Aug 21-Aug 27 Oct 22-Oct 31 (2019) No. 576 Editorial Team: Rashmi Tachamo and Sabita Nepal For th... more Aug 21-Aug 27 Oct 22-Oct 31 (2019) No. 576 Editorial Team: Rashmi Tachamo and Sabita Nepal For the 576 th issue of Headlines Himalaya, we reviewed journal articles from four sources and selected six happenings from four countries. We selected three happenings from Nepal and three happenings from other Himalayan countries (China, Bhutan and Pakistan). The overall coverage of this issue is biodiversity, wildlife, disaster, pollution, invasion, and environment. Headlines Himalaya, a weekly research based information fact file is an attempt to keep our global readers abreast with the happenings in the Himalaya. Please share it with your colleagues and friends. Also, subscription is free. Enjoy!
Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, 2017
The climate of Nepal has changed rapidly over the recent decades, but most instrumental records o... more The climate of Nepal has changed rapidly over the recent decades, but most instrumental records of weather and hydrology only extend back to the 1980s. Tree rings can provide a longer perspective on recent environmental changes, and since the early 2000s, a new round of field initiatives by international researchers and Nepali scientists have more than doubled the size of the country’s tree-ring network. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of the current tree-ring width network for Nepal, and use this network to estimate changes in forest growth nation-wide during the last four centuries. Ring-width chronologies in Nepal have been developed from 11 tree species, and half of the records span at least 290 years. The Nepal tree-ring width network provides a robust estimate of annual forest growth over roughly the last four centuries, but prior to this point, our mean ring-width composite fluctuates wildly due to low sample replication. Over the last four centuries, two m...
Elevation is a strong determinant of local climate and may therefore be an important factor to co... more Elevation is a strong determinant of local climate and may therefore be an important factor to consider when examining the association between climate and tree growth. In this study, we developed a set of tree-ring width records for Abies spectablis (D.Don Spach) in the Manang Valley of central Nepal Himalaya and tested how tree growth and the relationship between tree growth and climate varied across a 450-m elevation transect. The sampled trees had a median age of 115 years, and the oldest individual specimen, which was located at 3775 m, had more than 212 rings. The common signal shared across the treering series was relatively weak, which is typical for ring-width chronologies from the Himalayas. Even though these forests are located within a semi-arid climate, temperature had a stronger and more consistent influence on Abies growth than precipitation. All three chronologies across the transect exhibited a negative relationship with mean March-June temperatures, which could reflect the impact of warm weather during the early part of the growing season, possibly mediated through its influence on evapotranspiration and soil moisture. While interannual fluctuations in tree growth were synchronous across sites, longer-term trends in growth varied across the transect, with high-elevation trees showing elevated growth during the last two or three decades and lower-elevation trees behaving just the opposite. These disparate trends suggest the factors that control longer-term trends in forest productivity vary substantially with elevation. For studies intending to use tree-ring width records in the Trans Himalaya as climate proxies, it may be preferable to collect specimens at lower forest sites, where the agreement across the population of trees is stronger. Because longer-term trends in ring width can differ substantially from one elevation to another in this region, it may also be necessary to collect a greater number of samples from several positions along an elevation gradient.
The Himalayan region has already witnessed profound climate changes detectable in the cryosphere ... more The Himalayan region has already witnessed profound climate changes detectable in the cryosphere and the hydrological cycle, already resulting in drastic socio-economic impacts. We developed a 619-yea-long tree-ring-width chronology from the central Nepal Himalaya, spanning the period 1399–2017 CE. However, due to low replication of the early part of the chronology, only the section after 1600 CE was used for climate reconstruction. Proxy climate relationships indicate that temperature conditions during spring (March–May) are the main forcing factor for tree growth of Tsuga dumosa at the study site. We developed a robust climate reconstruction model and reconstructed spring temperatures for the period 1600–2017 CE. Our reconstruction showed cooler conditions during 1658–1681 CE, 1705–1722 CE, 1753–1773 CE, 1796–1874 CE, 1900–1936 CE, and 1973 CE. Periods with comparably warmer conditions occurred in 1600–1625 CE, 1633–1657 CE, 1682–1704 CE, 1740–1752 CE, 1779–1795 CE, 1936–1945 CE, ...
