Resource Use and Environmental Degradation in the Himalayas: The Kali Watershed

The Himalayas are a veritable store house of natural resources. Most, if not all, of the resources like water, energy, soil, forests are replinished by nature. Yet today, impoverished of its resources, the Himalayas are virtually bankrupt. Tampering with the thresholds of nature, humans have so upset the renewability of the resources that the Himalayas have been taken over by environmental ruin. This book states that it is the misuse of resources which has led to environmental degradation of the Himalayas. This is elaborated through an indepth spatial and historical analysis of one watershed – that of river Kali. Flowing through the state of Uttar Pradesh, the Kali river forms the international boundary between India and Nepal. Framed within an ecological perspective, the study of a single watershed allows a close up to the problems of resource use in the Himalayas. Specification within generalizations thus becomes its strong suit.