to maintain the flow of ecosystem services. Phenological resilience is seen as the
most apparent symptom of or strategy towards a climate-induced disturbance. These
approaches may address the management of forests, including reforestation and
protecting the existing forests, such as the United Nations REDD+ initiation, or,
they may approach the monitoring aspect to be cautious of the changes taking place
over the long term. Some of these approaches are mentioned here:
(a) The protection of forest biodiversity should be prioritised, especially in the core
forest areas. Chakraborty et al. (2018) observed that the seasonal greenness over
different types of forests in India suffered a gradual decrease from 2001 to 2014
that was highest over tropical moist deciduous forests; most of the high to
medium negative trends were found in the core zones of forests. Significant
among the protected areas exhibiting this decrease were the Simplipal wildlife
sanctuary (Odisha), Rajaji National Parl (Uttarakhand), Achanakmar wildlife
sanctuary, and the Sundarban (Chakraborty et al. 2018).
(b) Conservation of existing habitats, especially in protected and core areas, resuscitating the threatened species populations in existing areas, and identifying the
more resilient species that can adapt to disturbances, would help in increasing
forest resilience (Priti et al. 2016).
(c) Multicriteria and hierarchical modelling approaches that take into consideration
socioeconomic and biological factors, including the response lag of certain
species to environmental changes, would help in creating better strategies to
protect forest species (Qiu et al. 2020; Hua et al. 2019).
(d) A multipronged approach aimed at educating the local stakeholders, and using
traditional knowledge to monitor phenological changes, would work better in
tandem with remote sensing and ground-based measurements. A recent example
is a study conducted by Kosmala et al. (2016), wherein the authors used “citizen
science in combination with near-surface remote sensing of phenology” to
observe ground-based phenological changes. This approach helped in data
processing and validation of satellite results. The volunteers’ observed data
was further used to improve the vegetation indices and computation algorithm
to interpret satellite results more accurately (Kosmala et al. 2016).
(e) Carbon forestry and manure management has also been suggested to reduce the
impact of climate change in forest areas as well as function in an adaptation
strategy to manage forest resources (Singh et al. 2010).
Conclusions
Climate change is rapidly affecting the most pristine and vulnerable habitats of the
Earth. Among these, some habitats are facing changes at more than global average
rates. Gradually, this will result in loss of habitat and biodiversity. Extreme weather
events, added to the direct human exploitation of biodiversity-rich land resources,
place the phenology and revival of many forest tree species in jeopardy.
8 Forest Phenology as an Indicator of Climate Change: Impact and Mitigation. . .
201
most apparent symptom of or strategy towards a climate-induced disturbance. These
approaches may address the management of forests, including reforestation and
protecting the existing forests, such as the United Nations REDD+ initiation, or,
they may approach the monitoring aspect to be cautious of the changes taking place
over the long term. Some of these approaches are mentioned here:
(a) The protection of forest biodiversity should be prioritised, especially in the core
forest areas. Chakraborty et al. (2018) observed that the seasonal greenness over
different types of forests in India suffered a gradual decrease from 2001 to 2014
that was highest over tropical moist deciduous forests; most of the high to
medium negative trends were found in the core zones of forests. Significant
among the protected areas exhibiting this decrease were the Simplipal wildlife
sanctuary (Odisha), Rajaji National Parl (Uttarakhand), Achanakmar wildlife
sanctuary, and the Sundarban (Chakraborty et al. 2018).
(b) Conservation of existing habitats, especially in protected and core areas, resuscitating the threatened species populations in existing areas, and identifying the
more resilient species that can adapt to disturbances, would help in increasing
forest resilience (Priti et al. 2016).
(c) Multicriteria and hierarchical modelling approaches that take into consideration
socioeconomic and biological factors, including the response lag of certain
species to environmental changes, would help in creating better strategies to
protect forest species (Qiu et al. 2020; Hua et al. 2019).
(d) A multipronged approach aimed at educating the local stakeholders, and using
traditional knowledge to monitor phenological changes, would work better in
tandem with remote sensing and ground-based measurements. A recent example
is a study conducted by Kosmala et al. (2016), wherein the authors used “citizen
science in combination with near-surface remote sensing of phenology” to
observe ground-based phenological changes. This approach helped in data
processing and validation of satellite results. The volunteers’ observed data
was further used to improve the vegetation indices and computation algorithm
to interpret satellite results more accurately (Kosmala et al. 2016).
(e) Carbon forestry and manure management has also been suggested to reduce the
impact of climate change in forest areas as well as function in an adaptation
strategy to manage forest resources (Singh et al. 2010).
Conclusions
Climate change is rapidly affecting the most pristine and vulnerable habitats of the
Earth. Among these, some habitats are facing changes at more than global average
rates. Gradually, this will result in loss of habitat and biodiversity. Extreme weather
events, added to the direct human exploitation of biodiversity-rich land resources,
place the phenology and revival of many forest tree species in jeopardy.
8 Forest Phenology as an Indicator of Climate Change: Impact and Mitigation. . .
201