Quantifying Temperature and Precipitation Change Caused by Land Cover Change: A Case Study of India Using the WRF Model

Abstract

The large-scale Land-Uses and Land-Cover Changes (LULCC) in India in the past several decades is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors that influence the climate from regional to global scales. Therefore, to understand the LULCC over the Indian region from 2002 to 2015 and its implications on temperature and precipitation, we performed Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model simulation using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) reanalysis data for the period 2009 to 2015 as a boundary condition with 2009 as spin-up time. The results showed moderate forest cover loss in major parts of northeast India, and the Himalayan region during 2002–2015. Such large LULC changes, primarily significant alteration of grassland and agriculture from the forest, led to increased precipitation due to increasing evapotranspiration (ET) similar to the forest-dominated regions. An increase in the precipitation patterns (>300 mm) was observed in the parts of eastern and western Himalayas, western Ghats, and the northwestern part of central India, while most parts of northeast Himalayas have an exceptional increase in precipitation (∼100–150 mm), which shows similar agreement with an increase of leaf area index (LAI) by ∼15%. The overall phenomenon leads to a greening-induced ET enhancement that increases atmospheric water vapor content and promotes downwind precipitation. In the case of temperature, warming was observed in the central to eastern parts of India, while cooling was observed in the central and western parts. The increase in vegetated areas over northwest India led to an increase in ET, which ultimately resulted in decreased temperature and increased precipitation. The study highlights the changes in temperature and precipitation in recent decades because of large LULCC and necessitates the formulation of sustainable land use-based strategies to control meteorological variability and augment ecological sustainability.