Twenty districts of Assam vulnerable to climate change

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Believe it or not, 15 of the first 25 districts in India vulnerable to climate change are in Assam. This is not all. Five districts of Assam are among the second 25 districts of India vulnerable to climate change.

This startling revelation came to the fore on the floor of the State Assembly today when Science, Technology, and Climate Change Minister Keshab Mahanta was replying to a query from Congress MLA Rekibuddin Ahmed.

Citing a report titled ‘Climate Vulnerability Assessment for Adaptation Planning in India using a Common Framework’ prepared by IIT-Mandi, IIT-Guwahati, and the Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore, the minister said that the 15 districts of Assam among the first 25 districts vulnerable to climate change in the country are: Karimganj, Goalpara, Dhubri, Darrang, Sonitpur, Golaghat, Cachar, Barpeta, Kokrajhar, Tinsukia, Baksa, Morigaon, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, and Hailakandi.

The minister said that the five districts of Assam among the second 25 districts vulnerable to climate change in India are Nagaon, Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Chirang, and Udalguri. He said that the IITs assessed the vulnerability to climate change based on 14 different indicators.

Mahanta said that climate change has an impact all over the world, let alone Assam. He said that the Assam Science, Technology, and Environment Council (ASTEC) has started some activities on climate change in the State under the Department of Science, Technology, and Climate Change. The State Government renamed the department with the addition of ‘climate change’ to it. Thus, the area of activities of the department has widened now, and that has led the State Government to take initiatives to set up a separate directorate for climate change, he said.

The minister informed the House that the State Government extended scholarships to 100 students for research on the Climate Resilient Village Project.

The minister further said that ASTEC has already started awareness drives on climate change in educational institutions, in addition to carrying out plantation drives.

He said that the average maximum annual temperature in Assam rises at the rate of 0.049 degree Celsius and the annual minimum temperature rises at the rate of 0.01254 degree Celsius. And on the contrary, the minister said that the annual average rainfall in the state falls at a rate of 10.77 mm.

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