Climate Change and Weather Extremes in Tourist Towns: Challenges for Livelihood in Himachal Pradesh, India

Climate change is a prime concern today; its bourgeoning impacts on development are well documented. Tourism is one significant enterprise that has been affected by climatic quirks; its adverse impacts on local livelihood are mounting in mountainous areas wherein tourism is a major source of income. The economy of Himachal Pradesh relies heavily on tourism; in fact, certain places derive their existence from such activities. The livelihood of people in and around the small towns of Shimla, Manali and Dharamshala depends primarily on tourism. As these areas are growing economically, tourism too is diversifying to adventure tourism, winter sports, river rafting, hiking, mountaineering and health tourism, thus offering multiple livelihood options to local community. However, success of such ventures depends on normalcy of weather and climate regime. This chapter outlines the direction of weather extremes and resultant potential livelihood risk in selected tourist towns in Himachal Pradesh. By examining changes in precipitation and temperature extreme indices since the mid-twentieth century, this study attempts to visualize the risks climate change may pose to life and livelihoods. The observed increase in intense rainfall is likely to induce frequent flash floods and slope failures. The increased incidences of hot and cold waves, precipitation extremes and winter season warming might affect tourism by disrupting peak timing of tourist influx, traffic disruption, winter sports and shortage of tourism resources. Moreover, observed changes in climate regime indicate the likelihood of higher ablation and evapotranspiration that may potentially lead to untimely and higher river discharge in early summers. Such changes might have serious implications; loss of livelihood and economic vulnerability of people dependent on tourism are the possible scenarios.