Thirty Years of Climate and Land-Cover Change and its Effects on Tourism Resources in Valley of Flower National Park

This study investigates how the physical and scenic components of trekking in Vally of Flower National Park are affected by observed variations in rainfall, temperature, and land cover. The impact analysis is structured on a hazard-activity pairs method, which combines factors of environmental change (such as greater temperatures) with tourism activities (like trekking and sightseeing). The findings imply that warmer temperatures and less rain have decreased the chances of landslides, rock falls, and mountain sickness, and also enhanced the physical conditions for trekking. It is now possible to enjoy more flowers and greenery while witnessing fewer animals, waterfalls, and snow due to changes in land cover. In the short term, the melting snow may encourage “last chance tourism,” boosting travel, but over time, the disappearance of the snow and the destruction of the forest will probably lead to a decline in tourism. The research concludes that the most viable strategy for reducing losses is the efficient management of the attractions in the developing heathlands.


Introduction
Valley of Flowers National Park, located in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, India, is 1285 (2024) 012021 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1285/1/012021 2 adventure amidst the natural splendor of the region.Apart from the stunning floral display, the national park boasts rich biodiversity.It is home to several endangered species, including the Asiatic black bear, snow leopard, musk deer, brown bear, and numerous avian species.Wildlife enthusiasts can explore the park and try to spot these elusive creatures amidst the picturesque surroundings.It is situated close to the Valley of Flowers, Hemkund Sahib is a revered Sikh pilgrimage site.Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, is said to have meditated there during his previous life.The serene lake, surrounded by seven towering peaks, offers a spiritual retreat and is an important stop for many visitors.Valley of Flowers National Park is part of the larger Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.The reserve encompasses diverse ecosystems, including alpine meadows, glaciers, and high-altitude lakes.Exploring the biosphere reserve provides a comprehensive understanding of the region's ecological significance.The Valley of Flowers presents a picture-perfect setting for photography enthusiasts.The vivid colors of the flowers, the towering mountains, and the dramatic landscapes offer countless opportunities for capturing stunning images.
The Valley of flower is situated in the Bhyunder Ganga catchment that rises from Tipra Bamak in the north and Dang Kharak Chainyal Kharak glaciers in the east [14].Valley of Flowers National Park is also known as the Pushpawati National Park which is named after the Pushpawati River that flows through the high-altitude valley near the Valley of Flowers (Negi Sharad, 1992).Bhyunderganga is the fifth-order major tributary of river Alaknanda [14].The quaternary sediments are mainly exposed in the form of terraces, old fan terraces, glacialfluvial fans, and moraine in the Bhyunder Valley.Cirques, horn peaks, and hanging valleys are among the well-known characteristics of this heavily glaciated river basin.Numerous erosional and depositional terraces are well-exposed and visible near Bhyunder Village in the Bhyunder Valley.Bhyunder Ganga is a glacial fed (Tipra Bamak Glacier) having a higher gradient that joins with another major fifth-order tributary (fed by Dang Glacier and Chainyal Glaciers) its downstream at Bhyunder Village.The Kundalinisen plateau, which is its primary valley and is located at approximately 3,500 metres, is a gently sloping basin with around 1,000 hectares of alpine meadows.The wooded slopes of the plateau ascend rapidly through moraines to rocky ridges, permanently snow-covered summits, and glaciers that collectively cover 73% of the valley.Alpine meadows cover 21% and forests 6% of the rest catchment areas (UNESCO, UNEP, 2005).The valley of the flower section of the Bhyunderganga is a dissected outwash plain and glacial fan.Most of the third and fourth-order tributaries meet at a right angle to the Bhyunderganga River that follows the NW -SW direction.Near Govindghat, Bhyunderganga meets Alaknanda after traveling its whole 19-kilometer course.The catchment area consists of the total region of protector rising high-grade metamorphic rocks of central crystallines.This consists of the Pandukeshwar and Joshimath formations.

