Abstract
Nowadays, climate change is the global phenomena and extensively
resrached worldwide .However, it is agreed upon to be caused by both
natural and anthropogenic drivers such as land use changes,
deforestation, green revolution, industrialization and consequent
globalization. This study focused on Swat valley, Switzerland of Pakistan
in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province, Pakistan. Geographically,
the Swat valley is located in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region,
which spred over an area of more than 4.3 million Sq.km. The current
research relied on meteorological 36 year dataset from1980-2015. In
order to find out the spatio-temporal changes in forest cover, the
image classification was used. The results indicate that the forest
cover observed declined by 16.3% in first five years and 5.5 % in
last five years. The total forest covered area in the year of 1981
was 1316 Sq.km which reduced to 1067 Sq.km and 714 Sq.km in
the years of1998 and 2015 respectively. Similarly, Carbon dioxide
(CO2) emission in 1981 was 0.336 metric tonnes per capita,
followed by 0.929 metric tonnes per capita in 2015.Moreover, due
to climate change and human induced activities, forest cover is
decreasing with the passage of time with increasein Carbon
dioxide emission whereas, soil erosion and desertification has also
shown increasing trends. The negative effects of the forest cover
changes have been observed through an increase in the Carbon
dioxide emission. From 2000 to 2015, the forest area observed to
the decreasing trend. During the same span, the deforestation
found to increase. The trend of the precipitation observed to be
declined.The logical evidence and Geo-environmental database are
the basic components to control forthcoming challenges of local and regional climate changes and thus a sustainable forest
development.
Sohail Abbas , Safdar Ali Shirazi, Mian Sabir Hussain , Muhammad Yaseen, Khadija Shakarullah , Saadia Sultan Wahla, Mareena Khurshid . (2020) Impact of Climate Change on Forest Cover: Implications for Carbon Stock Assessment and Sustainable Development in HKH Region-Pakistan , Journal of Pakistan Vision, Volume 21, Issue 1.
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