Importance of Climate Impacts on Wildlife, Integrated Modeling and Relevance
to the IRI
There is increasing
stress on Wildlife all over the world due to a variety of factors
including loss of habitat and conflicts with humans. The stresses are
particularly great in "developing countries" in which IRI has the greatest
interest.
Under these stressed circumstances, wildlife are increasingly vulnerable
to both climate variability and climate change. Wildlife scientists and conservations
are increasingly aware of the importance of climate. However, they are yet
to systematically investigate the impacts of climate variability and change
or to use climate predictions. The project that is proposed here will pioneer
not only the investigation of climate impacts on wildlife but also the integration
of climatic predictions in integrated physical, ecological and societal modeling.
The stresses on wildlife
take on the greatest urgency in the case of endangered species. Fragile populations
are particularly vulnerable to additional stresses due climate variations
and climate change. Indeed the Asian elephant population that number 45,000
in 13 countries have suffered a rapid decline in numbers in the last few
decades. Indeed over 250 elephants die due to conflicts with humans every
year in Sri Lanka and India. The total
population of elephants in Sri Lanka has been estimated to be around 4000
and the conflicts particularly due to land-settlement and loss of range following
irrigation schemes such as the Mahaweli Project has led to tremendous stresses.
The Asian elephant is thus "endangered" and studies of climate impact
taken on particular significance
Human-Elephant conflicts
are of vital importance to rural societies. Not only do these societies face
increasing fatalities and fear but also agricultural and other economic losses.
In addition, the sustainability of the wild elephant population extends beyond
the economic realm in Sri Lanka, in view of the central role that elephant
plays in cultural activities such as Buddhist religious observances.
The results from this
work will not only be useful for human-elephant conflict management in Sri
Lanka but will also serve as a path-breaker for the integration of climate
information and prediction in integrated modeling and wildlife management.
CIESIN is well situated to use the outcomes of the present project to for
integrated modeling. The Wildlife Trust will be using the case study to convene
a conference to address the issue of managing climate impacts on wildlife.
This project thus can serve as a flagship project for the IRI, CIESIN
and Wildlife Trust on integrated modeling and wildlife management.
In particular, this
is an opportunity for the IRI, to leverage work already done (data collections,
data analysis, downscaling methods, hydrological modeling and on-ground partnerships)
for water management project in Sri Lanka. In addition, the human-elephant
conflict is a critical dimension in both environmental management and irrigation
planning and management in the Mahaweli basin that already critical concerns
the Environment Division of the Mahaweli Authority. Methodologies for the
integration of data from the IRI data library in GIS applications will be
useful for a variety of other projects.
The comprehensive physical, ecological and societal modeling approaches
that is to be conducted for this project under the leadership of CIESIN will
be an important contribute to both the ongoing IRI water management and the
proposed IRI-IWMI malaria hazard forecasting projects. In addition, an archive
of integrated modeling and predictions for a region in Sri Lanka could provide
the IRI with an ideal test bed for a variety of studies leading to an integrated
and comprehensive study of climate impacts and management in a particular
region.
The modalities developed
between the IRI, CIESIN and Wildlife Trust to incorporate climate information
into integrated modeling and wildlife management can be extended to the many
other tropical location in where the three agencies have particular interests
and also field operations.