Global Environmental Changes in South Asia A Regional Perspective ii Introduction Global Environmental Changes in South Asia A Regional Perspective Edited by A.P. Mitra (deceased) and C. Sharma National Physical Laboratory New Delhi, India A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-4020-9912-0 (HB) ISBN 978-1-4020-9913-7 (e-book) Copublished by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands with Capital Publishing Company, New Delhi, India. Sold and distributed in North, Central and South America by Springer, 233 Spring Street, New York 10013, USA. In all other countries, except India, sold and distributed by Springer, Haberstrasse 7, D-69126 Heidelberg, Germany. In India, sold and distributed by Capital Publishing Company, 7/28, Mahaveer Street, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi, 110 002, India. www.springer.com Cover photo credit: Photograph taken by R. Nagarajan, at Kolar District, Karnataka, India. Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2010 Capital Publishing Company No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed in India. Foreword The Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC having clinched in 2007 the evidence of global warming on account of anthropogenic activities, backed with scientific data gathered and analyzed globally, has made it mandatory world over to focus efforts on delineation of the anticipated adverse impacts of global warming on regional temperature and moisture regimes and the linked hydrologic, climatic and biospheric processes. First and foremost is the requirement to understand vulnerability to food and livelihood security in various ecosystems—on mainland, mid-range and high mountains as well as coastal areas including CEZs. The projected global temperature rise of the order of about two degrees or more and further rise at a decadal rate of o around 0.2 C is sufficient to make grievous changes in sea surface level and submerge many low lying coastal areas around the world thereby possibly causing unprecedented losses to human habitat and livelihood in the coming years. A rise in climate variability is also becoming increasingly evident with potential direct impact on agricultural performance, on water accessibility and on weather extremes. Developing countries due to their poor infrastructure, limited resources and large impoverished population are likely to face more intense and wide- spread adverse impact of climate change than the developed world and also have limited adaptation capacity. Keeping this in view the Global Change System for Analysis Research and Training (START), of which the South Asian START Regional Centre (SAS-RC) operated by National Physical Laboratory at New Delhi is an organ, had initiated in 2003, with cooperation of its member countries, an exercise under their MAIRS project to enable Rapid Assessment of the present state of the environment in the developing regions of Asia and highlight vulnerability of the prevalent human systems, of the deliverables from various sectors and the livelihood security. The objective of the exercise was to assess and later facilitate to build or enhance the existing capacities in these countries needed to adequately understand and tackle the extent of likely impact of climate change on ecosystems. v vi Foreword Possible pathways to adapt to upcoming climate variability in order to minimize damages to human support systems were also to be explored in different sectors. The Regional Centres of the three Asian networks within START, namely, the South Asian Regional Network, the Temperate East Asian Regional Network and the South-East Asian Regional Network undertook this exercise beginning 2003. The Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) facilitated this by sponsoring scoping meetings of Rapid Assessment activity. The NATCOM exercise implemented by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forest for the purpose of submitting in 2004 the First National Communication to UNFCCC from India also succeeded in establishing an extensive country-wide network of experts and knowledge bases for vulnerability assessment. This network has continued to strengthen in the following years with NATCOM-II programme currently underway. This and similar experience of the other countries of the South Asian Region has made the Rapid Assessment exercise initiated feasible. The result is the present book “Global Environmental Changes in South Asia”. The “Introduction” and the first chapter of the book titled “Human Dimensions of Changing Environment”, record well the vision of the leader of this cooperative effort, Dr. Ashesh Prasad Mitra, who is no more with us. He was the founder Director of SAS-RC and the first Chairman of its Planning Committee, SASCOM and has edited several chapters of this book. Dr. Chhemendra Sharma, his long term associate and co-editor of this publication, has gathered vast experience in various assessment exercises linked with climate change including budgeting of greenhouse gases as well as vulnerability to various sectors. The authors of other chapters of the book are all well established in their respective areas. Many of them have led internationally significant initiatives. They have addressed all the significant issues in the book, such as reliability of the monsoon system, altering C&N pools in quickly transforming lands, floods and droughts frequency, deteriorating air quality in the urban regions, changing oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere, impact on mangrove biotic structure, limited denitrification capacity of the Bay of Bengal, etc. The need for quickly implementing new sustainable development pathways are also elaborated upon. This book is a true amalgamation of the region’s capabilities to capture environmental changes of a global nature in the region and its vulnerability to climate change. It is indeed possible based on this publication to