Fuelwood assessment at the micro-watershed level:a case study in Garhwal Himalaya,India

Biomass, as fuelwood, is one of the major sources of energy in rural areas, especially in the mountainous regions of the world. As the increasing human population exerts more pressure on the forest thereby inducing an adverse effect on the sustainability of the ecosystem, which consequently causes fuelwood crisis at a local level, this crisis is spatio-temporal in nature. Thus, the major objective of this study is to assess the sustainability of fuelwood at different probable scenarios at a micro watershed level. The present study was conducted in the Phakot watershed, the Tehri Garhwal district of central Himalaya in India, during 2006–2008. Based on the vegetation composition in the study area, the net primary productivity (NPP) value of the Oak forest, and mixed oak and sal forests, was used for the quantification of fuelwood availability in evergreen and deciduous forests, respectively. The fuelwood demand was calculated on the basis of seasonal fuelwood consumption values. Nine probable permutations for availability–demand scenarios assuming the existence of high (H), low (L) and average (A) conditions were analyzed for evaluating the stress. The available annual harvestable fuelwood in the watershed is in the minimum and maximum ranges of 2283.28 to 4066.00 tons, respectively, per year whereas it has a demand of 110.76 tons as the minimum to 3659 tons as the maximum annually. This shows that in the current availability–demand scenario, the watershed does not have fuelwood crisis in the present situation but needs to maintain the sustainability of the system. Based on our study, it is concluded that, globally, more spatio-temporal study is required to understand the issues at the local level.