Climate change impacts on ecosystem functions and services in India: An exploration of concepts and a state of knowledge synthesis

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The conservation and management
of biodiversity are crucial for
achieving poverty reduction
and sustainable development.
India is a biodiversity-rich
nation that supports 18% of the
world’s population on only 2.4%
of the world’s total land area.
Remarkably, it holds parts of
four global biodiversity hotspots
that have high concentrations
of endemic taxa and some of
the biggest remaining wild
populations of large, wide-
ranging mammals. India faces
unique and difcult challenges
in balancing the conservation
of its great biological wealth
with the enhancement of
human development and well-
being. Climate change adds an
overarching dimension to this
challenge. Climate change is
widely expected to have multiple
adverse impacts on biodiversity,
with negative consequences for
human well-being. However,
biodiversity, through the
ecosystem services it supports, is
essential to both climate change
mitigation and adaptation.
Preserving biological diversity
at every level, from genes to
biomes, is the most effective way
of facilitating the rapid changes
necessary for human societies to
adapt to future climate change.
Owing to its tremendous diversity
of human and biological systems,
India is well-positioned to meet
this challenge.
Biodiversity and Climate Change
An Indian Perspective
Edited by
JR Bhatt
Arundhati Das
Kartik Shanker
Biodiversity and Climate Change: An Indian perspective

Biodiversity and Climate Change
An Indian Perspective
Edited by
JR Bhatt
Arundhati Das
Kartik Shanker
Editorial Assistant
Priyanka Hari Haran
Biodiversity and Climate Change: An Indian Perspective
© Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change 2018
Citation:
Bhatt, JR, A. Das, and K. Shanker (eds.). 2018. Biodiversity and Climate Change: An
Indian Perspective. New Delhi, India: Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate
Change, Government of India.
ISBN: 978-81-933131-5-2
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of
India, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) or its representatives.
The views and opinions expressed by the contributors are their own. The examples cited in this
book are only illustrative and indicative and not exhaustive, nor have they been chosen based on
priority. The designation of geographical entities in this book, and presentation of the material do
not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of MOEFCC concerning the legal
status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its
frontiers or boundaries. Citing of trade names or commercial processes does not constitute an
endorsement.
Acknowledgements:
This book has been prepared under the aegis of GEF-UNDP-GOI project, “Preparation of Third
National Communication and other new information to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC)”. The editors would like to thank the chapter reviewers for their
contribution to this work. We also thank Shantanu Goel, Nayanika Singh, Abhijit Basu, Biba
Jasmine, Lokesh C Dube, Himangana Gupta and Simi Thambi at MOEFCC for their ever-willing
help and support. The same is gratefully acknowledged.
Project executed by ATREE, Bengaluru.
Cover image:
Vikram Sathyanathan
Design and layout:
Suneha Mohanty
For further details, please contact:
Dr JR Bhatt
Scientist-G,
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
Government of India, New Delhi – 110003
Tele-Fax: 011-24692593
Email: jrbhatt@nic.in
Printed at Lotus Printers, Bengaluru.

26 27
Climate Change Impacts on
Ecosystem Functions and Services in
India: An Exploration Of Concepts
and a State of Knowledge Synthesis
Anand M. Osuri, Varun Varma and Deepti Singh
The Yamuna river flowing through the human-dominated
north-Indian plains (Photo: Shyamal, Wikimedia Commons)
InTroduCTIon
The rapid escalation of human impacts on
the global environment over the last 400
years has led scientists to define a new
period in Earth’s geological history – the
Anthropocene epoch (Cruzen 2002). This
new epoch is distinguished from its prede-
cessor, the Holocene, by the substantially
higher influence of humans on major bioge-
ochemical processes on land, in the oceans
and in the atmosphere (Lewis and Maslin
2015). For example, concentrations of nitro-
gen on land and carbon in the atmosphere
are substantially higher at present than at
any time over the last million years, if not
longer (Lewis and Maslin 2015). One of the
defining features of the Anthropocene is
the ongoing change in the earth’s climate,
driven in large part by the accumulation
of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at an
unprecedented rate due to industrial activi-
ty, burning of fossil fuels and deforestation
(IPCC 2014). Climate change is most widely
recognised as increasing global land and
sea temperatures, changing precipitation
patterns, and a rising frequency of extreme
events such as heat waves, intense rainfall
events, and droughts (IPCC 2018).