Bhyunder Valley and Valley of Flower:
1.1 Doom Tourism: This emerging trend involves traveling to places that are environmentally or otherwise threatened (Chadar Trek Trail in the Himalayas, the valley of Flower a national park 300 km away from Rishikesh and Badrinath, etc.) The concept of 'Doom tourism' that implies the deliberate nature of travelers to visit "imperiled destinations and try to experience their grandeur before they vanish" [4,31].This is also termed as 'last-chance tourism' when tourists try to reach a vanishing landscape or seascape or some heritage could disappear in the near future (Lamline et al., 2010) 'Disappearing tourism' is another prominent term when it focuses on the collection of exhibits.
It is important to note that the Valley of Flowers National Park remains open only during the summer months, typically from June to October, due to heavy snowfall in the winter.
Visitors should plan their trips accordingly and check for any necessary permits or regulations before embarking on their journey.
The main aim of the literature review is to identify the research gap between the previously done works and the present study from the methodological background, chosen research area, objectives, and goals determined before the examination.It can be helpful in enhancing the present study.

Climate change and doom tourism
An overview of the early phases that have been modelled and analysed by geographers and researchers, the growth and development of tourism over the past 55 years (World War II to 2015) that has already been studied where climate-based tourism and doom tourism get neglected [29].
Lamline et al. (2010) studied the coexistence of extremely cold climates and elevations that attracted people and people to visit the areas like Arctic, Churchill, and Manitoba to view polar landscapes and wildlife.Visitors started preferring day trips to visit disappearing landscapes and vanishing fauna from Churchill, Manitoba, Canada in response and already studied through data collection and comparative analysis.The health of polar bears directly dependent on the existing cold climate.The spatial pattern of the Cosmic Model and Global Climate Models is used to depict the increasing flow of tourists in a cold climate region while it's getting warmer [10].Also suggested model building (simulation model of international tourists' flow) Matrix of bilateral tourists' flow, Arrival index, departure index, and population index.
The utility of landcover change detection using satellite images to understand the retreating of Gangotri glaciers as an impact of global warming.The government has also taken several steps to restrict the number of tourists there [5].Some researcher focussed on framing and understanding the spatial dimensions of last-chance tourism using the threefold view of the space [30].

Hazard-activity pair and impact on the environment:
Eijgelaar (2010) identified the impact of carbon-intensive tourism practices in the Antarctic polar region and tried to determine what kind of mobility contributes more to pollution by field survey and data collection method.The function of trees like pollination and regeneration is affected by the temperature changes that may cause forest destruction in the Western Ghats 1.2.1 April to June: This is the best time to visit the national park, with the warm weather and clear skies making for an ideal climate.A trek to the jungle can be truly enjoyed during this period and visitors can additionally have incredible wildlife sightings during the summer.

June to August:
From June to August, the national park receives moderate to heavy rainfall.Although this beautifies the entire surrounding vegetation, it also brings with it the additional dangers of flooding and landslides in the area especially on the trekking path to the park.Visitors are strongly advised to travel with caution during this season.

November to April:
The winter season here is normally extremely cold, with temperatures dropping to sub-zero levels.Due to significant snowfall and poor visibility, the Nanda Devi National Park is closed to the public for a period of six months.The flora and fauna in the area also tend to go into hibernation during this period and the trekking path from Joshimath is unscalable.It is strongly recommended that visitors venture elsewhere during this period as no outdoor activities will be possible.

