- The fragile ecosystem of the Western Ghats is threatened by deforestation, quarrying, and largely unplanned development.
- The escalating pressures of climate change expose this unique natural heritage to even more degradation and destruction.
- With political will faltering, scientists are urging local communities to take the lead on conservation and climate action.
The Western Ghats, one of South Asia’s most biodiverse and fragile ecosystems, faces mounting threats. Imperilled by deforestation, quarrying, and largely unplanned development, the region now contends with the escalating pressures of climate change. Extreme weather events, intensifying due to global warming, are compounding the ecological crisis.
“The Western Ghats are highly susceptible to extreme weather,” warned Madhav Gadgil, the eminent ecologist and recipient of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024. Flash floods and landslides are fuelled by both ecosystem degradation and climate change. “We need the rule of law,” Gadgil told Mongabay India, lamenting the failure to enforce conservation laws. He pointed to the influence of powerful lobbies that circumvent protections, pressuring local communities to give up their rights.
In 2011, a committee chaired by Gadgil proposed a comprehensive framework for the sustainable development of the Western Ghats. The committee divided the region into three Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs) based on ecological significance, recommending strict prohibitions on destructive activities like mining, quarrying, deforestation, and large-scale construction in areas deemed high priority. It also emphasised participatory governance, advocating for local communities to play an active role in environmental management.
However, the report sparked intense opposition from state governments and industries, which argued that its recommendations were impractical and would hinder economic growth. The political pushback stalled its implementation, and Gadgil, who chaired the committee, issued serious warnings about the consequences of environmental destruction in the Western Ghats.
Extreme rainfall and evolving weather patterns
The Western Ghats play a critical role in shaping India’s monsoon dynamics. Moist winds from the Arabian Sea are forced to rise over the mountains in a process called orographic lifting, leading to clouds, precipitation, and little rain on the leeward side. That means some of the country’s heaviest rainfall falls on the western slopes and there is a rain shadow on the eastern side, leaving it significantly drier.
Research indicates that climate-driven shifts in these atmospheric processes are altering rainfall patterns. “The Southeast Arabian Sea is becoming a hotspot for severe cyclones and deep convective clouds,” explained Abhilash S., director of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research, Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT). The warming of deep ocean waters, coupled with atmospheric changes, has increased mid-tropospheric cyclonic vortices — swirling air masses that intensify rainfall by drawing in moisture, he explained to Mongabay India.
The troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere where most weather phenomena occur, extends from about 6 km at the poles to 18-20 km at the Equator. Mid-tropospheric cyclonic vortices are swirling air masses around low-pressure areas, typically 3-7 km above the surface. These vortices can enhance rainfall by drawing in moist air and, in turn, intensify weather disturbances. The movement and strength of these vortices influence the timing and intensity of rainfall over regions like the Western Ghats, scientists explained.

Warming ocean
Rapid warming of the Arabian Sea since 1995 is spawning and strengthening intense cyclones over the Indian subcontinent, as recent studies note. Models show that the Asian monsoon domain has greater changes in extreme precipitation measures than other monsoon domains, indicating its sensitivity to global warming.
Kerala offers a stark illustration of this shift – its most dramatic examples being the floods in 2018 and 2019. They stemmed from contrasting weather phenomena. “A disastrous cloudburst and associated floods in Kerala during the 2019 monsoon season raise the hypothesis that rainfall over the west coast of India, much of which is stratiform, may be trending towards being more convective,” noted a 2022 CUSAT study.
Convective clouds, formed by humid conditions, are deeper and ice-rich compared to the usual shallow, layered stratiform clouds in this region. While stratified cloud layers sustained over a longer time produced extreme rain in 2018, a deep convective system with larger drops for a short duration was observed in 2019, scientists have noted.
Read more: The Arabian Sea faces an increased frequency and duration of marine heatwave days, finds study
Disaster risk implications
“These bursts of intense rainfall can be dangerous,” Gadgil pointed out. Such rain can lead to soil erosion, flash floods, and landslides. Steep slopes and short, intense rains primarily cause landslides on the Western Ghats. A tragic example was the 2024 Wayanad landslide that killed 254 people and left 128 missing.
Prior to the disaster, two weather stations in Wayanad received extremely heavy rains. Two stations, Puthumala and Chembra, received about 350 mm and 300 mm rain, respectively, within 24 hours, as a Geological Survey of India (GSI) study noted. Together, that is roughly a fifth of the total rainfall of 1713 mm that the district received over the entire 2024 monsoon season (June to September 2024) which itself was 30% down from the normal average of 2464 mm, as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) recorded.
The paradox is that the summer monsoon precipitation (June to September) over India has declined by around 6% from 1951 to 2015, with notable decreases in the Western Ghats. At the same time, the Western Ghats are experiencing increasingly erratic rain with more extreme rainfall events, according to the 2020 Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
Studies link the growing frequency of landslides to steep slopes, intense rains, and rampant quarrying.
Gadgil called the Wayanad disaster a “man-made tragedy,” blaming the state government for ignoring his committee’s 2011 recommendations for sustainable development in the Ghats.