International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 2004
Fuelwood is one of the major fuels for rural households and cottage industries in developing coun... more Fuelwood is one of the major fuels for rural households and cottage industries in developing countries. Most of the fuelwood consumed in rural areas come from nearby forests. The estimates on the availability of fuelwood are based on gross national estimates and may not reflect the local conditions. As a result, planning for wood energy supply and consumption becomes an ad hoc process.
The middle mountain of Nepal Himalaya is experiencing higher rate of temperature rise. A dendroch... more The middle mountain of Nepal Himalaya is experiencing higher rate of temperature rise. A dendrochronological study was carried out to verify and record the impact of this warming by using the tree-cores of Pinus roxburghii Sarg. from Bicharichautara village of Syangja in Western Nepal representing a middle mountain of Himalaya with sub -tropical climatic zone. For this total 50 cores of P. roxburghii were collected from 30 trees. The standard methodology was used for sample preparation and analysis. A 165-year long chronology spanning from 1851 to 2015 AD was constructed from the cores. The result showed that the tree ring chronology of P. roxburghii in study site was positively correlated with pre-monsoon (March and April) rainfall and negatively correlated with the temperature of November of previous growth year and February, March and April of present growth year. However, the analysis of climate response to temperature revealed that there was a negative response of chronology fo...
Population structure and distribution of vegetation are often affected by elevation induced clima... more Population structure and distribution of vegetation are often affected by elevation induced climate variation in the Himalaya. This research aims at assessing the population structure and distribution of Abies spectabilis in three different elevation sites within the forests areas in Manang District of central Nepal. Vegetation sampling was conducted during Sept-Oct 2012 and the population information of all the woody vegetation from a total of 59 concentric circular sampling plots of 10 m radii along the transect line were collected. The middle elevation site was characterized by the highest density of seedlings (15,044/ha), saplings (1,629/ha), poles (272/ha) and trees (179/ ha) of all woody vegetation. In this elevation, the highest proportion was contributed by A. spectabilis (54%) at combined-level in spite of the lack of large-sized stems (dbh > 70 cm). The proportion of A. spectabilis stem was nearly one-fourth of all the woody vegetation while its lowest proportion (15.5%) was found at the lower elevation at combined-level. On the contrary, its basal area proportion was nearly the half of all the woody vegetation at the lower elevation site, nearly one-third at the middle elevation site and less than 10% at the upper elevation site. There was a significant variation in mean density and basal areas of all stem categories among the sampled sites except the seedling density of all the woody vegetation between the lower and the middle elevations. The stem distribution of all the woody vegetation including A. spectabilis demonstrated the characteristics of normal (sustainable) forest in Manang District. The presence of only small-sized trees with good recent regeneration of A. spectabilis in the upper treeline ecotone revealed stand densification as well as its potential for upward migration in response to environmental change including climate change in future.