Literature review 1285 (2024) 012021
IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1285/1/0120214 region in India can be studied by forest grid analysis method [7].Dawson, et al. have highlighted the ethical consideration of significant marketing issues and managing issues in light of 'loving a destination to death' that are studied based on the empirical evidence collected from Churchill, Manitoba, Canada [4].The use of primary data collection method is preferrable to understand the people's perception of visiting a vanishing destination like the Great Barrier Reef [22].Burnsa & Bibbingsb also talked about the changes in the socio-cultural and demand approach of tourism to bring a sustainable tourism practice.Scholars used model building and simulation study by calculating the arrival index, departure index, and population from it source also done for the investigation of the impact of climate change on tourism in Germany [10].Model of people's travel intention based on grounded theory to optimize the country's image of tourism and travel destination [35] has emphasis on the Mass median framing, specifically newspaper analysis used to understand the scientific approach h of climate change communication in tourism.The results drawn from the structured interviews to get an overview of the concerns associated with personal aero mobility for tourism purposes.Climate change is a barrier to changing behavior has also been discussed [7].
Hazard-activity pair analysis: Hazard-activity pair Analysis, also known as Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA), is a systematic process used to identify potential hazards associated with specific activities or tasks.The main links between environmental change and trekking tourism are interpreted as hazard-activity pairs.Hazard-activity pairs were proposed as a way to structure the analysis of the often-complex interactions between climate change and tourism in a particular destination.There are four pairs among which three are related to the physical requirements of trekking and the fourth one is related to the sightseeing throughout the diverse land-cover zones.
• First pair: it combines the rainfall factor and the trekkers' comfort • Second pair: it is related to the relationship between the intensity of rainfall events and its impact on landslides and rock-fall.• Third pair: it combines temperature and visitor's comfort.
• Fourth pair: it relates to the effects of climate change on the quality of the attraction's environmental change affects tourism.Due to the extremely restricted availability of tourist statistics, it focuses more on the environmental aspect of the problem than the tourism aspect.
Hazard-activity pairings are taken to be the primary connections between environmental change and trekking tourism.Moreno and Becken offered hazard-activity pairs as a mechanism to organize the investigation of the frequently intricate relationships between climate change and tourism in a specific location [24].The second hazard-activity pair shows the correlation between rainfall intensity and the danger of landslides and rock falls.Very high-resolution precipitation data is needed to investigate the frequency and severity of extreme rainfall episodes [17].
The first pair combines comfort for trekkers and rain.It is expected that comfort levels for trekkers decline linearly with rainfall.For the period 1990-2021, the observed trend in Uttarakhand's annual rainfall was accessible from authentic sources.In addition to this source, linear regression was used to predict rainfall patterns using local meteorological station data.Due of the considerable seasonality in visiting patterns, monthly trends were also assessed.tourists pass while trekking.

Methods and data
From the standpoint of environmental appropriateness, our study examines how They focused on the connections between one relevant feature of climate change (the hazard) and one significant tourist activity at a time rather than taking into account all aspects of climate change and all tourism-related activities simultaneously.These fragmented studies were then combined to provide a vulnerability profile for the destination as a whole.
The third hazard-activity combination focuses on the connection between temperature, air pressure, and altitude sickness.The trend in temperature at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro over the previous decades is assessed to further examine this risk-activity relationship.Only two years' worth of daily readings taken by an automated weather station that was briefly installed there as part of a research study in 2000 and 2001 constitute the available observational weather data for Kilimanjaro's peak.These numbers offer a point of comparison but not a trend.We do, however, have time-series data on the temperature at the foot of the mountain, providing information on temperature change, so that is not an issue.Given the relatively consistent temperature gradient between a mountain's foot and summit, this is a decent estimate of the temperature difference at the peak.The POWER Project offers solar and meteorological data sets from NASA studies to serve agricultural requirements, renewable energy needs, and building energy efficiency.The data is freely available for the study area for the last 30 years.
The fourth risk-activity combination concerns the impact of climate change on the standard of the tourism sites that trekkers pass while traveling.According to research, the value that visitors place on an attraction is what is meant by its quality in this context [17].Various land-cover zones on Mount Kilimanjaro are individually tied to various attractions, with some zones housing more significant attractions than others.In this study, we make the assumption that the distribution of the total mountain area among the various land cover types-such as snow, heathlands, and Montane forest-determines the overall mountain's scenic appeal.
Our research involves monitoring the proportions of the mountainous area of Valley of Flower that each land-cover type takes up over time.The Landsat OLI/TIRS and Landsat TM satellite data, which are free to download at https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/,were used to create the land-cover maps required for this research.As per the Landsat images were converted into land-cover maps using the unsupervised classification method [28].Three criteria were used to choose the images.To begin processing, the amount of cloud cover on the photos had to be constrained.In order to identify gradual changes, the time span of the collection of images covered had to be at least ten years long.Third, in order to prevent interference from interseasonal variations, all photographs had to be captured within the same season of the year.All five images captured in March 1990, April 2000, May 2010, 2020, and 2022 made up the final collection.
The data from NASA Power Earth Viewer, recorded a mean yearly temperature of 6.7°C in the last 30 years, with daily temperature variations that never exceeded 2°C.It was 6.6°C between 1990 to 2000 and became 6.8 in the next 10 years.The annual temperature increased by 0.13° C near the base of the mountain, as recorded between 1990 and 2021 (see Figure 1).The recorded temperature difference at the base of the mountain equates to a temperature change at the to the annual mean temperature of 2002, which was measured at 6.7°C where the annual average surface pressure is 69.86 Kpa.The rising temperatures at higher elevations not only increase the danger of altitude sickness but also induce the thawing of permafrost soils.This may weaken infrastructure, such as airstrips, campgrounds, and climbing paths, and raise the possibility of landslides and rock falls.

