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Assessing “inherent vulnerability” of forests: a methodological approach and a case study from Western Ghats, India

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Abstract

The objective of this study is to present a methodological approach to assess the inherent vulnerability of forests and apply it to a case study. Addressing inherent vulnerability, resulting from current stresses, is a necessary step for building resilience to long-term climate change. The proposed approach includes use of analytical framework that enables selection of vulnerability criteria and indicators systematically, application of pairwise comparison method (PCM) for assigning weights, and synthesis of a composite vulnerability index. This methodological approach has been applied at local scale to Aduvalli Protected Forest in Western Ghats in South India, where a vulnerability index value of 0.248 is estimated. Results of the case study indicate that ‘preponderance of invasive species’ and forest dependence of community are the major sources of vulnerability at present for Aduvalli Protected Forest. Adoption of this methodology can assist in development of forest management plans to enhance adaptability of Aduvalli PF to current as well as future stresses, including climate change. This methodological approach can be applied across forest-types after appropriate changes to criteria and indicators and their weights, to estimate the inherent vulnerability to enable development of adaptation strategy.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Norwegian Research Council and Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) Oslo, Norway for supporting the research project on “Climate change and forests”. We thank Karnataka Forest Department and particularly Mr G S Yadav IFS and his staff in Koppa Forest Division and the staff of Working Plan Circle, Chikmagalur for providing information and assisting in the field work. RKC would like to thank the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India for supporting this study in the form of National Environmental Sciences Fellowship.

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Correspondence to Jagmohan Sharma.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

1.1 Why biodiversity is not selected as an indicator in this study?

Biodiversity richness of a forest ecosystem is the single most important factor that optimizes the quality and quantity of ecosystem services (Thompson 2011). Measuring the status of biodiversity using conventional indices provides information about the number of species and their relative abundance. However such information is inadequate for drawing conclusive inferences about the resilience or adaptive capacity or sensitivity of a forest ecosystem. Much progress has been made regarding understanding various components and scales of biodiversity, its benefits and the implications of its loss, and to some extent about the interaction of biodiversity with its biotic and abiotic environment. However, wide gaps in understanding have remained on aspects like the threshold levels of biodiversity richness necessary for maintenance of various forest ecosystem services, and the extent of redundancy of functional groups available or necessary that can ensure maintenance of ecosystem services at the same level even after the system suffers some loss of biodiversity. These issues are relevant in assessing the status of inherent vulnerability of forest ecosystems. Also, there is lack of benchmarks or references against which biodiversity of a study area could be compared for drawing conclusions about its vulnerability because no two forest ecosystems are biophysically near-identical so that one could serve as reference for recovery of the other. The utility of measuring biodiversity (if total biodiversity can be measured!) in the context of vulnerability assessment further loses relevance when some natural factor operates and itself drives change of biodiversity. For example, in the present case study area it is noted that one (out of a total of 38 native and one exotic species—Eucalyptus) native tree species, Xylia xylocarpa constitutes 46 % of the all the trees and is influencing the local ecosystem dynamics towards its own predominance. Xylia species is gregarious by nature, can also regenerate by coppice and root suckers, withstands fire better than other species found in its ecosystem, is immune to damage by grazing, demonstrates shade tolerance when young and thereby overcomes this constraint for its successful regeneration in a fuller canopy moist deciduous forest ecosystem, has wide climatic tolerance, and is thought to be replacing other species in the forests in its natural range (Joshi et al. 1980). This spontaneity favoring xylia species questions the efficacy of selecting ‘status of (tree) biodiversity’ as an indicator for vulnerability assessment of forest ecosystems of the present case study type. The measurement of biodiversity and its use in vulnerability assessments is therefore challenging (Lexer and Seidl 2009) and remains unresolved. This however in no way should undermine the desirability of maintaining biodiversity richness in a forest ecosystem for production of ecosystem services. Further, all the indicators selected in the present case study, in the final count, could have implications for the status of biodiversity of Aduvalli PF and therefore could serve as proxy for biodiversity (?). Accordingly we have not selected a biodiversity-based indicator for assessing inherent vulnerability, even though certain biodiversity indices are easy to measure and quantify.

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Sharma, J., Chaturvedi, R.K., Bala, G. et al. Assessing “inherent vulnerability” of forests: a methodological approach and a case study from Western Ghats, India. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 20, 573–590 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-013-9508-5

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