Abstract:
Human induced change in climate has already started affecting the ways ecosystems
function and interact with each other. The major impact, and which in turn also becomes
the driving factor in climate change is disruption of carbon cycle. Apart from other
consequences, one of the major impacts disruption of carbon cycle is going to have is on
the growth of vegetation. As with the changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, Net
Primary Production (NPP) of plants and Net Environmental Exchange (NEE) also vary.
South Asia like many other parts of the world is also undergoing climate change and is
facing changes in land cover and land use. As, population in South Asia is growing at an
extremely high rate, the resources required to cater the needs of growing population are
also increasing. Consequently, the terrestrial ecosystems and their interaction with
atmosphere is also undergoing a change. To measure and estimate these changes, several
Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) are used. Lund-Potsdam-Jena General
Ecosystem Simulator (LPJ-GUESS) is also one of them. LPJ-GUESS is a process-based
framework which models the dynamics and structure of the ecosystem. It is comprised of
several sub-models, where each sub-model includes processing of associated ecological
processes. Input data required for LPJ-GUESS is consisted of climate parameters
(Temperature, Precipitation, Solar radiation) and concentration of carbon dioxide in
atmosphere. This study intends to estimate and analyze the changes that vegetation growth
in South Asia is experiencing and will continue to experience as a consequence of changing
climate, by using LPJ-GUESS model. This study can be of great assistance to formulate
climate mitigation and adaptation policies for South Asia.
