South Asia, harboring the complex Himalayan terrains, has over one-fifth of the world’s population and is recognized as the most hazard-prone region of the world. The exponential increase in population with the consequent pressure on natural resources and continued high rates of poverty and food insecurity also makes this region the most vulnerable region to hazards in the world as far as the impacts of climate change are concerned. Over the last century, the climatic trends in South-Asia have been observed to be characterized by increasing air temperatures and an increasing trend in the intensity and frequency of extreme events. IPCC (2014) has reported that the Himalayan highlands shall face significant warming over the next century. The increasing frequency of natural hazards due to the impacts of climate change in the Himalayas calls for efficient management and policymaking in these regions, which can only be implemented by the local governments through an established science-based robust action plan. This edited volume focuses on the management of natural hazards using innovative techniques of spatial information sciences and satellite remote sensing. It contains chapters from eminent researchers and experts in the field of hazard management, remote sensing, and GIS. The primary focus of this book is to replenish the gap in the available literature on the subject by bringing the concepts, theories, and practical experiences of the specialists and professionals in this field together in one volume to help students, researchers, and policymakers to address issues concerning management and policy implications of natural hazards in the complex Himalayan region.

Contributed articles.

This book provides an overview of the ecological indicators of landscape dynamics in the context of geographical landscape integration. Landscape dynamics depicts every change that occurs in the physical, biological, and cognitive assets of a landscape. To understand and interpret the complex physical, biological, and cognitive phenomena of landscapes, it is necessary to operate conceptually and practically on a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. Rapid land use changes have become a concern to environmentalists and planners because of their impacts on the natural ecosystem, which further determines socioeconomic dynamics. In this regard, the book discusses case studies that share new insights into how landscape patterns and processes impact small creatures, and how small creatures in turn influence landscape structure and composition. In turn, the relevant aspects of land use and land cover dynamics are covered, and the multi-faceted relationship between the substrata and ecological community is highlighted. The book is unique in its focus on the application of spatial informatics such as automatic building extraction from high-resolution imagery; a soil resource inventory for meeting the challenges of land degradation; hydrological modeling; the temporal variation analysis of glacier area and the identification and mapping of glacial lakes; morphometric analysis of river basins; and the monitoring and modeling of urban sprawl, among other features.

The book “Climate Change and Himalaya- Natural hazards and mountain resources” presents the resources of Himalaya along with the potential natural hazards. It consists twenty two chapters from researchers working in different institutions with multi disciplinary approach. More than seven hundred glaciers were monitored and discussed in one of the chapter of this book. This book will be highly useful to researchers, policy makers, students and is an essential document to libraries of universities, colleges, research institutions and personnel collections.

This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. It comprises important scientific research on the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable mountain development and will serve as a basis for evidence-based decision-making to safeguard the environment and advance people’s well-being. The compiled content is based on the collective knowledge of over 300 leading researchers, experts and policymakers, brought together by the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme (HIMAP) under the coordination of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). This assessment was conducted between 2013 and 2017 as the first of a series of monitoring and assessment reports, under the guidance of the HIMAP Steering Committee: Eklabya Sharma (ICIMOD), Atiq Raman (Bangladesh), Yuba Raj Khatiwada (Nepal), Linxiu Zhang (China), Surendra Pratap Singh (India), Tandong Yao (China) and David Molden (ICIMOD and Chair of the HIMAP SC). This First HKH Assessment Report consists of 16 chapters, which comprehensively assess the current state of knowledge of the HKH region, increase the understanding of various drivers of change and their impacts, address critical data gaps and develop a set of evidence-based and actionable policy solutions and recommendations. These are linked to nine mountain priorities for the mountains and people of the HKH consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals. This book is a must-read for policy makers, academics and students interested in this important region and an essentially important resource for contributors to global assessments such as the IPCC reports.