Kharagpur, September 16, 2025

A new study by researchers at the IIT Kharagpur has revealed a paradox in India’s environmental trajectory: while the country is experiencing significant greening and contributing to global terrestrial carbon sequestration, its forest health is steadily declining due to reduced photosynthetic efficiency.

India is greening and contributes substantially to the global greening and terrestrial carbon sequestration. This greening is mostly contributed by the irrigated croplands than perennial forests (“Greening of India: Forests or Croplands?”) However, there is a decrease in vegetation greenness in regions of high carbon uptake in India (“Browning of vegetation in efficient carbon sink regions of India during the past two decades is driven by climate change and anthropogenic intrusions”)

The study, titled “Weakening of forest carbon stocks due to declining Ecosystem Photosynthetic Efficiency under the current and future climate change scenarios in India” (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2025.108478), was led by Prof. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath and Rahul Kashyap of the Centre for Ocean, River, Atmosphere and Land Sciences at IIT Kharagpur.

Key Findings:

Photosynthetic efficiency of Indian forests has declined by 5% between 2010–2019 compared to the previous decade (2000–2009).

The decline is most pronounced in pristine forests of the Eastern Himalaya, Western Ghats, and Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Forests show low resilience to warming, drying, land and atmospheric aridity, and wildfires, with only 16% exhibiting high integrity.

“Much of the decrease in forest health is contributed by global warming driven by reduced soil moisture and higher air temperatures. Wildfires and landslides are the other natural factors. However, deforestation, mining, and other development activities also contribute to the decline in forest health,” said Prof. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath, the lead researcher.

The degradation of India’s forests poses serious risks to biodiversity, timber production, livelihoods of forest dwellers, and long-term climate resilience.

Indian forests are non-resilient to the extremes of warming, drying, land and atmospheric aridity and wildfires. Climate projections suggest the weakening of the forest carbon sinks and declining forest health and is likely to be stronger in the future due to climate change and anthropogenic interventions. The degradation of forest resources is a concern for the economy and it would impact its timber production, market, planting intensity and lives of forest dwellers in India.

“It also threatens biodiversity and pushes them towards extinction. Degradation of forests in ecologically fragile regions can lead to more frequent climatic extremes in the future,” noted Rahul Kashyap, lead author of the study.

The researchers warn that the weakening of forest carbon sinks will become more severe under future climate change and anthropogenic pressures. Forests have a limited carbon storage capacity, already insufficient to offset the rise in atmospheric CO₂.

“It is imperative to avoid misconstruing forest-based climate mitigation as a solution to current anthropogenic carbon emission levels. In the future, accelerated deforestation and forest degradation due to changing climate, rising extremes, agricultural expansion, plantation growth, and rapid developmental activities can lead to savannisation of Indian forests,” cautioned Prof. Kuttippurath.

The study emphasises the urgent need for:

Preservation of indigenous forests

Sustainable forest management practices

Scientific afforestation programmes

Substantial reduction in carbon emissions

Advanced carbon capture technologies

These measures are crucial to achieve sustainability and India’s target of net zero emissions by 2070.

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SSS/16.9.25/…..

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