Climate Change and its Impacts on Community Food and Livelihood in Kumaun Himalaya: A Case Study of Dabka Catchment - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 282

altitude whereas now it is quite diffi cult due to defi ciency of underground
water because the water table has been gone down to just 1200 m altitude
(Fig. 11.4a). The decreasing trends of underground water table affecting the
spring hydrology and stream hydrology in the study area as depicted by a
schematic diagram in Fig. 11.4a for year 1990 and 2010.
Drying up Natural Water Springs: It was observed that, the springs are
drying-up or becoming seasonal due to reduced groundwater recharge in
the catchment. This has serious implications on water resources and on the
livelihood and food securities as natural springs constitute the main source
of drinking water and irrigation in the region. The investigation carried out
in the region revealed that there were a total of 116 perennial springs in the
watershed in 1990 (Bisht 1991), out of which 24% (28) have gone dry, and
28% (32) springs have become seasonal since 2010 (Fig. 11.4b and 11.4c). The
spatial distribution of perennial spring density has been carried out which
depict four categories of density, i.e., low, moderate, high and very high. All
these categories suggested the decreasing trend of spring density during
1990 to 2010 and also decreasing water discharge (Table 11.4 and Fig.11.4d).
Decreasing Trends of Stream Discharge: The natural springs are drying
up and streams are depicting decreasing trends of annual stream discharge
and becoming perennial to seasonal streams in the study area. The
hydrological results suggest that the existing average annual discharge of
Dabka watershed is 13 l/s/km 2 whereas during 1985-1990 it was quite high,
i.e., 17 l/s/km 2 (Table 11.4 and Table 11.5). It has also been found that due
to decreasing trends of stream discharge a number of perennial streams
have dried up and as a result decreasing the perennial stream frequency
throughout the sturdy area. Figures 11.4c and 11.4e depict four categories
(low, moderate, high and very high) of the spatial distribution of perennial
streams frequency and advocating that perennial stream frequency has
decreased during 2005 to 2010 due to climate change through drying up of
natural water springs and decreasing trends of stream discharge.
Increasing Flood Runoff: Flood runoff means the flowing off of
precipitation of a watershed through a surface channel. The comparative
hydrological evaluation of two study periods suggesting that the monsoon
fl ood runoff (June to September) is increasing because of accelerated
land-use degradation due to climate change. These data advocate that the
dense forested land with broad leaved species of trees is very high and the
deforested barren land has very low water retention capacity within their
hydrological system. Although all monsoon months have high runoff,
particularly August receives maximum monsoon runoff due to extreme
rainfall (Table 11.5). Consequently the average monsoon fl ood runoff of