ignored warnings about the fragile ecology.
• Such an approach has also led to pollution, deforestation, and water and waste management crises.

(3) The threat of Development Activity

• Mega hydropower could alter several aspects of ecology, rendering it vulnerable to the effects of extreme events such as cloudbursts, flash floods, landslides and earthquakes.

What is stopping us from mitigating climate change?

The 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC has comprehensively identified the economic barriers that are preventing government decisions on adaption to climate change. These are as follows:

1. Transitional costs – These are broadly divided into information and adjustment costs. The former refers to the costs that occur while acquiring information and the latter are the costs for replacing the long-lived capital.
2. Market failures and missing markets – These include externalities, information asymmetries, and moral hazards. These cases are especially seen when one economic unit harms another unit. It also occurs when there aren’t sufficient incentives for the change.
3. Behavior obstacles to adaption – Irrational decisions, social norms, and cultural factors also pose as obstacles to adaption decision making.
4. Ethical and distributional issues – These issues connect to the differences in vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Though sometimes a decision could ensure cost-effective and sustainable solutions, ethical constraints hinder these decisions.
5. Coordination, government failures and politics – Though the governments must ensure the removal of the aforementioned barriers, they themselves face similar barriers like limited knowledge or resources. Also, coordination among various departments, though important, is highly difficult to obtain.
6. Uncertainty is the largest barrier to adaptation as it expands to different dimensions like future developments of demographics, technologies and economics and the future of climate change.

Way forward

• Early Warning System – It is important to have early warning and better weather forecast systems in order to forecast the disaster and alert the local population and tourists.
• Regional Cooperation – There is a need for a trans-boundary coalition of Himalayan countries to share and disseminate knowledge about the mountains and preservation of the ecology there.
• Area Specific Sustainable Plan – Projects that are incompatible with the local environment and ecology should not be promoted just by giving due consideration to development or economic growth.
• Hydro projects should be confined to the areas with the least impact in the Himalayas. Also, the government needs to build more low-impact run-of-the-river power projects rather than building destructive large dams and reservoirs.
• Promote Ecotourism – Initiating a dialogue on adverse impacts of commercial tourism and promoting ecotourism.
• Sustainable Development – Government must strive for achieving sustainable development not only development that is against the ecology.
• Detailed Project Reports (DPR), Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) are needed before implementing any project.

Conclusion

• The upper Himalayas should be converted into a nature reserve by an international agreement.
• There is a need to understand that – ‘’Carbon neutrality should not be at the expense of the environment’’.
• It is impossible to assign a real value to the costs to people and communities, together with the loss of pristine forests that weak forestation programmes cannot replace.
• From the mega road expansion project in the name of national security to building cascading hydroelectric power projects, from unplanned expansion of towns to unsustainable tourism, the Indian State has ignored warnings about the fragile Himalayan ecology.
• The need of the hour is that governments have a changing course to help preserve natural riches including human lives.