Survey reveals fresh climate change info

The number of common crows in Bhutan is found to have declined in the last 10 years

A survey reveals that the people across the country have observed the impact of climate change but their understanding of climate change is generally poor.

Conducted by the National Biodiversity Centre in collaboration with agencies involved in conservation, the survey covered 16 dzongkhags comprising 31 gewogs, 154 villages and 417 households across the country representing four broad eco-floristic zones.

A pre-structured questionnaire was conducted from October to November in 2010.

The findings highlight that the communities are ill-prepared to face any potential impact of climate change.  However, the majority of the respondents had observed change in weather pattern such as rising temperature, changing rainfall and snowfall patterns, and change in frost occurrence.

Although the respondents were from different zones, 81.1 percent of them reported increase in temperature over the last 10 years.

Seventy-two percent of the respondents across the zones observed that rainfall had become more erratic and less reliable.

Bhutan does not have comprehensive precipitation data to analyse rainfall patterns, but it has been noticed that rainfall fluctuations are largely random with no systematic change on either annual or monthly scale. A recent analysis of rainfall data from 2000 to 2009 across four eco-floristic zones showed annual fluctuations within regions without any detectable trend.

Eighty percent of the survey respondents living in snowfall areas had observed changes in snowfall pattern. The respondents said snowfall had decreased by about 61 percent in the last 10 years.

Analysis of snow cover from Landsat MSS images taken from 1973 to 1979 and Landsat ETM+ images from 1999 to 2000 indicate a decrease in snow cover in the eastern Himalayas by 24.6 percent.

The survey also revealed that Juniper scrub forest was increasing while that of alpine plants was decreasing in the high mountains.

The survey showed there was an increase in the population of rabbits, wild boars, barking deer, macaque, and bear and decline in the population of elephants, wild dogs and tigers. The number of birds such as hornbill, common crow, vulture and ring dove was also on the decline.

The survey was conducted for the preparation of the draft national paper on biodiversity and climate change in Bhutan for the upcoming climate summit in Bhutan on October 14.

By Tandin Pem

One Response to “Survey reveals fresh climate change info”

1. Online Money Secrets says:

   August 30, 2011 at 1:57 pm

   You’ve got great insights about Climate change, keep up the good work!

   Reply