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DECLINE OF CONIFER
FOREST COVER IN PAKISTAN: A GIS APPROACH
SHEIKH SAEED AHMAD1*, QURAT-UL-AIN ABBASI1,
RUKHSANA JABEEN2 AND MUHAMMAD TAHIR SHAH3
Abstract:
Deforestation is one of the obstinate environmental problems globally.
Pakistan, being a developing nation also encompasses crisis of
depletion of forest reserves. The rising climate change consequences
remain the primary culprit behind this phenomenon. The present study
intends to focus attention on one of the threatened vegetation types,
the Conifer forests and their consequent reduction in area during the
last two decades. GIS techniques have been employed to analyze the
change detection in various regions and provinces of Pakistan. The
results of current study indicated that Conifer forests have been
declining at the rate of 1.27% per annum since 1992, showing negative
trends due to various causes associated with climate change i.e.
increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall. So, the need for the
conservation of these forests should be the basic task to accomplish
order to avoid their vulnerability against various environmental and
socio economic disturbances.
1Department
of Environmental Sciences, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi,
Pakistan
2Department of Plant Sciences, SBKW University, Quetta, Pakistan
3Higher
Education Commission, Islamabad, Pakistan
*Corresponding author E-mail: drsaeed@fjwu.edu.pk 00 92 0321-5167726
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