On the occasion of Global Tiger Day, the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change released a national report titled Status of Small Cats in Tiger Landscapes of India at the National Zoological Park in New Delhi. The report marks the first country-wide assessment of nine small wild cat species found in India’s tiger-bearing forests.

The report draws on data from the All-India Tiger Estimation exercises conducted in 2018 and 2022. Over 57,000 camera trap locations were surveyed across 18 states, yielding more than 24,800 photo-captures and over 17,000 individual detections of small wild cats between 2018 and 2022. The data allowed scientists to assess the distribution and occupancy of species such as the jungle cat, rusty-spotted cat, leopard cat, fishing cat, and others, offering a clearer picture of their current status and trends over time.

The jungle cat was identified as the most widely distributed small cat species, with an estimated occupancy across 96,275 square kilometres. The species was found in a range of forest types and showed a consistent presence in 46 percent of the surveyed grid cells in both 2018 and 2022.

In contrast, the rusty-spotted cat, despite its wide range, showed a 21 percent decline in occupancy between the two survey periods. It was recorded across 70,075 square kilometres, with a stronger presence in central India, particularly in mixed deciduous forests. Researchers noted its absence in areas where it had been previously detected.

The leopard cat, usually found in moist forests, was recorded across 32,800 square kilometres. Its range spanned the Himalayan foothills, Northeast India, the Sundarbans, and the Western Ghats. While the species maintained presence in about half of its earlier range, local declines were observed in some landscapes.

Other habitat specialists showed more restricted distributions. The desert cat was found across 12,500 square kilometres, mainly in the dry and semi-arid regions of western and central India. The fishing cat, which relies on wetland and mangrove habitats, was found in 7,575 square kilometres, with populations in the Terai Arc, Northeast, and coastal regions.

Three elusive species, namely the clouded leopard, marbled cat, and Asiatic golden cat, were primarily confined to forest patches in Northeast India. Each was recorded in less than 4,000 square kilometres. The marbled cat and Asiatic golden cat were not detected in over 75 percent of areas where they had been previously observed, suggesting highly fragmented or declining populations.

The report also examined the role of protected areas in supporting small cat species. Most showed higher occupancy within protected areas, underlining the role of tiger reserves in safeguarding broader carnivore diversity. However, species like the jungle cat and rusty-spotted cat were also frequently recorded outside protected zones.

The report recommends ongoing monitoring, targeted ecological studies, and the integration of small cat species into national and state-level wildlife management plans.

Banner image: The rusty-spotted cat, known as the hummingbird of cats, falls in the ‘Near Threatened’ category in the IUCN Red List. Photo by Radheshyam Bishnoi

Sulochana Gadgil, an eminent Indian meteorologist, died on July 24. She was 81. Gadgil contributed to the scientific understanding of the Indian monsoonal system, which has in turn become the foundation for projecting how climate change will impact the monsoonal system, and in turn the future of the South Asian region.

Born in 1944 in Pune, Maharashtra, Gadgil did her schooling and initial university education in the city. She completed her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and worked as a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA. In 1971, she joined the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) as a scientist. Two years later, she moved to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru. She played a significant role in the establishment of the Centre for Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences at IISc.

“Perhaps the most important part of my education at Harvard and MIT was learning the art and science of modelling of complex systems from stalwarts in the field,” she wrote in an Indian Academy of Sciences publication. “This gave me the confidence to undertake modelling studies of not only the monsoon, but also of crops and to develop simple models for the impact of pests and diseases on crops in a variable climate.”

Her foremost contribution to the understanding of the Indian monsoonal system was to define that the movement of the rainclouds from south to north, and back, which went beyond the till-then believed to be movement of winds from the sea to the land. She stated that the monsoons were a part of planetary processes and were “the manifestation of seasonal migration of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ).” From here it was logical to connect the Indian system to the El Niño and La Niña phenomenon.

Further, she studied the impact of excess or deficient summer (southwest) monsoon on agricultural production in the country and the national GDP, using data from between 1951 and 2003. The study found that while deficient rainfall had an adverse impact on the production and the GDP, excess rainfall did not cause a positive impact.

Sulochana Gadgil is survived by her children, their families and her husband Madhav Gadgil who is an ecologist and was the chairperson of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, which in 2011 highlighted the ecological significance of the Western Ghats mountain chain and the need for the conservation of its ecologically sensitive regions.

Banner image: Sulochana Gadgil by Ministry of Earth Sciences via Facebook. Monsoon in the Western Ghats by KV 192 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

As India’s digital infrastructure booms, the associated climate risks are also on the rise. According to a new global study by the climate analytics firm XDI, Indian states with rapidly growing data centre industries are highly vulnerable to climate change-induced hazards and extreme weather.