A changing climate can, in turn, have
feedbacks that affect the environment,
and interactions between humans and the
environment. For example, the melting of
ice reserves at high latitudes due to global
warming, and changes in major ocean
currents, are driving an increase in global
sea levels (an estimated 4 cm increase
during 1993-2010) that threaten coastal
ecosystems as well as the livelihoods and
well-being of humans in densely populated
coastal areas (IPCC 2014). The anticipat-
ed mass migration of humans away from
coasts, and conflicts that could potentially
arise due to such large-scale migration,
are cause for growing concern (Smith
2007). Climate change can also affect the
human-environment relationship by alter-
ing the supply of ecosystem services, or
benefits that humans derive from natural
ecosystems, such as food, water, fuel and
raw materials (Mooney et al. 2009). It can do
so by driving changes in biological commu-
nities and biogeochemical processes in ways
that alter the flow of services from these
systems, with ecosystem services varying
from one another in how they respond to
climate change (Mooney et al. 2009).
Understanding the impacts of climate
change on biodiversity, ecological functions
and ecosystem services has emerged as a
major priority area for research – since the
year 2000, there have been at least 2100
papers on climate change and ecology in
journals published by the Ecological Soci-
ety of America (in contrast, the number of
climate-related papers published before
2000 in these journals was 275).
In India, which comprises 11 major biomes or
ecoregions according to the WWF classifica-
tion (Olson and Dinerstein 1998), and hosts
four global hotspots of biodiversity (Myers
et al. 2000), a large fraction of the human
population depends directly on benefits and
resources derived from natural ecosystems
such as fuelwood and non-timber forest
products (Chopra 1993; Kataki and Konwer
2002). The drivers of India’s major sources
of surface and groundwater – namely, the
monsoon cycle and snowmelt from the
Himalaya mountains – are both sensitive to
changes in climate (Narsimlu et al. 2013). It
is also increasingly clear that the distribution
and functioning of India’s biomes are likely
to change under an altered future climate,
with arid and dry vegetation types being
replaced by wetter forms (Ravindranath et
al. 2006; Rasquinha and Sankaran 2016).
Even if global mean temperature rise is

28 29
capped at 1.5-2.0°C, South Asia is projected
to be one of the hotspots for impacts across
multiple sectors including water, food and
the environment (Byers et al. 2018; IPCC
2018). Understanding the impacts of climate
change on ecosystems and the supply of
ecosystem services in India is therefore
essential for the formulation of effective
climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.
This chapter provides an India-focused over-
view of climate change and its impacts on
ecosystem services. Our report follows two
broad themes. The first part has a conceptu-
al focus and draws widely from international
literature to define broad and sometimes
contentious terms such as ‘climate change’
and ‘ecosystem service’ within the scope of
this review. In this section, we also develop
a simple conceptual model of the mecha-
nisms that underlie climate change impacts
on ecosystem services, and elucidate these
mechanisms using examples from, or that
are relevant to, the Indian context. The
second part comprises a literature review
that aims to establish the current state of
knowledge pertaining to climate change and
its impacts on ecosystem services in India.
Using systematic searches of the peer-re-
viewed national and international literature,
we aim to describe the volume and main
focal areas of the literature on climate
change and ecosystem services in India, and
to summarise key insights into the threats
posed by climate change to Indian ecosys-
tems and services. We also attempt to iden-
tify important knowledge gaps and discuss
priority areas for future research.
ClImaTe Change and
IndIan bIomes
Climate change is expected to substantially
modify future patterns of temperature and
precipitation – these are the fundamental
variables which determine the distribution
of biomes around the world (IPCC 2018).
Predictions for future conditions derived
from general circulation models are organ-
ized as a set of scenarios, termed Represent-
ative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), which
summarise changes in future emissions
while assuming varying levels of social and
technological mitigation of emissions (IPCC
2014). For example, RCP 2.6 represents the
‘best case scenario’ where substantial miti-
gation measures are implemented which will
keep global temperature increases to within
2°C by the end of the 21st century, relative
to pre-industrial temperatures. On the
other hand, RCP 8.5 represents an extreme
warming world, where no efforts are made
to constrain emissions, leading to a 4-6°C
increase in average global temperatures.
Averaged outputs from multiple general
circulation models predict very consistent
increases in temperatures for India by the
end of the 21st century, relative to aver-
age conditions during a baseline period of
1986-2005. However, there is considerable
spatial variation in the intensities across the
country and for different emission scenar-
ios. Under RCP 2.6, average temperature
increases are expected to be 0 to 0.5°C for
peninsular India and 0.5-1°C degree for
central and northern India, as well as north-
east India. If we consider RCP 8.5, temper-
ature increases are likely to be 3-4°C for
southern peninsular India and most of the
north-east. Central and northern India will
see temperature increases of 4-5°C, and the
northernmost extremity of the country will
possibly see a 5-7°C increase (IPCC 2014).
Precipitation over India is largely received
from the monsoon, of which the south-west
summer (June-September) monsoon contrib-
utes the vast majority of rainfall to most
of the country, while the north-east winter
(October-December) monsoon is the main
source of rainfall for a few southern states.
