Shrinkage of urban green space has led to the disruption of the ecological balance. Population growth, industrial expansion, development activities and land encroachment reduce the vegetation cover of metropolitan cities including Lahore, Pakistan. Presently, Lahore is on top of all metropolitan cities in the world having worst air quality index (AQI). Thus, monitoring of the vegetation cover in urban areas is the ultimate need of the day for the conservation and protection of environment which is also the agenda of new government (Clean and Green Pakistan). Besides, Honorable Lahore High Court has also passed an order to plant trees in the oldest and biggest graveyard of Lahore to tackle the climate change issue. Considering the above-mentioned facts, the current research was carried out for the first time in Lahore, Pakistan to analyze the vegetation cover using spatio-temporal technique. For vegetation cover assessment, spatial techniques were used in the present study viz. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Transformed Normalized Vegetation Index (TNDVI), Difference Vegetation Index (DVI) and supervised classification. On the basis of high magnitude of smog and air pollution issue, four recent years were selected, i.e. 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 to observe ground reality. The results of the study revealed the depletion of vegetation cover in cemeteries at an alarming rate. Furthermore, the results of study revealed no significant change in green cover in Miani Sahib after the passing order of Lahore High Court of plantation in the graveyard.
Changes in land use and land cover affect the social, economic and natural aspects of any area. Mostly land use and land cover (LULC) changes are the result of population growth and human activities in the form of urban agglomerations and industrialization etc. Physical factors like soil structure and type, slope condition, topography are main aspects. Land use change defines the historical pattern that how people used that specific land which depends on the availability of resources and economic conditions. LULC changes may trigger the detrimental effects like increase in natural hazard events and changes in climatic patterns. Climatic pattern directly affects the precipitation, groundwater recharge, the amount of evapotranspiration and runoff generation. On regional and local scale, LULC change is a far-reaching issue because environment and climate condition depend on it
Neotectonics amend the river base and causes landscape erosion. This study explores the DEM based differentiation of neotectonics in the northern regions of Pakistan. This method involves vertical and non-linear dissection base on digital evaluation method. This study uses Gliding Box Technique (GBM and GBT) and Box Counting method to evaluate Lacunarity (LA), Succolarity (SA) or 3-Fractals, and Fractal Dimensions (FD). 3-fractals are an attribute used for the recognition of spatial patterns, specifically to compute and differentiate natural textures including natural patterns. This study also investigates vertical dissection using DEM SRTM having spatial resolution of 90m. DEM SRTM measures surface area, plane area as well as the surface ratio. The vertical areas are investigated to make dissection maps and to identify the affects of neotectonics on the roughness of surface. Low value of surface roughness indicates flattened drainage basins and inclination of slope. The Raikot Fault shows higher values of surface roughness towards NE- SW. The surface roughness is mapped to recognize relative uplifts, uneven regions, depressions and pits. Analysis through non-linear method identifies the regions affected by neotectonics activity. Tectonics activity causes deformation and instability in drainage networks.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.