This book describes the development of a landscape-level degradation vulnerability assessment framework and its application to eco-restoration in the Gangotri-Govind landscape of the northwestern Indian Himalaya. Using multi-criteria decision analysis, it presents a successful eco-restoration strategy developed for this ecologically delicate landscape. The book identifies uncontrolled tourism, overgrazing, illegal resource use, environmental fragility, and low socioeconomic conditions as key drivers of alpine and sub-alpine degradation. It also introduces a novel degradation vulnerability index model for assessing the degradation status of alpine and sub-alpine pastures (bugyals) across the landscape.

The degradation assessment framework and its respective eco-restoration practices presented in this book provide an integrated approach for identifying restoration priorities and supporting landscape-scale ecosystem recovery strategies. Although developed for high-altitude degraded alpine pastures in the Indian Himalayan Region, the model and restoration strategies are readily transferable to similar alpine and sub-alpine mountain ecosystems around the world.