- Summary
- Objectives
- Status
- Project Publications
Various national and international policies currently support the growth in small hydro-power projects as it is assumed that small dams have minimal or no environmental impacts. However, recent studies question this assumption. We aim to gather and assess the broad impacts of extensive small dam development within the Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot that has one of the largest densities of small dams in India. The project aimed to highlight this information through the creation of a compelling documentary film that can aid in bringing about meaningful policy-level changes regarding small dam development in India.
The main objective of this project is to compile existing data sources available with various agencies and make them available on a platform that will facilitate identification and prioritisation of the terrestrial ecosystems in India. Priority areas will be identified using socio-economic and biodiversity criteria that will be finalised through discussions with experts in the field of conservation.
The specific objective are:
1. Collating and standardising data on biodiversity, ecosystems and threats available across different agencies
2. Curing and standardising the data collected and make them available on a platform that will facilitate prioritization of areas for conservation in India
3. Processing of the data and identifying areas important for conservation
- Collated and curated around 500 GB of data.The following data was collated under the following three broad categories:
- Biodiversity and ecosystems– Distribution maps for mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and plants; distribution of threatened fauna; Key biodiversity areas; Important Bird Areas; National wetlands and Ramsar sites; World Heritage Sites; Plant richness, endemism and diversity information; Grasslands and vegetation types; Major rivers and basins; Critical biodiversity links and corridors.
- Biogeographic zones and administrative units– Terrestrial ecoregions; Protected areas and community reserves.
- Human use areas and threats– Urban and built-up areas, Agricultural areas, Reservoirs and Dams, Population density, GDP, Biomass consumed by humans; Irrigation canals, Railway line and Roads; Soil and Minerals; Wind and Solar potential; Ports.
- We used Marxan to prioritise key biodiversity areas that need to be set aside to meet long term conservation goals. We ran the analysis at ecoregion level, with threatened species distribution maps (distribution maps of 1897 species across mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians) as the biodiversity input layer and Human density map as the cost input layer in the Prioritization analysis.
- Our analysis suggests 25% of land area as a high conservation priority area in India. In our approach, entire ranges of all species with single type location records are conserved (eg. Narcondam Hornbill, Kondana Rat, Pink Headed Duck, Bugun Liocichla) as also all threatened species ranges are covered.
- We were also able to identify developmental and LULC change threats in identified priority sites.