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Bhutan (2021 Deadline)
Impact of climate change on alpine timberline and its socioeconomic impact on highlanders in Bhutan
PI: Changa Tshering (ctshering@uwice.gov.bt), Ugyen Wangchuck Institute for Conservation and Environmental Research
U.S. Partner: Steven William Running, University of Montana
Project Dates: April 2022 - June 2023
Project Overview:
Timberline is one of the most conspicuous boundaries between forest and alpine that attracts researchers' interest (Peili et al., 2020). In Bhutan, this region is considered more vulnerable to climate change due to amplified warming and the presence of marginalized communities (Wangchuk & Wangdi, 2018). The existing research from these areas mainly focused on glacier melts (Mahagaonkar et al., 2017), snow cover dynamic (Gurung et al., 2011), glacier lake flood (Gurung et al., 2017), field monitoring of alpine vegetation (Salick et al., 2014) and perception survey(Suberi et al., 2018). A very few empirical studies have been conducted to assess how timberline has advanced or retreated in response to climate warming in Bhutan. This is being mainly attributed to challenging topography, inaccessibility of areas, and lack of professional capacity. However, the increasing availability of satellite data and cloud computing platforms offers new opportunities to monitor timberline dynamics in a more consistent, reliable, frequent and with fewer resources. The Google Earth Engine, a web-based platform, provides access to an entire archive of Landsat data and high computing speed to process data without the need to download the satellite data. In addition, its capability to apply standard and uniform change detection algorithm to Landsat data over multiple years ensures the consistent and reliable comparison of forest cover change over decades (He et al., 2020).
The main goal of the project is to compare the forest cover from 1980 sequentially, by decade, with the current forest cover to map, quantify and monitor the shift in alpine timberline in the Bhutan Himalaya. This will be achieved by bringing in the latest time-series change detection algorithm processing to UWICER and exploring the archive of Landsat data in the Google Earth Engine. In addition, the project will seek to understand how the vegetation shift forced the change in the livelihood of alpine nomadic herders through surveys and in-depth interviews with the herders. The project will fill up a critical research gap that exists in this region in terms of understanding where and how the alpine landscape is responding to climate warming. Consequently, this is expected to provide a scientific basis for policy recommendations on some laws and regulations that mostly affect the livelihood of a marginalized group of people such as nomadic communities.
Bhutan has a constitutional mandate to maintain 60% of its total area under forest cover and has an international commitment to remain carbon neutral. However, Bhutan is increasingly losing its forest cover to developmental activities and climate change impacts. Except for a few studies, no systematic studies have been conducted in these parts of regions which limits stakeholders capacity to monitor climate change impact on timberline and ability to prescribe appropriate conservation and management interventions to minimize the rate of biodiversity loss.
The project will provide crucial evidence on the timberline's response to climate change and assess its threats to some of the highly endemic and endangered alpine biodiversity. Such information is a key to plan and implements Bhutan's Biodiversity Action Plan, and Nature Conservation Rules and Regulation. The project will quantify pastureland encroached by low land vegetation and this can aid the Highland Development Center to enhance management, productivity, and utilization of rangeland resources. These activities are part of the 12th Five Year Plan's flagship program for Bhutan (DoL, 2018) and it directly contributes to Bhutan’s Sustainable Development Goals. Internationally, as the country that has ratified UNFCCC and Paris Agreement, it has its obligation to report on the carbon reference level. A key to such reporting is a need for reliable and consistent quantification of forest cover. As the project will quantify forest cover changes in the alpine regions, it's expected to consolidate the national Land Cover data required for reporting the national forest emission reference level to UNFCC.
Summary of Recent Activities
In the first quarter of 2023, the primary focus of activity for Changa Tshering and his colleagues involved analyzing satellite image data to determine treeline ecotone shift over a period of decades. They also began planning for an upcoming field survey, including identifying camping sites, recruiting field data collectors, and developing the epicollect survey forms. U.S. partner Steven Running of the University of Montana provided helpful consultation regarding field sampling design.
The PI continues to experience delays in purchasing the drone needed for his project, but he hopes to be able to obtain it in the coming months. He will also be initiating the field data collection from the sampling plots, and in July he plans to spend three weeks at the University of Montana working with his U.S. partner.
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