The regularity of the monsoon is critical for
India’s ecosystems, fresh water supply and
economy, especially the agricultural sector.
Hence, understanding the impact of climate
change on the monsoon system – its intensi-
ty, as well as its spatial and temporal charac-
teristics – is an important priority. Research
thus far indicates that in a modified climate,
the peak of the south-west monsoon could
shift from the month of July to centre around
August (Jena et al. 2016).
Analysis of observed data over the last 60 to
70 years demonstrates that there has been
a decrease in frequencies of rainfall events
classified as ‘light’, ‘moderate’ and ‘rather
heavy’ (i.e. < 64.4 mm/day), coupled with
increases in frequencies of events cate-
gorised as ‘very heavy’ and ‘exceptionally
heavy’ (i.e. > 124.4 mm/day) (Pattanaik and
Rajeevan 2010). In a separate analysis, Singh
et al. (2014) demonstrated that short dry
spell events have increased in frequency, but
reduced in intensity, while wet spell frequen-
cies have remained the same, but increased
in intensity over central India during the peak
summer monsoon season. Malik et al. (2016)
further explored long-term trends in extreme
dry and wet events during the same time
period across different sub-regions in India
and concluded that there are strong trends
for intensified drought events for the north
and north-west of India, as well as parts of
peninsular India. There is also evidence of
increased drought severity, duration, and
frequency in central Maharashtra, coastal
South India and the Indo-Gangetic Plains
(Mallya et al. 2016). Central India and regions
further east, on the other hand, showed
increased likelihood of intense rainfall events
that could suggest an increased propensity
for floods (Roxy et al. 2017).
Tropical dry forests and savannas, as those found along the eastern slopes of the Western Ghats, are expected to
contract under future climate in India (Photo: AJT Johnsingh, WWF-India, NCF; Wikimedia Commons)

30 31
In terms of total seasonal precipitation, an
aggregation of predictions from multiple
GCMs suggests that under the RCP 2.6
scenario, precipitation could increase up
to 10% across India, but will largely remain
within bounds of natural variability. Under
the more extreme RCP 8.5 scenario, a major-
ity of the models suggest wetter conditions,
with a likely 10-20% increase in precipitation
across India. Additionally, some western,
peninsular and north-eastern regions may
see a 20-30% increase in precipitation (IPCC
2014). It is, however, important to note that
the predictions for precipitation from these
GCMs are less certain than predictions for
temperature change, since a majority of the
models are unable to accurately simulate the
monsoon circulation features and their asso-
ciated precipitation distribution (Ashfaq et
al. 2017). Therefore, there remains consider-
able uncertainty in the predicted changes to
the Indian monsoon rainfall characteristics.
Modification in temperature and precipita-
tion regimes over India are likely to result
in changes to the distribution of land-cover
types and biomes in the country, and knock-
on effects to the ecosystem services they
provide humans. Rasquinha and Sankaran
(2016) conclude from a modelling study
that warmer and wetter average conditions
over the country could result in substantial
spatial reorganization of biomes. In all,
their model predicts that under the RCP
8.5 scenario, approximately 18% of India’s
land mass could experience biome shifts,
and that drier biomes – such as tropical
dry forests, savannas and grasslands – as
well as temperate biomes will be more
susceptible to change. Figure 1 and Table 1
provide details on the extent and distribu-
tion of predicted changes under moderate
(RCP 4.5) and severe (RCP 8.5) climate
change scenarios, based on Rasquinha and
Sankaran (2016).
Biome RCP 4.5 RCP 8.5
Tropical and subtropical grasslands,
savannas and shrublands –73.62 (–83.52, –63.73) –83.1 (–91.63, –74.56)
Rock and ice-covered areas –71.79 (–76.14, –67.44) –78.24 (–81.48, –75)
Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests –33.1 (–39.51, –26.7) –39.51 (–47.95, –31.07)
Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests –15.7 (–24.28, –7.12) –31.43 (–43.86, –19)
Deserts and xeric shrublands –16.25 (–23.13, –9.37) –28.78 (–40.83, –16.73)
Flooded grasslands and savannas –14.61 (–20.78, –8.45) –25.45 (–33.7, –17.2)
Temperate coniferous forests –7.3 (–12.13, –2.48) 0.42 (–8.25, 9.1)
Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests 7.28 (4, 10.57) 6 (0.03, 11.96)
Montane grasslands and shrublands 11.26 (10.26, 12.27) 11.35 (10.39, 12.32)
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf
forests 9.77 (5.34, 14.21) 21.49 (10.53, 32.44)
Table 1. Projected changes (% change) in the extent India’s major ecological biomes by 2070 under RCP 4.5 and
RCP 8.5 climate scenarios. Source: Rasqinha and Sankaran (2016). Values in parentheses are the lower
and upper limits of the 95% confidence interval.
eCosysTem servICes:
defInITIons and ClassIfICaTIon
In general terms, ecosystem services refer
to the benefits that humans derive from the
natural world (Daily 1997). These services
and benefits are a product of the complex
interplay between and amongst the ecosys-
tem’s physical or abiotic properties, such as
temperature, moisture and nutrients, and
biotic properties, such as the diversity and
composition of its biological communities.
