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Purpose This study aims to investigate risks associated with climate change vulnerability and in response the adaptation methods used by farming communities to reduce its negative impacts on agriculture in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach The study used household survey method of data collection in Charsadda district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, involving 116 randomly selected respondents. Findings Prevalent crops diseases, water scarcity, soil fertility loss and poor socio-economic conditions were main contributing factors of climate change vulnerability. The results further showed that changing crops type and cultivation pattern, improved seed varieties, planting shaded trees and the provision of excessive fertilizers are the measures adapted to improve agricultural productivity, which may reduce the climate change vulnerability at a household level. Research limitations/implications The major limitation of this study was the exclusion of women from the survey due to religious and cultural barriers of in Pashtun society, wherein women and men do not mingle. Practical implications Reducing climate change vulnerability and developing more effective adaptation techniques require assistance from the government. This help can be in the form of providing basic resources, such as access to good quality agricultural inputs, access to information and extension services on climate change adaptation and modern technologies. Consultation with other key stakeholder is also required to create awareness and to build the capacity of the locals toward reducing climate change vulnerability and facilitating timely and effective adaptation. Originality/value This original research work provides evidence about farm-level vulnerability, adaptation strategies and risk perceptions on dealing with climate-change-induced natural disasters in Pakistan. This paper enriches existing knowledge of climate change vulnerability and adaptation in this resource-limited country so that effective measures can be taken to reduce vulnerability of farming communities, and enhance their adaptive capability.

Most of the transition metal ions are toxic and their removal from water is important. For this purpose, nearly monodisperse spherical core shell microgel particles with diameter of 88 ± 3 nm have been synthesized by free radical precipitation polymerization method and characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Extraction of copper ions from water under several conditions of pH, copper ions content and core shell microgel concentrations was undertaken. Several adsorption isotherms were tested to explore the process of adsorption of copper ions on the microgel particles. Kinetics of adsorption process was examined by pseudo first order, pseudo second order, intra-particle diffusion and Elovich models. Copper ions adsorbed in shell region of core shell microgel were reduced to copper nanoparticles. The hybrid microgel was used to reduce organic pollutants such as 4-nitrophenol (4NP), methylene blue (MB), and methyl orange (MO) in aqueous medium. The value of pseudo first order rate constant for catalytic reduction of 4NP, MB, and MO was found 0.602, 0.831, and 0.874 min−1 respectively. The resultant core shell hybrid microgel system can serve as efficient catalyst for numerous other organic transformations.

Climate change is one of the serious challenges to agricultural extension services that affect farms and farmers in various dimensions. According to Mulder [1], impacts of climate changes should not be ignored for sustainable development. However, the extension service providers are not yet fully sensitized and equipped with techniques to help farmers in managing agricultural risks through immediate and low cost solutions. In Malaysia, extension services are offered by public (Department of Agriculture) and private sector. The extension wing of public and private sectors is responsible t o d i s s e m i n a t e u s e f u l i n f o r m a t i o n a n d agricultural technologies among farmers through field level staff. However, extension services are mostly focused on just traditional style of agricultural technology transfer but less attention has been paid on using ICTs for agricultural risk management. As day by day farmers have to face different problems dissimilar to the past so, there is a need to opt digital options for quick solutions and making this sector sustainable. Extension service providers can motivate the farming community to use available digital options for minimizing the risks associated with agricultural sector. These risks can be related with production, price, market, technology, legal, health, and personal [2]. Risk in agricultural sector is related to various factors which leave negative impacts originated from different variables like natural, biological, climatic and input and output prices [3, 4, 5]. Similarly, Wossen et al. [6] highlighted that adoption of technologies were not only alleviating poverty but also increasing income and productivity of farmers. That is why, adoption of technologies would ultimately trigger economic growth along with wide marketing opportunities, reducing poverty at large [6]

Climate change has become a convinced hazard in the way of realizing sustainable development goals. It greatly affects the living conditions of the poor as they have very low adaptation capacity; furthermore, their livelihoods are greatly dependent on agriculture, which in turn is highly reliant on climate [1, 2]. Although several attempts have been made by developing countries through government and nongovernmental organizations to assist the adaptation

A field experiment was carried out to determine the effect of tillage on growth and yield of two wheat cultivars sown after rice at the Agronomic Research Area, University of Agriculture, and Faisalabad during the winter season 2012-13. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with split plot arrangement having three replications with a net plot size of 3.0 m × 7.0 m. The experiment comprised of two wheat cultivars with four tillage treatments viz. Zero tillage, reduced tillage (only one cultivation+hand drilling), conventional method (3 cultivation followed by planking +hand drilling) and deep ploughing (one deep ploughing with chisel plough and one cultivation followed by planking+hand drilling). Maximum grain yield was obtained in Zero tillage treatment in both cultivars as compared to all other three tillage treatments. Similarly, the spike length number of tillers, number of grains spike -1, 1000-grain weight, biological yield, and harvest index were the highest in Zero tillage. Zero tillage in wheat performed well in the entire crop data parameters and showed effectively high yield in wheat.

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Groundwater is a precious source of fresh water and a major component of the entire water supply. Both water quality and quantity could be satisfied by evaluating the groundwater potential sites (GWPS). This paper analyzes the ground-water potentials in a semi-arid region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It describes a standard methodology to identify and map GWPS using integrated Geographical Information System (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) methods. Eight parameters including elevation, slope, drainage density, lineaments density, soil, geology, land use/land cover and rainfall were integrated to explore areas with groundwater holding capability. GWPS were delineated through subjective weights assigned after coupling various thematic layers using Saaty’s Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The modelled GWPS were cross-checked with tube wells data. The result indicates that the central part of the study area has good potential for groundwater reserves/exploitation, where the factors i.e. moderate to high drainage density, sedimentary sequence of alluvial plain, low elevation etc. discern the central portion of the study area as a suitable site for groundwater. This study suggests that the applied method proves to be very significant and reliable tool for timely assessment of quality assured evaluation of groundwater resources. This study could be a systematic guide for future investigations for water related explorations, especially in semi-arid environments.