India

Snow Leopard Habitat in India

The Sikkim landscape is one of 3 snow leopard landscapes in India. Sikkim offers a relatively small but rich habitat for snow leopards, critical to metapopulation connectivity in the Himalayan mountain range.

There is approximately 3,000 km2 of snow leopard habitat in Sikkim, located in one funcionally connected block. The habitats are structurally connected to habitats in Nepal and China, and snow leopards have been observed crossing the India-Nepal border

Potential Snow Leopard Habitat

Good Habitat

Fair Habitat

Human Influence and Protected Areas

Key threats to snow leopards

Conservation strategies that involve people are key, since much of the core snow leopard habitat in this landscape is affected by some level of human impact.

KhangchendzongaNational
Park

Singhba RhododendronWildlife
Sanctuary

Leaflet | Tiles © Esri — Source: Esri, i-cubed, USDA, USGS, AEX, GeoEye, Getmapping, Aerogrid, IGN, IGP, UPR-EGP, and the GIS User Community
Protected areas

Protected areas cover nearly 60% of all potential snow leopard habitat in to the KKP Landscape.

Roughly 20% of all habitat is in National Parks that offer the highest level of protection. Notably, unprotected areas include some of the best and largest habitats south and west of Khunjerab National Park. This unprotected habitat may form a vital connection to Qurambar National Park at the western edge of the landscape.

Potential degradation
Min degradationMax degradation

The western side of the landscape is subject to higher human impacts than the east.

There are several pinchpoints throughout the landscape that require special management to preserve habitat and metapopulation connectivity.

Summary map

This map combines different analysis to show the overall condition of the landscape.

  • Conservation importance: Habitat suitability
  • Actual and potential impacts: Treeline shift, Freezeline loss, Human footprint

Conservation importance

lowhigh

Impacts

highlow

Areas in dark blue are of high conservation importance and are threatened by high levels of climatic or human impacts. These areas should be targeted for conservation interventions.

Water & Climate Change

Temperatures are expected to increase by 1.7-2.5 ºC degrees by mid-century. In the wettest months of the year (May through October), precipitation may increase by as much as 57%. Warmer temperatures may result in changes to the freeze-thaw cycle, and therefore the overall snow budget, with spring melt potentially occurring earlier in the year. The combination of increased temperatures, particularly in winter months, and a wetter and warmer monsoon season has the capacity to dramatically impact the interactions between snow leopards, their prey, and local human populations.

* Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research, Earth Institute. 2017. Climate Change in the Snow Leopard Landscapes of Asia's High Mountains

Alpine shift

Threeline is expected to move upslope in Sikkim as the climate becomes warmer and wetter. This may affect up to 80% of snow leopard habitat under a current global greenhouse gas emissions scenaarios.

Alpine shift upslope

Less vulnerableMost Vulnerable

Water towers

This map shows how rainfall balances with evapotranspiration, and how much water runs downstream.

JanWatertowers Contribution

  • 28 Eastern Nepal Landscape
  • 72 Rest of Basin
  • 20 % of total
  • 1
  • 5.5
  • 12
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec
Monsoon
0 mm500 mmLocal runoff

Freezeline Shift

The Sikkim landscape encompasses the entire subbasin's freeze area throughout the year. The cryosphere here is historically exposed to a 4-5 month summer period.

Despite this exposured summer, many important cryospheric characteristics do occur in the headwaters (glaciers, permafrosts). It is likely that any decrease in freeze duration under rising temperatures will have direct and immediate impacts on the cryospheric characteristics.

Calendar months of freeze loss

1 month 2 month 3 month

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