Analysis and Farmers Perception of Climate Change Trends in Kashmir Region of Union Territory-Jammu & Kashmir, India: North Western Himalayas

Analysis of climatic variables is important for detection and attribution of climate change trends and has received a considerable attention from researchers across the globe including India. Kashmir valley of newly formed Union Territory Jammu & Kashmir situated in north western part of India is having a rich repository of glaciers, a small change in the precipitation and temperature management could introduce about environmental, agricultural and economic penalties. To this end, current study aims to analyse changing patterns in precipitation and temperature variables over the various elevation zones of the Kashmir Valley using long term precipitation and temperature data obtained from National Data Centre, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune for the period of 40 years (1980–2019). The results revealed that average mean minimum and maximum temperature of the Kashmir valley has increased substantially at a rate of 0.02oC/year. Warming trends has been observed in all seasons, however, winter and spring season temperatures have shown statistically significant increasing trends. In addition, mean maximum and minimum temperature in plain and mountain areas have reported higher rates of increase in comparison to Karewah’s and foothill areas of Kashmir. Study of annual precipitation results for the same period indicates a diminishing pattern with a rate of -5.01 mm/year. Seasonal precipitation was also found decreasing at rate of -4.95, -0.30, -0.28 and − 0.06 mm/year for the spring, winter, autumn and summer seasons respectively and at different elevation zones, higher rates of precipitation decline have been observed in the mountainous area, which can be very detrimental to the agricultural crops of the Kashmir valley through water supply, climate regulation and ground water recharge. Further, the above statistical test results of increase in temperature and decrease in precipitation over different topographical zones of Kashmir were corroborated with the information attained from interview and involvement of the small farmer holders of 06 different locations representing the whole Kashmir and has been discussed in this paper to get a clearer understanding of climate change related instability and patterns in weather variables in the Kashmir Valley.