The range and complexity of ecosystem
processes and services that affect our
day-to-day lives are invariably underap-
preciated – consider the water supply, crop
pollination by bees, pest control by birds,
microbial mobilisation of soil nutrients and
primary production ecosystem services,
to name just a few, that are essential for
making a cup of coffee. A landmark paper by
Costanza et al. (1997) estimates the annual
global worth of ecosystem services as in
the range of US $16-54 trillion, much of
which remains unrecognised in conventional
economic frameworks.
The broad classification of ecosystem servic-
es as provisioning, regulating, cultural and
supporting types of services by the Millen-
nium Ecosystem Assessment (Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment 2005) has gained
wide acceptance. Provisioning services
include material benefits such as food and
timber, regulating services modulate atmos-
pheric composition and air and water quality,
and cultural services represent aesthetic,
spiritual or recreational values that humans
derive from nature – these different services
arise from fundamental supporting services
such as nutrient cycling and primary produc-
tion through photosynthesis (Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment 2005). However,
there as yet does not exist an exhaustive list
of ecosystem services, in part because differ-
ent end users may prioritise different kinds
of services, and because many ecosystem
service values are subjective and difficult
Figure 1. Current extent and distribution of India’s major biomes and predicted extent and distribution of these
biomes in 2070 under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 climate scenarios. Source: Rasqinha and Sankaran
(2016). Reproduced with permission from Current Science. Disclaimer: this map is for illustrative
purposes only, and does not reflect actual international boundaries.

32 33
to quantify (Wallace 2007; Fisher and Kerry
Turner 2008). Questions also prevail about
the inclusion of ecosystem disservices, such
as economic losses and threats to person-
al safety that are associated with living
alongside large wildlife (Dunn 2010; Lele
et al. 2013). A detailed assessment of the
heterogeneity and uncertainty regarding the
definitions and classifications of ecosystem
services is beyond the scope of the present
article. For consistency within this article and
with other prominent literature on the field,
we adopt the classification of 17 ecosystem
services by Costanza et al. (1997) (Table 2).
To aid our understanding of the mechanisms
by which climate change modifies biotic
factors resulting in changes in ecosystem
services, it is useful to view the biosphere’s
biotic constituents as a hierarchy of biolog-
ical organization – scaling up from indi-
viduals to populations and communities
of different species, and ultimately to the
biome scale. It is also helpful to consider
that ecosystems feature numerous interac-
tions between individual organisms, within
the same trophic level (e.g. competition)
and across trophic levels (e.g. predation).
All levels of biological hierarchy, and inter-
actions between different levels, contrib-
ute to the functioning of ecosystems and
services derived from them. For example,
growth rates of fuel-wood species (which
Ecosystem service Description or example
1Gas regulation Balance of CO2 and O2 in the atmosphere
2Climate regulation Regulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases
3Disturbance regulation Protection from storms
4Water regulation* Regulation of hydrological ows
5Water supply* Water in reservoirs
6 Erosion control and sediment retention Prevention of soil loss due to wind or rain
7Soil formation Weathering of rocks
8Nutrient cycling Nitrogen xation
9Waste treatment Breakdown of toxins and pollutants
10 Pollination Pollination of agricultural crops by insects
11 Biological control Biological pest control by birds
12 Refugia Habitats for native species
13 Food production Production of crops
14 Raw materials Fuel and timber
15 Genetic resources Medicinal plants
16 Recreation Eco-tourism
17 Cultural Spiritual values such as sacred groves
Table 2. List and brief descriptions of 17 ecosystem services described by Costanza et al. (1997).
*water supply and regulation are considered a single service in the review of Indian literature on climate change and
ecosystem services.
are individual physiological responses to
light, soil and nutrients) and their popula-
tion sizes (which are partly the outcome of
competition with other species) can impact
fuel availability and livelihoods (Konwer et
al. 2001; Kataki and Konwer 2002; Upadhaya
et al. 2017). At a higher level of organization,
which species make up the community of
soil microbes can strongly influence the soil
ecosystem’s ability to make nutrients avail-
able for plant growth. Additionally, these
microbial communities, as well as forest tree
stands, contribute to the absorption and
storage of carbon. In agricultural landscapes,
invertebrate communities can provide a
balance between pollination and pest control
services (Campbell et al. 2012; Perović et al.
