Biodiversity status and climate change scenario in Northeast India

Abstract

Conservation of biodiversity and impacts of climate change are perhaps the most critical challenges faced by all sectors of the society. The patterns and processes related to climate change and biodiversity are so complex that corrective measures are often taken with an imperfect scientific knowledge base. This article addresses the biodiversity status and climate change scenario in Northeast India. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to explain the vegetation pattern of Northeast India and majority of area (58 %) are under tropical climatic zone, followed by subtropical (23 %), alpine (10 %), and temperate (9 %) zones. Although the Northeastern India is very susceptible to climate change because of its ecological fragility, the forest cover is reported increasing in the past few years because of the successful implementation of the different plantation and community development schemes. In order to avoid rapid and irreversible change in biodiversity, conservation strategies needed to focus on supporting the species’ natural capacity to adapt to climate change.