Abstract
This study addresses the concerning mortality of Pinus wallichiana (blue pine), a crucial timber species in the northwestern Himalayas, specifically within the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR)––a UNESCO world heritage site in India. Hazard prediction mapping was carried out during the study period (2018–2021) using the MaxEnt program and supervised classification algorithm over the Sentinel dataset. The mortality was observed in Kaga, Kosha, Farkiya, Dronagiri, Garpak, Ruing, Jhelum, and Bampa, en route from Surai Thota to Jumma and then to Malari (Chamoli, NDBR). Both biotic and abiotic factors contributed to the significant mortality of blue pine. The MaxEnt model showed an AUC value range of 0.889 ± 0.141 (current)–0.988 ± 0.008 (mortality), where the Jackknife test elaborated that the factor of environmental precipitation (Percentage Contribution (PC) = 34.30% and Permutation Importance (PI) = 1.1%) contributed most, followed by the seasonality of temperature (Bio 4; PC = 25.90% and PI = 31.20%) and highest temperature for the warmest month (Bio 5; PC = 22.40% and PI = 40.30%). Additionally, the precipitation was indicated by the response curves ranged from 138 to 154 mm with a maximum at 145 mm (p = 0.88), the slope at 2.5° (p = 0.97) and 9° (p = 0.91), and wind speed ranged from 1.76 to 2.00 ms−1 with a maximum (p = 0.92) at 1.85 ms−1. Along the altitudinal gradient, the mortality maps showed ~ 10 km2 affected area, which is 6.3% of the total occurrence of blue pine in the NDBR, with the majorly (~ 4 km2) lying between 3001 and 3250 m amsl, i.e., monsoon-influenced subarctic climate (Dwc) following the Köppen-Geiger Climatic Classification. Maps generated using an ensemble approach helps in understanding risks of natural hazards, and useful for surveillance and monitoring by inferring the spread direction in due course. Studying the current and future health of forest trees in NDBR can further assist in decision-making, in situ and ex situ conservation, and long-term planning to timely mitigate the blue pine mortality disaster.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the Director, ICFRE-Forest Research Institute, Dehradun for providing the research facilities, and acknowledge the state forest department, Government of Uttarakhand for permission and support during the field surveys.
Funding
The financial support from the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), Dehradun, India under the project grant No. FRI-653/FPT-02; dated 01st April, 2018 is gratefully acknowledged.
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SP: Project administration and supervision, data collection, inference, reviewing, and draft editing. MSB & PKT: Conceptualization, wrote original draft, reviewing research papers, and editing. RS, PKT, GM & PK: Geospatial map preparation and analysis. SP, MSB, PKT & SB: Field sampling and geospatial data collection. RKM, AP, GM, PK, SB & HSG: Draft editing and add-on basic approaches. RKM & PKT: Geospatial analysis and reviewing research papers. All the authors critically revised the final draft.
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Pandey, S., Bhandari, M.S., Shankhwar, R. et al. Mortality Mapping of Pinus wallichiana in Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve: A UNESCO World Heritage Site in India. Earth Syst Environ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41748-024-00388-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41748-024-00388-y