Climate Change Impact and Sustainable Environmental Management for Ecosystem Conservation: A Quantitative Assessment of Carbon, Water, and Biodiversity Ratios

Abstract

The present study quantifies the climate change influence on ecosystems' conservation, using carbon sequestration, water balance, and biodiversity indices measurements for 6 terrestrial ecosystems, between 2010 and 2024. The mean annual temperature rose by 1.4°C and precipitation variability increased by 23.7%, which led to a decrease in net primary productivity NPP by 18.3%, and a decrease in soil organic carbon SOC stocks by 31.2%. The percentage of forest cover dropped from 42.6% to 34.1% of total land area, which was 1:5.2 deforestation ratio in the 14 years. The wetland area decreased by 27.8% and the water loss to groundwater recharge ratio was 1.9:1. On 1,250 ha, interventions for sustainable management, such as afforestation, drip irrigation and protected corridors have been taken up. The post intervention measurements indicate a 22.4% increase in SOC, a 16.7% recovery in NPP and surface runoff has decreased by 33.5%. Biodiversity index BI was improved from 0.58 to 0.74 which is a 27.6% increase, and species richness was increased by 1:1.4. The efficiency of carbon mitigation increased by 2.3 tCO2/ha/year and the efficiency of using water rose by 41.2%. The benefit/cost ratio over a 10-year period came out as 3.8:1. Temporal modelling shows that increasing temperature by 1°C increases the loss of ecosystem resilience without intervention (14.6%) while increasing it with sustainable practices (5.2%). Hotspot degradation is observed inside a 4.8 km buffer around urban edges, which falls to 1.9 km after buffer zones. Limitations: Soil and species data needs to be sampled densely for accurate results. Results include analytical and ratio-based metrics for evidence-driven environmental management and targeting of policies.