CLIMATE-CHANGE AND TROPICAL FORESTS IN INDIA

India has 64 Mha under forests, of which 72% are tropical moist decidu ous, dry deciduous, and wet evergreen forest. Projected changes in tem perature, rainfall, and soil moisture are considered at regional level for India under two scenarios, the first involving greenhouse gas for cing, and the second, sulphate aerosols. Under the former model, a gen eral increase in temperature and rainfall in all regions is indicated. This could potentially result in increased productivity, and shift fo rest type boundaries along attitudinal and rainfall gradients, with sp ecies migrating from lower to higher elevations and the drier forest t ypes bring transformed to moister types. The aerosol model, however, i ndicates a more modest increase in temperature and a decrease in preci pitation in central and northern India, which would considerably stres s the forests in these regions. Although India seems to have stabilize d the area under forest since 1980, anthropogenic stresses such as liv estock pressure, biomass demand for fuelwood and timber, and the fragm ented nature of forests will all affect forest response to changing cl imate. Thus, forest area is unlikely to expand even if climatically su itable, and will probably decrease in parts of northeast India due to extensive shifting cultivation and deforestation. A number of general adaptation measures to climate change are listed.