Climate

This study by Bhoomika Partap and Tej Partap deals with climate change impact on hill agriculture and farmers adaptive strategies. It takes apple as an indicator crop to investigate the positive and negative effects of climate change on farm economy. 

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This report by India Meteorological Department deals with long range forecasting of the South West (SW) Monsoon for 2011. In India, SW monsoon is the principal rainy season and it receives about 80 per cent of its total annual rainfall during the summer monsoon season, from June to September.

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These reports present the findings of a study on “Snow and Glacier Studies” taken up by the Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and executed in collaboration with fourteen research organizations and academic institutions of the country, at the behest of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Snow cover for the entire Indian Himalaya has been monitored for four consecutive years from 2004-05 to 2007-08. Himalayan mountains contain important natural resources of frozen fresh water in the form of snow and glaciers. These glaciers are unique as they are located in tropics, high altitude regions, predominantly valley type and many are covered with debris.

The great northern plains of India sustain on the perennial melt of snow and glaciers meeting the water requirements of agriculture, industries, domestic sector even in the months of summer when large tracts of the country go dry. Therefore, it is important to monitor and assess the state of snow and glaciers and to know the sustainability of glaciers in view of changing global scenarios of climate and water security of the nation. Any information pertaining to Himalayan glaciers is normally difficult to be obtained by conventional means due to its harsh weather and rugged terrains.

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This report by Him Dhara, an environmental research and action collective, deals with the Asian Development Bank financed hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh, which are leading to obstruction of the rivers and their consequent disappearance for harnessing energy and making ‘judicious’ use of the water. Within the hydro sector the attention has turned to the Indian Himalayan region which is estimated to have seventy nine per cent of the total hydropower potential of the country.

The technology of ‘run of the river’ (ROR) used to tap “the flow of rivers” in high gradient zones to generate power has given impetus to setting up of hydro-projects in the Himalayan states. In India, the mountainous region of the Himalayas offered the “perfect setting” for such projects, with the availability of several flowing water sources that could be tapped before they reached the plains. Of the Himalayan states, after Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh is second in line with a hydropower potential of about 21000 MW. The installed capacity has increased twenty fold (from 326 MW to 6370 MW) in the last ten years indicating the frenzied pace of hydropower development in the state.

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