The Churia range (also called Siwaliks) rises steeply from the Terai plains and extends as a cont... more The Churia range (also called Siwaliks) rises steeply from the Terai plains and extends as a contiguous landscape from east to west. It is bordered by the Mahabharat range in the north and by the Terai in the south. The Churia is young and composed of unconsolidated loose materials originated from soft rocks such as mudstone, sandstone, silt stone and shale. Soils are mostly formed on sedimentary rocks with shallow and coarse textured soils. Steep slopes and weakly consolidation of different layers is prone to severe surface erosion. It is stretched in 36 districts of the country, and incorporates about 12.76% of the total area, where more than 15% of the total population of the country reside. Despite with nearly 72.37% of the Churia under forest cover and rich in biodiversity, it is alarming and considered vulnerable to natural disasters such as landslides, erosions, flood and climate change impacts. Vulnerability of fragile ecosystem is further aggravated by numerous anthropogenic interventions such as settlement through encroachment, clearing of forests for cultivation, over exploitation of timber and other forest products through illegal logging, uncontrolled grazing , excavation and extraction of sand and gravel thereby rapidly changing the face of the region. It can be seen that around 6.5 million cubic metre of gravel, stone and sand are legally extracted every year from the region and the illegal extractions are expected to be twice as much. In addition, the water flowing from the Churia range usually brings an immense amount of debris and deposits them in the main river channels downstream. These deposited debris reduce the carrying capacity of the rivers, which causes riverbed rising, river bank cutting, flashfloods and desertification of agricultural lands, siltation of reservoirs and barrages, and breaching of roads and bridges usually causes loss of life and properties in Churia as well as downstream Terai. Recent researches observed that rivers from Churia range have widened and shifted from their original course to a greater extent such as in the Koshi, Balan, Ratu, Lakhandehi, Bangeri Dudhaura and Mohana. There are many government, nongovernmental and international organizations involved in Churia conservation namely Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) Project and Western Terai Landscape Complex Project (WTLCP), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) of Germany, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE)-Nepal and Department
Nepal is endowed with rich biological diversity. It shares 1.1 and 3.2 percent of total faunal an... more Nepal is endowed with rich biological diversity. It shares 1.1 and 3.2 percent of total faunal and floral diversity of the world respectively, while occupying only 0.1 percent of global area. Biodiversity and forest resources are integral component of rural livelihoods and economic prosperity of Nepal. Nepal’s Constitution 2015 has explicitly mentioned to maintain certain portion of the land of the country as forest land for environmental equilibrium. The essence of the Constitution has been later incorporated in Forest Policy (2015) emphasizing to maintain at least 40% of the total land as forest cover with equal importance to biodiversity. Undoubtedly, Nepal has been able to maintain the given target to date.
Dynamics of species distribution, species composition and species number are very important areas... more Dynamics of species distribution, species composition and species number are very important areas to be understood for sustainable management of forest and tree resources. The paper endeavours to solicit information on dynamics of tree species in terms of their composition and number, and also assesses the relationship between socio-economic factors and tree species dynamics. The study was conducted through survey of 98 sampled households, focus group discussion and direct field observation. Species composition and species number of tree resources of the study area are identified for different time period. The study found out that proportion of tree species loss on farmland was higher than that of species introduction. Similarly, 20 species were found with very limited distribution in the study area while two of them are already under the threatened category at the national level. The reasons for species change in the farmland are also identified. Farmers are now attracted to grow f...
Periodic monitoring of land cover is essential to examine the total extent and changes over time... more Periodic monitoring of land cover is essential to examine the total extent and changes over time. Information derived from forest and other land cover analysis provides key input for policy formulation and management decisions. Land cover patterns on the Earth are constantly being changed by different human activities, thereby influencing biophysical processes. Analysis and mapping of land cover are important aspects in management, planning and monitoring of forest resources. Thus, we designed this study to assess national-level forest and land cover using the Openforis Collect Earth and compare the results with other assessments. We generated a number of systematic sampling points across the country and visually interpreted each of them on this Platform to assess the land cover type. Furthermore, we adopted six land cover classes as prescribed by the IPCC Good Practice Guidance. Our study provided the current status of forest and other different land cover classes. Forest occupied...
In mountainous areas including the Himalayas, tree lines are expected to advance to higher altitu... more In mountainous areas including the Himalayas, tree lines are expected to advance to higher altitudes due to global climate change affecting the distribution and growth of plant species. This study aimed at identifying the tree ring variability of Abies spectabilis (D. Don) and its response to the climate along an elevation gradient in the high Himalayas of central Nepal. Tree core samples were collected from four sites in Mustang district. All sites were located in the same valley and exposed to similar weather conditions. Out of 232 samples collected from the sites, Titi lower (2700 m), Titi upper (2900 m), Pangukhark (3100 m) and Lete upper (3300 m), 44, 40, 39 and 41 series were successfully cross-dated and ringwidth chronologies including 168, 79, 138 and 156 years previous to 2012 were developed, respectively. Statistically significant differences in average annual radial growth were noted among the four sites with the highest radial growth observed at mid-elevation sites. Chro...
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Papers by D. Kharal