Revision summary
Climate change is global; India is exposed through monsoon swings, heat, food, water, and health. Himalayan states face glacier melt, glacial-lake floods, landslides, and shifting horticulture. Coastal states face sea-level rise, saline deltas, stronger cyclones, and urban flooding. Fisheries, mangroves, and island freshwater lenses are part of the coastal loss. Adaptation is State-specific; the cause remains global emissions.
Model answer
Introduction
Climate change is global because greenhouse gases mix in one atmosphere: no State can buy a private climate. India is a tropical, monsoon, glacier-and-delta country with a large poor population on the land. It will be hit through heat, water, food, coasts, and health, even though its per capita emissions are far below the old industrial world. Himalayan and coastal States sit on two different edges of the same warming.
Body
India in a warming world
- Monsoon: more erratic onset, longer dry spells, and heavier downpours when rain comes — floods and drought in the same year.
- Heat: more extreme heat days; outdoor labour, cities without trees, and the old suffer first.
- Agriculture: wheat at grain-fill, rice at flowering, and rainfed millets all face yield risk; pests shift range.
- Water: groundwater already overdrawn in the north-west; climate adds uncertainty to recharge and glacier-fed rivers.
- Health: malaria and dengue windows, heat stroke, nutrition after crop failure.
- Energy and cities: peak cooling load, urban heat islands, and storm damage to networks.
- Paris Agreement (2015) and India’s nationally determined contribution (energy intensity, non-fossil capacity, carbon sink) are the diplomatic frame; physical risk does not wait for targets.
Himalayan states
- Glacier melt: short-run higher runoff, long-run lean season water stress for the Ganga–Brahmaputra–Indus headwaters that feed the plains as well as hill States.
- Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) and landslides as permafrost and slopes weaken; hydropower dams and hill roads sit in the path.
- Snow-to-rain shift changes timing of streams that hill agriculture and towns use.
- Biodiversity and livelihoods: alpine pastures, apple belts (chill-hour loss), and pastoral routes move upslope until there is no upslope left.
- Seismic plus climate: a cloudburst on a deforested slope (Uttarakhand-type tragedy) is the compound disaster.
- States: Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and hill districts of West Bengal and the North-East — tourism and hydropower economies are both exposed.
Coastal states
- Sea-level rise: saline intrusion into deltas (Sundarbans, Godavari–Krishna, Mahanadi, Cauvery) and loss of low islands and beaches.
- Cyclones: warmer seas can feed more intense storms on the Bay of Bengal and, increasingly, the Arabian Sea; Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Maharashtra face surge and wind.
- Fisheries: catch composition shifts; small fishers lose days at sea.
- Cities: Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, and Kolkata already flood on high tide plus rain; drainage designed for an old climate fails.
- Livelihoods: salt on fields, dying mangroves if squeezed between sea and concrete, and migration out of the Sundarbans and dry-coast villages.
- Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep: coral bleaching and freshwater lens loss on atolls.
Shared policy thread
- Adaptation is local: slope rules and lake monitoring in the Himalaya; mangrove, zoning, and cyclone shelters on the coast. Mitigation is national and global: coal path, forests, and a Paris coalition. Himalayan and coastal States cannot adapt alone if the monsoon and the ice still follow world emissions.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD CC[Global warming] --> IN[India monsoon heat crops] CC --> HIM[Himalaya glaciers GLOF slopes] CC --> COAST[Sea level cyclone salt cities] HIM --> PLAIN[Downstream river lean flow] COAST --> MIG[Displacement fisheries loss]
Conclusion
Climate change will hit India through a jerkier monsoon, heat, crop and water stress, and disease. Himalayan States face glacier melt, GLOFs, slope failure, and shifting orchards. Coastal States face sea level, salt, stronger cyclones, and drowning cities. The global problem becomes two Indian maps — ice and tide — that need both local adaptation and a lower-carbon world.
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On December 2004, tsumani brought havoc on 14 countries including India. Discuss the factors responsible for occurrence of Tsunami and its effects on life and economy. In the light of guidelines of NDMA (2010) describe the mechanisms for preparedness to reduce the risk during such events.
Next question in the 2017 paper (Q18). View answer →
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Are Himalayan and coastal impacts the same problem?
Same cause — global warming. Different physics: ice and slope versus sea level and storm surge. Policy tools differ.
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