Sundarbans

Story hook

Two ecosystems at the extremes of altitude — one at sea level, slipping beneath rising tides; the other at 4,500 m, watching its glaciers retreat 12 metres a year. The Sundarbans (literally "the beautiful forest", from Sundari, the dominant mangrove species) sits at the mouth of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta, sprawled across 10,000 sq km of which ~4,200 sq km lie in West Bengal and the rest in Bangladesh. The Himalayas rise from the Indo-Gangetic plain to the highest peaks on Earth and contain the third-largest store of ice outside the polar regions — the "third pole".

When Cyclone Amphan (May 2020), then Yaas (2021), then Remal (May 2024) ripped through the Bay of Bengal, each forecast predicted catastrophic damage to Kolkata. Each time, the death toll was lower than feared. The reason: the mangrove belt absorbed 40-60 % of the storm surge before it reached the inhabited delta. Meanwhile, 2,000 km north, the Joshimath subsidence of January 2023 cracked 800+ buildings in a 24-hour event. The town was sliding because hydro tunnels, unsealed bores, and unchecked construction had hollowed out the Himalayan slope.

This file is about the two most studied — and most threatened — Indian ecosystems and the National Mission for Himalayan Studies (NMHS) that funds research on the latter.

Why this matters for UPSC

The Sundarbans and the Himalayas have appeared in Prelims MCQs almost every year since 2014 (mangrove species, Ramsar status, tiger population, NMHS). Mains questions probe climate vulnerability, adaptation strategies, and the development-conservation trade-off. Interview boards from West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Himachal, Sikkim, Arunachal routinely ask. After the Wayanad and Joshimath disasters, this is a near-certain 2026 cycle topic.