This paper reports on a detailed phytosociological analysis of forests in the NW catchment of the Gola River in Kumaun Himalaya,' E. Fourteen sites and 56 stands at elevations ranging from 1 200 to 2 523 m and covering the following five forest types were investigated: Pinus roxburghii, mixed, Quercus leucotrichophora, Q. lanuginosa, and Q. floribunda. The basal cover of the forests differed according to slope position and aspect. The three oak forests had more basal cover than the other two, and Q. lanuginosa had the most. The performance of individual tree and shrub species and the number of saplings and seedlings differed according to slope position and aspect. The mixed forest had the greatest tree diversity, and among the others diversity increased with increasing basal cover. The diversity of trees, saplings, and herb layer was greatest on aspects with intermediate temperature and moisture conditions; whereas that of shrubs and seedlings increased towards the cooler (and wetter) and warmer (and drier) exposures. There was a positive relation between the diversity of shrubs plus seedlings and trees plus saplings in P. roxburghii and mixed forests; whereas this relationship was inverse in the three oak forests. In general, the dominance-diversity curves for the tree layer followed a geometric series conforming to the niche pre-emption situation in communities of low diversity. Among the forests, the regeneration was best in Q. lanuginosa and worst in Q. leucotrichophora.
The primary occupation of 90% of the rural population of the hilly regions of the Central Himalaya is agriculture. The cultivated land is the nucleus of village settlements and also a factor which leads to increases in the human and livestock populations in a positive feedback manner, taking over land from forests at an ever-increasing rate. These village anthropobiomes are centres of massive energy-consumption.A detailed study was conducted on three villages, Khurpatal, Bhalutia, and Mehragaon, with a view to investigate (a) the energy efficiency of agriculture, (b) the viability of their agro-ecosystems, and (c) the viability of forest ecosystems at the current level of agricultural activity. The cropping systems are divisible into vegetable and wheat-based systems. Among different crop-combinations, wheat-soybean is characterized by the minimum energy input and potato-cabbage-potato by the maximum energy input in Khurpatal. Thus from an energetic point of view, wheat-soybean is the most efficient (output: input ratio = 12.03) cropping pattern. Among alternatives practised in the remaining two villages, the wheat—paddy combination of Bhalutia is the most efficient, having an output: input ratio of 1.35, and the wheat-maize and fallow-pulses systems of Mehragaon are the most inefficient, with an output: input ratio of, respectively, 0.55 and 0.18.
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