The report analyses 8,868 data centres around the world to determine how vulnerable they are to eight climate-related hazards, including riverine and surface water flooding, forest fire, extreme wind, freeze-thaw, soil movement, tropical cyclone wind, and coastal inundation. It focuses on physical damage to building structures that are currently operational, under construction, or in the planning stage, to project how climate risks increase over time.

“Data centres are critical infrastructure powering everything from banking and healthcare to cloud services and emergency response, yet they are increasingly vulnerable to physical climate risks. These hazards can cause costly outages, data loss, and cascading failures across essential services,” Petrana Lorenz, Director of Communications at XDI, tells Mongabay India.

In India, over 12% of 228 data centres studied are projected to face “high risk” from climate impacts by 2050, underscoring the need for timely adaptation. The analysis is based on a high-emissions scenario of climate-related risks under conditions of continued high emissions and limited mitigation. “This scenario helps reveal worst-case impacts, which are critical for resilience planning, though we also produce results for lower-emissions pathways to support comparison and broader risk understanding,” shares Michael Bojko, Senior Analyst, Climate Impact and Policy, XDI, and an author of the study.

In the report’s top 100 data centre hubs (states) ranked by physical climate risk in 2050, Uttar Pradesh (UP) ranks second. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra rank 25^th and 48^th in the list, respectively. “The risk of damage to data centre infrastructure from climate change hazards is projected to more than double (111%) by the end of the century,” the report states.

Noting that adaptation is expensive because it requires large up-front investments in infrastructure, ongoing maintenance, and coordination across sectors and scales, Lorenz shares that it is time to shift the focus to mitigation.

“Integrating effective climate risk screening of proposed or existing sites helps identify potential hazards early on, avoiding vulnerable locations and guiding necessary infrastructure improvements. Planning should also include resilient design, efficient cooling, redundant systems, and ongoing assessments as climate models evolve to ensure data centre reliability,” Bojko adds.

While identifying an important gap in this study, Bojko shares that this report does not incorporate the modelling of critical interdependencies such as power, water, transport, and network systems, which are essential to understand residual system-wide failure risks beyond structural damage. “Future studies should address these cross-dependencies to provide a more comprehensive risk assessment,” he says.

Banner image: A data server room in Switzerland. Representative image by Florian Hirzinger via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Every kilogram of dry sediment from Mumbai’s mangrove areas has, on average, 6,730 microplastic particles, finds a study that analysed the sediments of six mangroves zones in the metropolitan region.

More than half the microplastics analysed were fibres while other predominant types included plastic particles less than 100 µm (about the diameter of human hair) and translucent/transparent items.

Occurrence of microplastics in the sediment is worrying because they can build up in benthic organisms (organisms that live at the bottom of a water body) that come in direct contact with the microplastic-filled sediments, and may move up the food chain, possibly reaching humans through seafood, indicates the study published earlier this year. “Regular microplastic assessments, particularly in urban mangrove ecosystems, are vital for mitigating potential risks and developing effective conservation strategies,” notes the study conducted by a group of scientists from institutes in India and Saudi Arabia, led by Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai.

Thirty samples from surface sediment (up to 5 cm depth) were collected from October to December 2021, representing varying levels of anthropogenic influence — urban-influenced Gorai, Versova, and Bandstand mangrove regions and less-urbanised areas such as Sewri, Vikhroli, and Elephanta island. The highest average of microplastics was recorded in the mangroves of Versova (more than 7,800 particles per kg of dry weight), while the lowest was in Sewri (more than 5,700 particles per kg of dry weight).

The study assessed that the muddy shores of Versova had the highest amount of microplastics, likely due to high levels of debris pollution in this area, reflecting the impact of “local anthropogenic activities such as urban runoff and inadequate waste management”.

Other studies that have previously documented microplastics in mangrove sediments in India have estimated around 27 items/kg dry weight (dw) in Punnakayal Estuary and 9 items/kg dw in Tuticorin (Thoothukudi) in Tamil Nadu; around 1275 particles/kg dw in the sediments of Mangalavanam bird sanctuary in Kochi city in Kerala; and about 1414-1418 microplastics/kg of surface sediment samples from Kota mangroves in Udupi in Karnataka.

“This study provides critical estimates of MPs (microplastics) abundance in Mumbai’s mangrove sediments, highlighting the urgent need for management plans and policies to address microplastic production and release into coastal waters, thereby protecting marine organisms,” write the study authors.

It has been estimated that more than three-quarters of the world’s mangroves are under threat along with all the aquatic and terrestrial organisms that depend on them, according to the UNESCO, which has designated July 26 as the International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem.

