Climate-change impacts on the biodiversity of the Terai Arc landscape and the Chitwan-Annapurna landscape
In recent years, global climate change been recognized as a significant driver of ecological change. The threats reach into the Himalayas; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted that the average annual temperature in the Himalayas will increase faster than the global average, along with an increase in precipitation. More recent assessments indicate that temperature and precipitation changes could be greater than the upper bounds predicted by the IPCC. Although the extent and specific nature of impacts on biodiversity are still unclear, shifts in vegetation, species extinctions, and changes to ecosystem service delivery are expected. The cascading, downstream impacts will also affect human livelihoods and lives. WWF conducted climate analyses to assess the impacts of global climate change trajectories on the forest vegetation communities in Nepal, with a focus on the Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) and the Chitwan-Annapurna Landscape (CHAL), to help guide landscape scale conservation planning.