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 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.