Results and Discussion:
IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1285/1/0120216 On a monthly scale, it was discovered that March and April had considerable fluctuations in rainfall seasonality.The annual rainfall share of March rose by 0.2181 points, outpacing April's decline of 0.5015 points (see Figure 2).This change denotes the beginning of the lengthy rainy season sooner.For the other months' rainfall shares, no discernible trend was seen.The earlier start of the rainy season has had no appreciable influence on the seasonality of tourism.Between 2000 and 2010, this trend remained a bit constant, with significant inter-annual fluctuation.August seems to be losing ground to June in significance, but the data set is too small to determine whether this is a meaningful trend.The overall climbing conditions are probably better now given the declining trends in yearly precipitation.If the general decline in precipitation has coincided with a decline in heavy precipitation, then the probability of landslides may have reduced as well.According to the data, the preferable climbing conditions were found in March and April and declined in May.The biggest effect on tourism has probably been the shift in land cover.visitors have seen a decline in the previous two decades.This area is also home to unique and endangered species.Much of the central region of the National Park is currently covered by the heathlands, which increased 12% in area, which are famous for their numerous lovely flowers.The mountain is accessible to day tourists; thus, this development offers a chance for market diversification.However, increased use by day visitors and domestic tourists likely calls for amenities of a greater caliber than those now offered.The reduction of snow cover has been the most concerning development.The snow-covered area is significantly decreased by 32% in the last few decades.One of the mountain's primary draws, Gouri Parbat or Hathi Parbat snow-cap region, has lost half of its area during the past three decades.Ironically, in the near term, this quick decrease is probably going to improve the mountain's attraction through a rise in "last chance tourism"-travel to sites that are disappearing.Managers of parks should be mindful that this increase in visitors will probably only last a short time.The mountain will eventually lose its allure due to the lack of snow.By carefully controlling the mountain's forest cover and preserving and growing the attractions in the developing heathlands, this effect can be somewhat minimized.
The future scope of this study involves a multifaceted approach that encompasses scientific research, community engagement, policy development, and technological innovation.It aims to address the complex challenges posed by climate and land-cover changes while promoting sustainable tourism practices in the Valley of Flower National Park and serving as a model for other conservation efforts worldwide.This study explores a critical intersection of climate change, land cover dynamics, and tourism in a specific national park.As the world continues to grapple with environmental challenges, there are several future scope areas for this study: Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies, Economic Impact Assessment, Tourist Behavior and Preferences, Ecosystem Services Valuation, Stakeholder Engagement, Technology Integration, and so on.

Table 1 .
Attractions on Valley of Flower National Park organized by land-cover zone and their importance as perceived by tourists