Altitudinal Shifting of Apple Orchards with Adaption of Changing Climate in the Alpine Himalaya.

The impact of climate change is found to be the most significant for agricultural practices in the alpine regions of the world. Apple orchards of Kalpa, Indian Himalaya, are facing the same dilemma. The main objective of this work is to analyze the effect of climate variability on the location of apple orchards through the computation of spatio-temporal dynamics of snow cover area, vegetation cover area and land surface temperature using earth observation based multispectral data analysis. Using the above variables, we have delineated suitable zones for apple cultivation using the analytical hierarchy process method. The IMD data have been used for descriptive statistics, Mann–Kendall (MK) test and Sen's slope estimation to detect temporal trends in local climatic conditions since 1987. The result indicates a significant rise in annual and seasonal temperatures, especially during the winter and spring seasons, along with declining precipitation, which has been assessed with the help of farmers' opinions. Shifting of the apple orchards along with vegetation covers from lower to higher altitudes, in the study area, squeezed the suitable zone in the limited pockets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]