2018), thereby aiding food production, as
well as the growth and stability of local and
regional economies. At the coarsest scale of
biological organization in this framework,
biomes provide a more overarching set of
services, a consequence of the interactions
between numerous biotic processes within
them. The most well-known amongst biome
scale services is that of carbon sequestration
and climate regulation attributed to forest
ecosystems (Pan et al. 2011). Other impor-
tant examples include the stabilisation of
water supply and quality by wetlands (Mitsch
et al. 2015), and the provisioning of biomass
needs of rural populations and their livestock
provided by mixed tree-grass ecosystems -
such as savannas (Scholes and Archer 1997).
Ultimately, ecosystem function, i.e. an
explicit biological and/or biogeochemical
process, or a combination of ecosystem
functions, is responsible for the delivery
of every ecosystem service (which is a
human-centric concept). Hence, ecosystem
services are the benefits humans derive
from the biosphere mediated via ecosys-
tem functioning. For example, the ecosys-
tem service of fuelwood provisioning by
a tree is essentially the consequence of
the tree’s photosynthetic productivity – a
physiological process of the tree governed
by abiotic conditions, such as temperature
and resource availability. Similarly, carbon
sequestration by tropical forests is deter-
mined by how much biomass forests accu-
mulate, which in turn is determined by the
difference between the biomass produced
by the forest stand through photosynthesis
and how much of it is lost through respira-
tion. In this latter example, even though the
realised service is perceived to be derived
at the scale of the biome, or even the
community, the fundamental process that
contributes to the service operates at the
scale of an individual, i.e. the net produc-
tivity of individual trees. This concept of
performance of individuals scaling up to
populations, communities and biomes is key
to understanding how climate change will
impact ecosystem services.
ClImaTe Change and The
PaThways for The modIfICa-
TIon of eCosysTem servICes
The effects of climate change on ecosystem
services accrue through changes in both
abiotic and biotic components. Figure 2 is a
simplified schematic representing the path-
ways by which climate change potentially
influences the supply of ecosystem services,
and the reinforcing feedback that humans,
in exploiting ecosystem services, potential-
ly impose on climate change. The abiotic
pathway of climate effects on ecosystem
services (link A in Figure 2) is perhaps the
most straightforward and well understood
– for example, an increase in rainfall would
be expected to increase the total amount
of water flowing in streams, irrespective of
ecosystem type. Among biotic pathways,
climate effects at the level of individual
organisms might have the most pervasive
impact on ecosystem services (link B),
especially if we consider the more ‘gradual’
component of climate change. Modifications

34 35
at the higher levels of organization will likely
be observed as effects on individuals scale
up, but there is also the potential for climate
change to have direct effects at the popu-
lation and community scale, as might occur
during extreme weather phenomena, such
as droughts or heavy rainfall events (link C).
Such events would likely be indiscriminate
in their impacts across species in a commu-
nity, and could play a greater role in shaping
ecosystem responses to climate change if
extreme events increase in intensity and
frequency, as is predicted by climate models
(IPCC 2018).
Climate change
Biome shifts
Modified
biological
communities
Change in
populations
Altered
individual
physiology
Land use change,
habitat
degradation and
emmissions
Modified ecosystem services
Modified ecosystem
function
Increase in temperatures and
modification in precipitation
intensity and distribution in space
and time.
E
x
t
r
e
m
e
e
v
e
n
t
s
Individual organism-level responses to climate
change can scale up to affect ecosystem
functioning at the community and biome level.
Extreme events could influence ecosystem
functions more strongly under future climates.
Examples:
a) Rising temperatures increase evapotranspiration and
alter hydrological cycle.
b) Droughts kill large trees and favour softwood species
and alter carbon cycle.
1) Multiple ecosystem functions contribute to individual ecosystem services e.g. the supply
of fresh water for agriculture is an aggregate outcome of evapotranspiration, water
runoff and infiltration.
2) Individual functions contribute to multiple services, e.g. the ecosystem function
photosynthesis is essential for timber production, climate regulation and nutrient cycling.
Exploitation of ecosystem services
(e.g. dam construction, agricultural
expansion, timber extraction,
hunting) alters landscapes, degrades
habitats and emits greenhouse gases,
creating a reinforcing feedback to
climate change, ecosystem functions
and ecosystem services.
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
(F)
(C)
(F)
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Figure 2. Schematic diagram showing some of the major pathways through which climate change can aect ecosystem
services, and the reinforcing feedback of human impacts on climate change and ecosystem services.
