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Cycle 5 (2015 Deadline)
JaibikMap: Nepal's biodiversity and climate change tool for the future
PI: Menaka Panta (menaka72@gmail.com), International Union for Conservation of Nature - Nepal
U.S. Partner: Walter Jetz, Yale University
Project Dates: December 2016 - February 2019
Project Overview:
Nepal, a small, landlocked country in the Himalayan region, boasts an astonishing variety of floral and faunal species due to the diversity of its topography and habitat types. Nepal’s biodiversity is declining due to anthropological stressors, including rapid growth in human population and settlements and human-wildlife conflict; however, the greatest risk to Nepal’s biodiversity lies in a lack of spatially and temporally-sensitive data that reflect potential future changes in habitat composition and distribution due to climate change. Barriers to collecting, analyzing, and sharing information have led to uninformed development, impacting livelihoods.
This PEER project aims to fill existing and future gaps in knowledge supporting the developmental phase of JaibikMap, an interactive, open data, free web-based mapping tool that contains detailed data for addressing conservation and development challenges. The tool will be built on a scalable platform to accommodate additional data layers in the future. Addressing research gaps, project partners will conduct a nationwide study of forest change under different climate change scenarios and then apply these findings to species distribution models predicting shifts in habitats. Furthermore, a mobile application will be developed allowing anyone to upload photos and GPS coordinates to the JaibikMap repository taken during opportunistic sightings of mammal species.
Final Summary of Project Activities
This project has come to an end. The team accomplished most of the project activities which started with data collection and organization of mammalian data as occurrence points for 75 species provided by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), its own field offices, and networks. Various secondary sources including online data portal, websites, published books, thesis and papers, grey and white literature, personal networks, and geo-referencing process were also used to collect additional data. Similarly, various types of spatial layers such as Red List series, protected areas (NPs/WLR, buffer zones), land use and land cover, , new administrative boundaries, vegetation composition, cover/types, and other required information were collected either from government offices or from personal networks.
In total, 168 mammalian species profiles were compiled and updated with current distribution, status, and habitat requirements in Nepal. Similarly, IUCN, jointly with KLL, analyzed the habitat distribution of selected species using the Species Distribution Model (SDM). Occurrence points (GPS coordinates), climatic data layers (obtained from DHM and downloaded from Worldclim both) with slope, aspect, and elevation were used as basic inputs variables in modeling. Future predictions of the suitable habitat distribution of species was projected under RCP 4.5 & 8.5 for the years 2050/70. Finally, modeling outputs of 75 mammalians (based on available GPS point) species with current and future predicted suitable habitat distribution was obtained. The team also classified the 24 Holdridge Life Zones (HLZ) for Nepal based on Holdridge, 1967 as per plan and projected under RCP 4.5 & 8.5 using Worldclim data sets for the same years 2050/70. The climatic data sets of Worldclim from 1950-2000 was considered as current in both models (SDM and HLZ modeling). Later, SDM outputs were further translated and merged with HLZs and HLZs with forest cover/types of Nepal (DPR@2007).
Serving the massive amount of geospatial data seamlessly through web and mobile was a major technical challenge of this project; however KLL developed an online interactive map and website after having a number of meetings, workshops, seminars and discussion with relevant stakeholders. Likewise, systems were tested and validated through various methods including user acceptance and training, and is hosted on the KLL website.
In addition to the national distribution map, a global distribution map was added in the form of a Map of Life iframe and incorporated a global distribution section, as well as highlighted the selected species. A project fact sheet, mammalian profile, and video and project technical reports were prepared and will be published on partner websites and IUCN regional/HQ websites after completion of the official process. NEFEJ disseminated project information to the public via media outreach in 2018 and other media outlets such as Himalaya Times, Kantipur and Gorkhapatra Ratriya Dainik also disseminated project outputs in due course. A comprehensive project report focused on the updated mammalian profile of 168 species will be published soon.
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