Spatiotemporal modelling and evaluation of the distribution of simarouba glauca in India - Strategizing rural livelihood adaptation under climate change
Student name: Ms Sumedha Malaviya
Guide: Dr P K Joshi
Year of completion: 2009
Host Organisation: RMSI, India Pvt. Ltd.
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Mohammed Irfan-Ullah
Abstract: The impacts of climate change on rural livelihoods in developing countries like India are likely to be
more severe due to their heavy reliance on natural resources. Thus there is a need to enhance and
strengthen the adaptive capacities of rural poor. The introduction of low cost input technology for
cultivating hardy perennial crops that are able to withstand the vagaries of climate and give assured
returns are recommended. Simarouba glauca a native of South America is a hardy multipurpose oil tree
species that grows under a wide range of hostile ecological conditions. All parts of the plant namely,
seed, shell, fruit pulp, leaf, leaf litter, unwanted branches, stem, bark, and root generate products that are
useful in the production of food, fuel, manure, timber, medicines etc. Thus Paradise tree has the ability to
improve rural livelihoods and generate substantial incomes for farmers dependent on marginal lands.
In the present study we used two modeling approaches GARP and MaxEnt to model the current and
future potential distribution of Simarouba glauca and look into the prospective for its
introduction/cultivation in specific regions of the country by using Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) to
identify the most suitable districts after incorporating a range of multiple criteria like Human
Development Index (HDI), rural population, population of marginal workers, rural population of
scheduled caste and scheduled tribes and finally area under wastelands.
Results indicate that the current potential distribution of Simarouba glauca is spread over mostly
peninsular India and the North east with Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Assam, Karnataka and Uttaranchal coming
out as the most ecologically suitable States. For the present study, district level suitability was also
obtained and at the district level evaluation Ganjam, Dharmapuri and Chittor amongst others, have been
identified ad being the most likely districts to benefit from the introduction of the species.
Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) enables informed decision making by providing visualization of
scenarios in geographic context . With limited funds available, such excersices have potential to help
decision makers in evaluating options to arrive at decisions that are informed and scientifically sound; as
against the conventional way of ad-hoc decision making that do not take into account spatially embedded
socioeconomic factors.
Key words: Ecological niche modeling, Simarouba glauca, rural livelihoods, multi-criteria evaluation,
climate change