Human exploitation of ecosystem servic-
es, including the unsustainable extraction
of lucrative services, can alter land cover,
degrade ecosystems and increase emissions
(link E). These processes could result in rein-
forcing feedbacks, and thereby close the loop
back to the original drivers of climate change
and change in ecosystem functioning (link
F). Chief among these are human impacts
on the carbon cycle, which is modied along
two key pathways. First, emissions from
human activities, particularly from fossil fuel
combustion (Pan et al. 2011), release carbon
from terrestrial pools to the atmosphere as
CO2 – a potent greenhouse gas. Secondly,
land clearing activities – such as those for
development and agricultural expansion –
reduce the cover of vegetation types, such as
forests, diminishing the biosphere’s ability to
absorb and store this newly released carbon
(Baccini et al. 2017). Hence, the carbon cycle
is increasingly being ‘skewed’, with the
accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere as
CO2. The resultant increases in atmospheric
temperatures can have a knock-on eect on
the hydrological cycle, which determines the
distribution of precipitation over the Earth in
both space and time. This linkage between
human activities, the carbon cycle and the
hydrological cycle forms the broad basis for
predicted future conditions in a changing
climate, i.e. an increase in global tempera-
tures coupled with increased variability in the
spatio-temporal distribution and intensity of
precipitation (IPCC 2014). It is important to
note here that human activities also signi-
cantly modify other biogeochemical cycles,
such as those for nitrogen and phosphorus
(Vitousek et al. 1997; Bennett et al. 2001;
Phoenix et al. 2006; Galloway et al. 2008)
– key elements for the biosphere’s biotic
components. Links between alterations in the
cycling of these nutrients, carbon and water
have the potential to exacerbate (Phillips
et al. 2009; Doughty et al. 2015) or to some
degree even mitigate (Melillo et al. 2011) the
eects of climate change, and in turn, impact
the delivery of ecosystem services. However,
quantifying these links have thus far received
limited research emphasis.
lITeraTure revIew: ClImaTe
Change and eCosysTem
servICes researCh In IndIa
In this section, we review the state of current
knowledge on the eects of climate change
on ecosystem services in India. A system-
atic search of the scientic literature was
conducted using the Google Scholar plat-
form (https://scholar.google.com/), which
was selected because of its relatively wider
coverage of international and national publi-
cations compared to other academic search
engines. We searched the titles and abstracts
of literature published during the 2000-2018
period for the phrases “climate change” and
“India”. We then manually examined the
>1200 studies that met the search criteria
and retained studies focusing on ecosystem
services, as dened by Costanza et al. (1997).
For each study thus identied, we extracted
information on (1) type of study – empirical
(observational or experimental), modelling
or review; (2) year of publication; (3) ecosys-
tem service as dened by the study; and (4)
closest matching ecosystem service category
in Costanza et al. (1997). Further, we summa-
rised the salient ndings of the research on
ecosystem services in India and identied key
gaps, particularly with regard to ecosystem
services derived from natural ecosystems.
Our literature review identified 102 stud-
ies published between the year 2000 and
the present on the topic of climate change
impacts on ecosystem services in India
(Appendix A). The frequency of research
on climate change and ecosystem services
increased from around one study per year
during 2000-2005 to over 13 studies per year
since 2015 (Figure 3).

36 37
Around half of all studies addressed the
responses of crop production to climate
change (Costanza et al. (1997) category
“Food production”) and a further 30% of the
studies addressed aspects of water supply
and regulation (Figure 4). The remaining
20% of the studies covered eight other
ecosystem service types as defined by
Costanza et al. (1997) (Figure 4), while seven
ecosystem services, namely gas regula-
tion, soil formation, nutrient cycling, raw
materials, recreation and cultural, were not
recorded in the reviewed literature. The
large majority of studies (68%) employed
modelling approaches to examine potential
responses of ecosystem services to future
climate scenarios, while empirical stud-
ies based on observations of ecosystem
service responses to variation in climate
over the last few decades, or experimental
manipulations, comprised 16%, and reviews
comprised 13% of all studies.
The body of research suggests that climate
change is likely to negatively impact food
production in India on the whole, but that the
responses of crop yields might vary consid-
erably by crop type and region. Increasing
temperatures have been experimentally
shown to reduce growth and development
of cereals such as rice (Geethalakshmi et al.
2017), and increased drought and extreme
rainfall over the latter half of the 20th century
have been linked to reductions in rice yields.
Figure 3. The average number of studies on climate change and ecosystem services in India per year across different
time period during 2000-2018
Figure 4. The number of scientific studies on the effects of climate change on different ecosystem services in India
published during 2000-2018
Using crop simulation models (e.g. Info-
Crop) to model crop yields under dierent
climate scenarios, studies predict reduced
yields of cereal crops such as rice, wheat and
maize in many parts of the country, although
some cooler regions could witness temper-
ature-mediated increases in productivity
(Byjesh et al. 2010; Soora et al. 2013).
