Once the wettest place on earth seeing decreasing trend in rainfall

Once the wettest place on earth seeing decreasing trend in rainfall

Subject: Geography

Context: A recent study paper published in Environmental Research Letterlooked at the trend of rainfalls in Cherrapunji (Meghalaya) over last 119 years and saw decreasing trend of about 0.42 mm per decade.

Concept:

• Mawsynram overtook Cherrapunji few years back as wettest place and receives over 10,000 millimeters of rain in a year.
• The focus of the study on north-east is because the Northeast India has the highest vegetation cover in India and includes 18 biodiversity hotspots of the world, indicating the importance of the region in terms of its greenery and climate-change sensitivity

Causes of declining trend

• Changes in the Indian Ocean temperature
• Human interference: Reduction in the vegetation area in northeast India in the past two decades. Study noted decrease in vegetation cover and increase in the areas of cropland mainly from the year 2006 onwards and increase in urban and built-up lands during 2001-08 period.
• Team noted northeast India is mostly hilly and is an extension of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, the region is highly sensitive to changes in regional and global climate.

Steps suggested:

• Conserve the vegetation or forest area, biodiversity parks, the hills and valleys in the northeast
• Solid water management strategies to combat climate-induced changes of water bodies and ground water.
• Long-term plans are necessary to combat declining trend