identify important capacity gaps in adapting to climate variability, bridging of which over a period of time is necessary in the region. New Delhi November 2009 M.K. Tiwari Director South Asian START Regional Centre (SAS-RC) National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, India Introduction THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC SETTINGS South Asia is a unique region of the world. The land area of this region is only 3% of the world but the 1990 population was 21.3% and 2025 population is expected to rise to nearly 24% of the world. It is one of the most densely 2 populated regions of the world ranging from 250 persons/km in Nepal to 2 over 800 persons/km in Bangladesh. The scenario for 2025 is further 2 alarming: as much as over 1300 persons/km in Bangladesh and between 2 300-400 persons/km in other countries in the subcontinent. A positive aspect of this increasing population is, however, the increasing dominance of the youth. People of the age of 60+ range from 5% in Bangladesh to 9.5% in Sri Lanka in 2001. In comparison the developed countries in eastern half of the globe has larger share of 60+ age group population (e.g. 24% in Japan, 16.5% in Australia and 16% in New Zealand). Urbanization in South Asia – a major source for emissions of trace gas and aerosol emissions – is rapidly increasing. From 1995 to 2005, the rise has been from 27 to 45% in India, 18 to 40% in Bangladesh, 22 to 43% in Sri Lanka and 14 to 34% in Nepal. The middle class in this region is mainly professional and is a major consumer shaping the developmental pathways of the region. In India, the 200-250 million professional middle class is at the base of industrial transformation and, also as a result, of conspicuous consumptions. The major socio-economic features of South Asia are country- wise summarized in Table 1. THE GEOPHYSICAL SETTINGS The key geophysical features of the South Asia (Table 2) are (a) the presence of mountains in the north, (b) the Indo-Gangetic Plains which is vii viii Introduction Table 1: Socio-economic features of South Asia Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka GDP (current US$) 56.6 0.7 691.2 6.7 96.1 20.1 (billions) Population, total 139.2 0.9 1079.7 26.6 152.1 19.4 (millions) Per capita GDP (US$) 406.6 777.8 640.2 251.9 631.8 1036.1 GNI per capita, Atlas 440 760 620 250 600 1010 method (current US$) Population under 49.8 - 28.6 30.9 32.0 22.0 poverty line (% of total population) Life expectancy at birth, 63.5 63.5 63.5 62.2 64.9 74.4 total (years) Population growth 1.9 2.5 1.4 2.0 2.4 0.9 (annual %) Surface area 144.0 47.0 3287 147.2 796.1 65.6 (thousands sq. km) Table 2: Major physical parameters India Pakistan Bangladesh Sri Lanka Nepal Population (Millions) 1990 853 123 112 17 19 1995 929 130 120 18 22 2001 1025 145 140 19 24 2025 (Projected) 1442 267 235 25 35 Annual Growth Rate 1.8 2.6 22 1.0 2.4 (1901-2001) Population density (per sq km) 1990 287 159 888 266 140 1995 285 836 380 256 2025 423 345 1362 382 289 P.C. of population 7.7 5.8 5.0 9.5 5.9 + aged 60 (2001) 2 EEZ (’000 km ) 2015 319 77 517 - Length of coast (km) 12700 1046 580 1340 - EEZ/land (%) 68% 41% 59% 795% - bread-basket of the region, (c) the perennial river system which is under threat now due to increasing stress from population and climate, (d) large expanses of wetlands and coral reef providing eco-system services to the Introduction ix region, (e) the large area under Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and (f ) the seasonal alteration of the atmospheric flow patterns associated with the monsoons – the key parameter influencing the food security issues of the 2 region. The EEZ for the region totals around 29,25,000 km compared to 2 land area of 44,30,000 km which is as much as 66%. However there is a wide variation for different countries in South Asia e.g. while Sri Lanka’s EEZ is as high as 795% and Nepal is a land-locked country. EEZ is, therefore, a major natural resource for this region. The mountains in the North are dominated by the Himalayas. The Himalayas extend from 35°N, 74°E to 30°N, 95°E stretching over 2400 km 2 and over an area of 460,000 km . This region is rich in biodiversity, a storehouse of unique gene pool, is provider of a large fraction of water to the rivers Indus and Ganges, isolates the subcontinent geographically and meteorologically. Its rich forests have in recent years been greatly depleted catalyzing large sediment flow, floods and climate events. The physical and socio-cultural parameters of the Himalayas are given (K.L. Shrestha, Personal Communication) in Table 3. The Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) region is the bread-basket of this region (Fig. 1) but it is also a major emitter region of nearly all the climate forcing gases and particles: CO , CH , N O, CO, NO , BC and OC. The extended 2 4 2 x urban sprawl in this region merges with that of the Mekong delta and eastward combining with the Yangtse river delta; it provides a massive sprawl over the entire Asian region dominating industrialization, urbanization, city growths, and is the home of some of the most populated megacities of the world. Table 3: Physical and socio-cultural parameters of Himalaya region Description Western Central Eastern Himalayas Himalayas Himlayas o o o Latitude 37 N 28 N 28 N o o o Longitude 72 E 81 E 97 E Snowline 4,800 m 5,000 m 4,900 m (3,500 m) Treeline 4,000 m 3,900 m 4,200 m Predominant species Pinus variety Shorea to Pinus Shorea Robusta (lower elevation) Vegetation regime Xerophytic Transitional Hydrophytic Annual average 700-2000 mm 3500 mm precipitation Main river system Indus Ganges Brahmaputra Drainage area 1,263,000 sq.km 1,075,000 sq.km 940,000 sq.km Average annual runoff 3,850 cu. M/s 15,000 cu.m/s 20,000 cu.m/s Specific Runoff 3.05 13.95 21.28 Number of Languages Indo Aryan: 11 Indo Aryan: 5 Tibeto-Burman:11 Tibeto Burman: 9 Tibeto Burman: 11 Culture Caucasoids Mixed Mongoloids