The negative effects of temperature on
crop yields could be mitigated by increas-
es in precipitation in some regions and by
improvements in productivity under elevat-
ed CO2 concentrations, although the nature
and magnitude of such CO2 fertilization
effects remain a matter of debate (Saxena
and Kumar 2014; Abeysingha et al. 2016).
While some crops might decline under a
warmer climate, others could become more
productive (e.g. coconut: (Kumar and Aggar-
wal 2013)), suggesting that climate change
could necessitate shifts in the extent and
distribution of different crops, as well as the
development of climate-resistant varieties
(Dutta 2014). Climate change is also likely
to have substantial impacts on fisheries,
with increasing temperatures being associ-
ated with reductions in spawning, altered
distribution and ecology of commercially
important fish species in inland and coast-
al ecosystems (Vass et al. 2009; Das et al.
2013; Zacharia et al. 2016).
Changes in climate are expected to alter
the supply and regulation of water in India
in a variety of ways. Glaciers are shrinking
due to elevated temperature in the Hima-
laya mountains (Kumar et al. 2007; Mehta
et al. 2014) – widely regarded as the ‘water
towers’ of Asia – and this is predicted to
substantially reduce water availability in
densely populated downstream areas, espe-
cially in the Indus and Brahmaputra basins
over the next 30 years (Immerzeel et al.
2010). In rain-fed river basins, rising temper-
atures are expected to increase evaporation
and evapotranspiration (Priya et al. 2014)
and drive widespread reductions in stream
flow (Gupta et al. 2011), while stream flow
and groundwater recharge in some regions
could increase due to increases in precipi-
tation (Gosain et al. 2011). In regions that
In addition to climate change, resource and land use by humans is likely to strongly affect
future delivery of ecosystem services in India (Photo: P Jeganathan; Wikimedia Commons)

38 39
are likely to witness increased rainfall and/
or increases in extreme rainfall events, the
ability of hydrological systems to regulate
disturbances such as floods might also be
reduced (Guhathakurta et al. 2011).
In India’s heavily human-modified land-
scapes, the effects of climate change on
hydrological functions could be exacer-
bated by land use and land cover change
(Madhusoodhanan et al. 2016). For example,
disturbances such as forest degradation and
excessive livestock grazing, which are prev-
alent across the country, reduce the ability
of hydrological systems to buffer against
extreme events such as floods and droughts
(Mehta et al. 2008; Krishnaswamy et al. 2012).
In addition to altering the quantity of water
resources, climate change can also affect
water quality; for example, increased
temperatures are predicted to reduce the
concentration of dissolved oxygen in stream
water (Rehana and Mujumdar 2011), while
greater streamflow under an increased
precipitation regime could reduce concen-
trations of nutrients such as nitrogen and
phosphorous (Jin et al. 2018). Further,
increasing salinity of major rivers in North
and Central India and saline intrusions
upstream of river estuaries and deltas are
expected to have profound impacts on both
water resources and food production in
these densely populated areas (IPCC 2018).
The alteration of stream flow due to climate
change can in turn affect the ability of
hydrological systems to control erosion.
Modelling studies from hilly areas of Uttara-
khand and central India predict that increas-
es in stream flow due to precipitation and
extreme events can reduce sediment reten-
tion in river systems, with the extent of soil
erosion losses also influenced by soil type,
topography and land use change (Mondal et
al. 2016; Khare et al. 2017).
Changes in climate can also alter the
potential for habitats to serve as refugia for
biodiversity. Studies suggest that changes
in temperature and precipitation could alter
the distribution of India’s major biomes
during this century (Ravindranath et al.
2006; Rasquinha and Sankaran 2016), which
could have implications for numerous native
species associated with specific biomes.
Recent work from India has focused on the
climate threat to vulnerable ecosystems
such as mangroves (Srivastava et al. 2015;
Khan et al. 2016) and coral reefs (Raj et al.
2018), and vulnerable high-altitude species
such as the Nilgiri tahr (Sony et al. 2018).
ConClusIons
Our literature survey highlighted that the
effects of climate change on ecosystem
services is a topic of considerable scientif-
ic interest in India, with a rapidly growing
number of studies from an impressive
breadth of institutions across the country.
Research so far has focused primarily on
trying to understand and predict how two
kinds of services – food production, and
water supply and regulation – might be
affected under a changing climate. Studies
on food production chiefly correspond to
climate-induced changes in crop physiology
(link B of Figure 2), while studies on water
supply and regulation mainly address abiotic
processes (link A of Figure 2). At the same
time, ecosystem services such as nutrient
cycling and carbon storage, which emerge
out of more complex ecological interactions
between organisms and across levels of
biological organization (links B in Figure 2),
remain understudied in the Indian context.
