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Exploring vegetation trends and restoration possibilities in Pakistan by using Hurst exponent

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Abstract

Vegetation cover change and its interaction with climate are significant to study as it has impact on ecosystem stability. We used the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and climatic factors (temperature and rainfall) for investigating the relationship between vegetation and climate. We also traced spatiotemporal changes in the vegetation in Pakistan from 2000 to 2020; we used the Hurst exponent to estimate future vegetation trends in Pakistan. Our results show an increase in vegetation throughout Pakistan, and the Punjab Province is showing the highest significant vegetation trend at 88.51%. Our findings reveal that the response of vegetation to climate change varies by region and is influenced by local climatic conditions. However, the relationship between rainfall and annual NDVI is stronger than the temperature in the study area—Pakistan. The Hurst exponent value is above 0.5 in all four provinces, that is, the indication of consistent vegetation trends in the future. The highest values are observed in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). In the Punjab Province, 88.41% of the area showed positive development, with forests in particular showing a significant positive effect on land use classes. On the other hand, the Sindh Province has the highest negative result at 2.87%, with urban areas showing the highest negative development. To sum up, the NDVI pattern and change attribute suggest vegetation restoration in Pakistan.

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The data that support this study will be shared on request to the corresponding author.

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Funding

This work was jointly supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41871253), the Shandong Key Research and Development Project (No. 2018GNC110025, No. ZR2020QE281), and the “Taishan Scholar” Project of Shandong Province (No. TSXZ201712).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100094, China

    Adeel Ahmad, Jiahua Zhang, Barjeece Bashir & Faisal Mumtaz

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Adeel Ahmad, Jiahua Zhang, Barjeece Bashir & Faisal Mumtaz

  3. Government College University Faisalabad , Faisalabad, Pakistan

    Kashif Mahmood

Authors
  1. Adeel Ahmad
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  2. Jiahua Zhang
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  5. Faisal Mumtaz
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Contributions

Adeel Ahmad: methodology, software, writing — original draft, visualization. Jiahua Zhang: conceptualization, funding acquisition, writing — review and editing, supervision. Barjeece Bashir: software, methodology, writing — review and editing, validation. Kashif Mahmood and Faisal Mumtaz: writing — review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jiahua Zhang.

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Ahmad, ., Zhang, J., Bashir, B. et al. Exploring vegetation trends and restoration possibilities in Pakistan by using Hurst exponent. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 91915–91928 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28822-0

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