Impact of Climate Change on Forest Cover: Implications for Carbon Stock Assessment and Sustainable Development in HKH Region-Pakistan

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.