Abstract

GIS for Climate Change Adaptation, and Poverty Alleviation in Nepal
Track: Climate Change
Authors: Tank Ojha

Midland regions of the Nepalese Himalaya are known to be fragile ecosystem. Rising temperatures are having a strong impact on crop cycling in these densely populated regions. Farmers are migrating to higher elevations in order to maintain their traditional cropping patterns, which may lead to increased deforestation and watershed degradation. Thus it is critical to develop the quantitative predictive tools for how this change in human activity will affect the landscape. An interdisciplinary GIS database deveoloped for a small part of far west Nepal helped to implement the programs for climate change adaptation in particular to produce agricultural suitability maps to identify what areas are suitable for what agriculural activities based on topography, bed rock conditions, climatic conditions, soils and water resources .This database also proved helpful to identify the income generation opportunities in terms of available resources, and trading of commodities based on farming, cottage industries, herbal products etc.