Banner image: Polluted mangroves in Malad, Mumbai. Image by Saumitra Shinde/Mongabay.

Anamalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu will host the country’s first Centre of Excellence for Hornbill Conservation, dedicated to the long-term study and conservation of the threatened species, the state government recently announced.

All hornbills – with the exception of the oriental pied hornbill – are listed under the first schedule of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, granting them the highest level of protections under the law. However, despite this, hornbills are increasingly threatened by deforestation and habitat fragmentation. Populations of some hornbills, such as the Malabar grey hornbill, are reported to be on the decline in the Western Ghats.

India is home to nine species of hornbills, but the Centre of Excellence will focus its activities on the four that are found in the Western Ghats: the great hornbill (Buceros bicornis), Malabar grey hornbill (Ocyceros griseus), the Malabar pied hornbill (Anthracoceros coronatus), and the Indian grey hornbill (Ocyceros birostris). The great hornbill and Malabar grey hornbill are categorised as vulnerable, while the Malabar pied hornbill is near threatened as per IUCN.

With an outlay of ₹1 crore (₹10 million), the Centre will monitor hornbill populations, study their breeding habits, map their nesting sites and food sources, and track their movements using GPS or satellite telemetry technologies. The Centre will also work on habitat restoration, nest protection, staff and stakeholder capacity building, and on developing outreach programmes.

“Hornbills play a vital ecological role as seed dispersers, aiding the regeneration of tropical forests. However, these keystone species face growing threats due to habitat degradation, deforestation, and climate change. Recognising the urgency for targeted conservation, Tamil Nadu is establishing a dedicated Centre to address these challenges,” Supriya Sahu, an additional chief secretary in the state’s environment department, said in a statement.

As per a press release issued by the Tamil Nadu government, the Centre will collaborate with leading conservation organisations – such as Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), the Advanced Institute for Wildlife Conservation, and the Wildlife Institute of India – to implement various protection measures. The Centre will also consult with the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Hornbill Specialist Group.

Anamalai Tiger Reserve was selected for its “ecological richness and existing conservation infrastructure,” the press release says. The reserve falls in the Anamalai–Parambikulam–Vazhachal stretch of the state, identified as an important hornbill conservation site.

“We have managed to carry out research for over two decades with the permission and local support of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. We do hope this will not only increase awareness about hornbills, but also that the importance of scientific research will be recognised by the forest department and encouraged with permission and support. Not just in Anamalai Tiger Reserve, but the rest of Tamil Nadu as well,” said Divya Muddappa, a scientist with NCF.

Banner image: Malabar grey hornbill. Image by Kip Lee via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

China has begun construction of a mega dam upstream of the Brahmaputra even as concerns about downstream impacts to India and Bangladesh remain unaddressed.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang made the announcement at a ceremony held in Nyingchi City on July 19, according to the state news portal Xinhua. “The project will consist of five cascade hydropower stations, with a total investment estimated at around 1.2 trillion yuan (about 167.8 billion U.S. dollars),” according to the Xinhua article.

Nyingchi City — located in Tibet (Xizang Autonomous Region) — is close to the river’s “great bend,” where the project is slated to come up. The mega dam is likely to leverage the water’s energy as the river passes through some of the world’s deep gorges along the great bend, before it enters India.

Once complete, the dam will become the world’s largest to date, with a capacity to generate 60,000 megawatts of power. While China has branded the mega dam a “green” project “promoting harmony between humanity and nature,” experts have said the project’s construction could be catastrophic for the region’s fragile ecology.

The government of Arunachal Pradesh, which borders Tibet, has also raised an alarm about the possible weaponisation of water. “It is going to cause an existential threat to our tribes and our livelihoods. It is quite serious because China could even use this as a sort of ‘water bomb’,” said chief minister Pema Khandu, in an interview to Press Trust of India.

The Indian government is racing to build its own dam on the Brahmaputra river — the 11,200-megawatt Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP) — in what is likely an attempt to secure territorial and water rights. The Indian dam’s proposed 9.2 billion cubic metres of water storage capacity will act as a “buffer,” in case the Chinese choose to engineer a deluge, the Indian government claims.

The project has drawn sharp opposition from the indigenous Adi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh, who stand to be displaced by the SUMP. “If this dam needs to be built in the name of national security, let it be done somewhere else,” Tarok Siram, a village leader told Mongabay India.

Until recently, the government said it was trying to resolve concerns about the Chinese dam through diplomatic channels. In January, Indian and Chinese officials had discussed the “resumption of provision of hydrological data and other cooperation pertaining to trans-border rivers,” the government revealed in Parliament.

Banner image: The Siang river in Arunachal Pradesh. Image by Hagen Desa/Mongabay.