Dipender Manta
Tribune News Service
Mandi, March 17
The Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati; Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi; and Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, collaborated in a pan-India, multi-institutional initiative to develop a 'Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment for the Indian Himalayan Region using a common framework.'
Doctor Shyamasree Dasgupta, Assistant Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Mandi, said the assessment exercise was unique because for the first time, all 12 Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) states have used a common framework resulting in the production of comparable state-level and within state, district-level vulnerability maps.
"Such comparable vulnerability assessments are useful for the government officials, implementers, decision makers, funding agencies and development experts, to have a common understanding on vulnerability, enabling them to assess which state in IHR is more vulnerable, what has made them vulnerable and how they might address these vulnerabilities," he said.
The 12 states include Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and the hilly districts of West Bengal in the eastern part and Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir in the Western part of IHR.
The need for such an exercise was due to the fact that IHR is one of the most sensitive regions to climate change and variability, he said. Most parts of the region underwent significant long-term changes in frequencies and the intensity of extreme temperature and rainfall events over the last decades. Realising the high vulnerability of IHR, the government of India launched the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE).
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"The assessment exercise was unique because for the first time, all 12 Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) states have used a common framework resulting in the production of comparable state-level and within state, district-level vulnerability maps. Such comparable vulnerability assessments are useful for the government officials, implementers, decision makers, funding agencies and development experts, to have a common understanding on vulnerability, enabling them to assess which state in IHR is more vulnerable, what has made them vulnerable and how they might address these vulnerabilities." Shyamasree Dasgupta, Asst prof, School of humanities and social sciences, IIT-Mandi
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