The research arena in India is dominated by
studies that employ modelling approaches,
which are undoubtedly essential for predict-
ing the impacts of climate change on ecosys-
tem services, but more emphasis is needed
on simultaneously developing empirical lines
of research. Studies on the responses of
ecosystem functions and services to experi-
mentally altered temperature, moisture and
ambient CO2 levels (e.g. Geethalakshmi et
al. (2017)), and long-term ecological moni-
toring of ecosystem functions and services in
relation to intra- and inter-annual variation
in climate (e.g. https://lemonindia.weebly.
com/), will serve to complement and enrich
modelling-based assessments. Improved
predictions of the nature and geographic
variation of climate change in India, built
from higher resolution climate models that
capture the spatial heterogeneity and the
fine-scale processes that shape precipitation
changes, are also important for improving
the scope of modelling-based assessments
of ecosystem services. Further, higher-res-
olution historical climate data from local
meteorological services can enhance our
understanding of the relationships between
local climate and ecosystem services.
While there is a general need to expand the
suite of ecosystem services being studied, a
few stand out as being especially important
but understudied ecosystem services in the
Indian context. First, there is need to better
understand the impacts of climate change
on the supply of non-timber forest products
(NTFPs) such as honey and Tendu leaves,
and genetic resources such as medicinal
plants, which are economically vital for
many rural and forest-dwelling communi-
ties across India. While there is anecdotal
evidence that changes in flowering and fruit-
ing patterns (due to altered climate) could
pose a threat to the availability of a number
of NTFPs (Basu 2010; Negi et al. 2012),
there is clearly a need for a better concep-
tual understanding and quantification of
the response of NTFP systems to climate
change. Similarly, more research is needed
into the role of ecosystems in buffering
outbreaks of vector-borne diseases such
as malaria, and into the possibility that the
Research is needed to better understand the impacts of climate change on culturally and economically important
non-timber forest products in India (Photo: Venkat Ramanujan)

40 41
threat of such diseases could be exacerbat-
ed with increased temperatures and more
variable precipitation regimes (Bhattacharya
et al. 2006; Dhiman et al. 2010).
Second, there is need for research examin-
ing the impacts of climate change on carbon
and nutrient cycling, because these are
crucial ecosystem services from the point
of view of mitigating future climate change,
and because such research would support
India’s commitments towards international
climate agreements (Government of India
2015). While some modelling studies predict
that increasing temperature and precipi-
tation can enhance terrestrial net primary
production in India’s forests (Ravindranath
et al. 2006), the effects of drought, which
are known to reduce the carbon seques-
tration potential of forests in the Amazon
(Phillips et al. 2009), are unknown in India.
Research is also needed on the impacts of
changing temperature and precipitation
regimes on the activity and metabolism of
soil microbes, which too can have impli-
cations for terrestrial carbon and nutrient
cycling (Zhu and Cheng 2011).
Finally, in India’s predominantly and increas-
ingly human-dominated environment, it is
important to recognise that climate change
is but one of several stressors that will shape
the supply of ecosystem services in the future.
There is therefore need for research that inte-
grates the responses of ecosystem services
to climate change with responses to other
major global change drivers such as ecosys-
tem fragmentation, degradation and nutrient
deposition. In theory, there is potential for
these drivers to have synergistic eects that
exacerbate threats to ecosystem services –
for example, carbon storage losses due to
drought might be amplied in forests that
are fragmented because both drought and
fragmentation are known to kill large trees
(Laurance et al. 2000; Nepstad et al. 2007).
In another example, the deposition of
nitrogen and phosphorous from agricul-
tural and industrial sources can alter the
growth and survival of tree seedlings, and
thereby modulate dry forest ecosystem
responses to fire and drought (Varma et
al. 2017). Land use and habitat fragmenta-
tion can also modulate climate impacts on
ecological fluxes, such as the movement
of water through catchments (Gosain et al.
2011; Madhusoodhanan et al. 2016) or the
dispersion of infectious diseases (Rulli et al.
2017). It is therefore essential to strengthen
the scientific links between climate-focused
research and research on other anthro-
pogenic global change drivers, as a step
towards developing effective strategies for
mitigating and adapting to future trajecto-
ries of ecosystem services in India.
Photo: Shreekant Deodhar
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Tracking Phenology in the Tropics
and in India: e Impacts of
Climate Change
Geetha Ramaswami, Aparajita Datta,
Abinand Reddy and Suhel Quader
Banyan tree at Rishi Valley School (Photo: Dan, Flickr)