Page 73 - EER-1-1

Explora: Environment

and Resource

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Impact of regional climate change on apple

yield in Himachal Pradesh, India

Dev Kumari and Siby John*
Environmental Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Punjab Engineering College
(Deemed to be University), Chandigarh, India

Abstract

Climate change has become a major global as well as regional challenge because of
its adverse effects on biodiversity and agriculture. Himachal Pradesh, a state in India,
is situated in the western Indian Himalayan region, which predominantly features an
agricultural economy, with apple being the major cash crop of the region. This paper
presents the trend analysis of climatic parameters to delineate the effect of climate
change on the apple yield in the region from 1991 to 2018. The temperature and
rainfall data were obtained from the Indian metrological department, while snowfall
data and ambient air quality data were collected from the database of NASA. The chill
unit was calculated using the UTAH model. The climatic parameters were compared
with apple yield to identify the impact of climate change on the crop. Therefore,
apple yield reduction risk was calculated. The trend analysis indicated a temperature
decrease during the monsoon months and a temperature increase during winters.
The same analysis also indicated decreased snowfall by 0.375 kg/m and increased
2
rainfall during the spring season by 23.2 mm, 19.6 mm, 10.4 mm (between mid-
February and mid-April from 1985 to 2020). The chill units and apple production
*Corresponding author: showed a positive correlation. In summary, our results indicated that climate change
Siby John
(sibyjohn@pec.edu.in) has reduced the apple yield by 11.48%.
Citation: Kumari D, John S. Impact
of regional climate change on Keywords: Climate change risk; Vulnerability; Extreme climate events; Apple yield;
apple yield in Himachal Pradesh,
India. Explora Environ Resour. Adaptation and resilience
2024;1(1):1-10.
doi: 10.36922/eer.3608
Received: May 8, 2024
Accepted: September 18, 2024 1. Introduction
The regional as well as the global impact of climate change is a well-established
Published Online: October 10, 2024
understanding of how our environments and surroundings have changed due to global
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). warming. Studies have demonstrated how the climate change has impacted the annual
This is an Open-Access article
1,2
distributed under the terms of the production of soya bean, rice, wheat, and apple. In India, the identified regions that
Creative Commons Attribution are vulnerable to the impact of climate change are the west coast, north, and north-west
License, permitting distribution, 3
and reproduction in any medium, Himalayas. The irregular and extreme metrological events as a consequence of climate
provided the original work is change have already started playing a significant role in microclimatic variation in
properly cited. northern India. The agricultural yield largely depends on meteorological dynamics
4
Publisher’s Note: AccScience such as optimum temperature, humidity, and moisture. These climatic parameters,
Publishing remains neutral with when playing out at optimum, enhance the development of plants and fruits under
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional the nourishments of nutrients. Unfortunately, extreme weather and irregular weather
affiliations. pattern damage the crops and accelerate the progression of different types of diseases

Volume 1 Issue 1 (2024) 1 doi: 10.36922/eer.3608