Pakistan

Snow Leopard Habitat in Pakistan

The Karakoram-Pamir Landscape is one of 3 snow leopard landscapes in Pakistan. It has 7,400 km2 of habitat that is of adequate quality and size to support snow leopards, in 8 discrete patches.

The largest and most central block of habitat in the Karakoram-Pamir landscape is located along the Khunjerab river corridor and its headwaters. A further 800 km2 of habitat may serve an important connectivity function between these patches.

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.

Chungo Lungma
GlacierWildlife
Sanctuary

Haramosh - Stak - TormikConservation
Reserve

Braldu - ShigarConservation
Reserve

QurambarNational
Park

RakaposhiConservation
Reserve

Shimshal - IIConservation Reserve

Braldu - IIWildlife Sanctuary

Thalley - HusheConservation
Reserve

Baltoro Biafo GlaciersNational Park

KhunjerabNational Park

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.

Human Impact
Min degradationMax degradation

In this map, roads, population centers, and land cover are used as proxies for human impact on snow leopards. We assume that human pressure on snow leopards is higher when closer to these landscape features.

The habitat in the Khunjerab river corridor and tributaries has some of the best and most centrally located snow leopard habitat, but this area also has relatively high human impact. Adequate zoning and management of human activities can help to to minimize habitat loss and fragementation in this central habitat location.

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 2.2-3.6 ºC degrees by mid-century. The largest increases are projected in the months of September (2.4-3.9ºC) and October (2.5-3.9ºC) which may delay the onset of freezing and snow conditions to later in the year. Additionally, projected temperature increases in March and November may bring the average monthly temperatures to near or above 0?C, which could have consequences for snow melt, potentially shrinking the length of the freeze-thaw cycle. Precipitation in this region may increase slightly in the future.

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

Alpine shift

The snow leopard habitats of KKP are moderately vulnerable to climate change-driven ecosystem change, with a predicted loss of 12% of alpine habitats under a high emissions scenario.

Most of the at-risk habitat is near the Khunjerab river corridor, which is one of the most critical areas for snow leopards in terms of its connectivity function. This region is also at high risk from human activities.

Alpine shift upslope

Less vulnerableMost Vulnerable

Water towers

This map shows how rainfall lands in the region. The landscape covers 58% of the subbasin, yet it only provides 36% of the subbasin's local runoff. Hence the landscape's water towers does not form an argument for water provision as the landscape provides less water than its direct surroundings.

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 snow frontier is fragmented and shows a very long circumference throughout the year, meaning that changes to the snow frontier under temperature rise will have very significant impacts throughout the subbasin, the landscape, as well as downstream.

Since the landscape is very mountainous, shifts in the freeze line will only be a few hundred meters, but since it surrounds historically snow-covered mountaintops in summer, even such shifts can mean dramatic change.

Calendar months of freeze loss

1 month 2 month 3 month

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