Conclusion

The assessment of land use changes with carbon dynamics demonstrates the potential of ecologically fragile Western Ghats in mitigating global warming through carbon sequestration. LU analysis reveals the loss of evergreen forest cover from 16 to 11% (1985-2018) with the increase in anthropogenic pressure due to unplanned developmental activities.


The simulation of likely changes depicts the region will have merely 10% evergreen cover (in protected areas) with agriculture (17%), plantations (40%) and built-up area (5%). The WG forests stores 1.23 MGg of carbon (both above ground biomass and soil). The annual increment of 37507.3 Gg highlights the role of forests in lowering carbon at the regional level. The temporal LU and climate variables responses have revealed reduction of rainy days (4 days) in Kerala and Tamil Nadu part of WG with increase in Maharashtra. The regions in 8-120 latitude are experiencing an increase of 0.5-1 0C mean temperature. The results indicate the future trends of deforestation and associated carbon stock loss, would induce higher instances of flooding and drought due to changes in the climate. This analysis demonstrates that land uses (land cover) in the Western Ghats landscape have played a decisive role in moderating microclimatic conditions over spatial and temporal scales.

Analyses of rainfall dynamics reveal a declining trend in southern Western Ghats, while an increasing trend in the northern Western Ghats. Across the agro climatic zones at 1 degree latitude, Ghats and the transition zones in the south (Kerala, Tamil Nadu) shows decrease in rainfall ranging between 40 mm to 650 mm in the century with a decline of rainy days of 5 to 10 days, whereas the north (Maharashtra, Gujarat), showed increasing trends of rainfall ranging from 120 to 430 mm and rainy days by 3 to 6 days both at Ghats and transition zones between Ghats and plains. Similar trend analyses of temperature, show an increasing trend in temperatures all across the Western Ghats. Analysis at one degree latitude reveals Grid wise analysis an increasing trend ranging between 0.31oC to 1.1oC in the Coast. Similar trends are observed in Ghats (0.1 oC to 1.0 oC) and transition zones (0.1 oC to 0.8 oC) with the highest changes in the south, followed by the north, while, the central western Ghats showed low variability in the last century.

The reduction of rainfall or rainy days and an increase in temperature (dryness) can affect carbon stock in the region. The farmers of peninsular India would face the threat of food security with erratic monsoon and lack of water. This necessitates immediate implementation of carbon capture (with afforestation of degraded landscapes with native species, regulations of LULC changes) and de-carbonisation (through large scale implementation of renewable and sustainable energy alternatives) through stringent norms towards (i) protection of ecologically fragile regions, (ii) dis-incentives for continued higher emissions based on ‘polluter pays’ principle and (iii) incentives for reduced emission. The WG has sequestered carbon worth INR 100 billion ($1.4 billion) at $30 per tonne of carbon. The analysis emphasize the need for alternate development paradigm with the focus on conservation of ecologically fragile ecosystems considering the ecosystems’ pivotal role in carbon capture, de-carbonisation, moderating climate, sustaining water and supporting people’s livelihood. Policy measures to mitigate global warming necessitates acceleration of de-carbonization measures including (i) stringent norms for carbon intensity in the industrial processes and transportation sectors, (ii) implementation of innovative carbon pricing in agreement with the internationally agreed comprehensive pricing mechanisms, (iii) shift from linear economy to circular economy through stringent regulations on recycling and reduction of wastes, energy and materials efficiency, (iv) arresting deforestation through stringent regulation on large scale land use changes in the ecologically fragile regions.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to (i) ENVIS Division, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India (grant: CES/TVR/DE007), (ii) Indian Institute of Science (IISc/R1011) for the financial and infrastructure support. We acknowledge the support of Forest Department (Karnataka Forest Department), Government of Karnataka for giving necessary permissions to undertake ecological research in Central Western Ghats. We thank Vishnu Mukri and Srikanth Naik for the assistance during field data collection.

Data and Accessibility

Data used in the analyses are compiled from the field. Data is anlysed and organized in the form of table, which are presented in the manuscript. Also, synthesized data are archived at

http://wgbis.ces.iisc.ernet.in/energy/water/paper/researchpaper2.html#ce

http://wgbis.ces.iisc.ernet.in/biodiversity/