Long-Term Impact of Transhumance Pastoralism and Associated Disturbances in High-Altitude Forests of Indian Western Himalaya

Shiekh Marifatul Haq, Umer Yaqoob, Eduardo Soares Calixto, Manoj Kumar, Inayat Ur Rahman, Abeer Hashem, Elsayed Fathi Abd_Allah, Maha Abdullah Alakeel, Abdulaziz A. Alqarawi, Mohnad Abdalla, Fayaz A. Lone, Muhammad Azhar Khan, Uzma Khan and Farhana Ijaz
Additional contact information
Shiekh Marifatul Haq: Department of Botany, University of Kashmir Srinagar, Srinagar 190006, India
Umer Yaqoob: Department of Botany, University of Kashmir Srinagar, Srinagar 190006, India
Eduardo Soares Calixto: Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Manoj Kumar: GIS Centre, IT & GIS Discipline, Forest Research Institute, PO New Forest, Dehradun 248006, India
Inayat Ur Rahman: Department of Botany, Hazara University, Mansehra 21300, Pakistan
Abeer Hashem: Botany and Microbiology Department, College of Science, King Saud, University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Elsayed Fathi Abd_Allah: Department of Plant Production, College of Food and Agriculture Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Maha Abdullah Alakeel: Botany and Microbiology Department, College of Science, King Saud, University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Abdulaziz A. Alqarawi: Department of Plant Production, College of Food and Agriculture Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Mohnad Abdalla: Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, 44 Cultural West Road, Jinan 250012, China
Fayaz A. Lone: Department of Botany, Government Degree College (Women), Kupwara 193222, India
Muhammad Azhar Khan: Department of Botany, Hazara University, Mansehra 21300, Pakistan
Uzma Khan: Department of Botany, Hazara University, Mansehra 21300, Pakistan
Farhana Ijaz: Department of Botany, Hazara University, Mansehra 21300, Pakistan

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-20

Abstract: The Himalayan Mountains are geodynamical important, featuring a wide climatic range with a rich diversity of flora, fauna, human communities, culture, and social set-up. In recent decades, due to constant anthropogenic pressure and considerable changes witnessed in the climate of the region, species of this region are threatened. Here, we assessed the impact of nomadic settlement and associated disturbances on plant species composition, diversity parameters, ecosystem properties, and fire incidence in high-altitude forests of Western Himalaya, India. Based on the distance between nomadic settlement location and forest, we classified forest as near nomadic settlement (NNS) or away nomadic settlement (ANS) forest types. We found a significant variation in plant species composition between forest types. Three species, namely, Sibbaldia cuneata , Poa annua , and Abies pindrow, contribute 25% of the cumulative variation in plant species composition. Studying live plants, we found a significant difference only for density, in which ANS had a higher average density than NNS. Considering dead plants, we found a significant difference in all nine plant-related parameters evaluated between sites. NNS had a higher value of all parameters evaluated, except for height, which was higher in ANS sites. ANS forest type show 1.3 times more average carbon stock (160.39 ± 59.03 MgCha ?1 ; mean ± SD) than NNS forest type (120.40 ± 51.74 MgCha ?1 ). We found a significant difference in plant diversity evaluated between forest types. ANS had higher values of Margalef and Fisher diversity but lower values of evenness. We found that NSS had significantly higher values of fire incidences, whereas ANS has a higher normalized differential vegetation index and enhanced vegetation index. Overall, our study showed that species composition, diversity, and fire incidence are strongly impacted due to nomadic settlements. These findings are paramount for designing appropriate livelihood options for indigenous communities and management policies of the long-term forest harvest to achieve global goals and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration targets (2021–2030) to protect the sustainable development of forest mountainous regions.

Keywords: ecosystem properties; diversity; biosphere; forests; Kashmir Himalaya (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12497/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12497/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12497-:d:677618

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().