Multiple influences
The MoES assessment highlights the critical role of aerosol forcing over the Northern Hemisphere in counteracting the expected increase in precipitation due to global warming. Aerosols are solid or liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere. They can originate from natural sources, such as dust, sea salt, volcanic ash, and pollen, or human activities, including industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, biomass burning, and mining.
Aerosols can influence how solar radiation is absorbed or scattered in the atmosphere, can either warm or cool the Earth, and play a key role in cloud formation. The impact of these particles varies based on their size, composition, and interaction with atmospheric processes.
“Aerosols can lead to extreme rainfall events,” Gadgil pointed out. A 2024 study further reveals that “under certain conditions, absorbing aerosols can significantly enhance extreme precipitation, even while reducing the mean.”
In the Western Ghats, these effects are becoming evident. While average rainfall is on the decline, the region is witnessing an uptick in extreme rainfall events. Gadgil also pointed to environmental degradation as a likely factor contributing to the increased aerosol load in the region.
Rampant quarrying, much of it illegal, is adding significant amounts of dust to the atmosphere, according to Gadgil. “Scores of quarries operate in the Western Ghats, and many of them are illegal,” he said. Infrastructure projects like new seaports, breakwaters, and seawalls are exacerbating the situation by fuelling stone mining and destabilising the already fragile ecosystem.
“What we need is the rule of law,” Gadgil emphasised, calling for stricter enforcement to mitigate the damage and protect the Western Ghats from further deterioration.
Read more: Indian Ocean headed for a near-permanent state of marine heat wave
Rampant destruction of the environment
Meanwhile, Wayanad’s fragile landscape continues to grapple with the pressures of development and environmental degradation. After the 2024 landslide in Wayanad, an analysis of satellite imagery revealed that the district housed at least 48 stone quarries, 15 of which were located in Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs). These areas, identified in 2013 by a High-Level Working Group led by the space scientist Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, are defined by having at least a fifth of their landscape under natural ecosystems, including biodiversity-rich zones, wildlife corridors, and heritage sites. Quarrying, mining, and other environmentally harmful activities are prohibited in ESAs to safeguard their ecological integrity.
Kerala’s political leadership dismissed Gadgil and Kasturirangan’s reports on the ecosensitivity of the Western Ghats, calling them ‘not pragmatic.’ “Much of the recommendations in these reports were not pragmatic and did not consider societal aspirations and ground realities,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had said following the 2024 landslide.
In the wake of the 2024 landslides in Wayanad, however, another expert committee has urged immediate action, recommending that the areas marked as unsafe be kept free of habitation and restricted construction and other human intervention in these areas.

Way forward
With political will faltering, scientists are urging local communities to take the lead on conservation and climate action. Speaking with Mongabay India, Gadgil emphasised the crucial role of grassroots governance in protecting the fragile ecosystem of the Western Ghats. “Panchayats can play a pivotal role in conserving the environment,” he said, pointing to the Biodiversity Act, which requires Panchayats, Nagar Palikas (municipal councils), and Mahanagar Palikas (city corporations) to establish biodiversity management committees.
“These committees must actively work toward conservation and proper planning,” Gadgil stressed, underscoring the power of local bodies to drive meaningful change. He also cautioned that conservation does not mean giving more powers to state forest departments but more rights to the local people. As the region faces mounting ecological threats, the need for community-driven solutions has never been more urgent.
Banner image: Aftermath of the 2024 Wayanad landslide that killed 254 people and left 128 missing. Image by Vinayaraj via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).