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The Western Himalayan fir tree ring record of soil moisture in Pakistan since 1855

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Abstract

Data on historical soil moisture is crucial for assessing and responding to droughts that commonly occur in climate change-affected countries. The Himalayan temperate forests in Pakistan are particularly at risk of climate change. Developing nations lack the means to gather surface soil moisture (SSM) information. Tree rings are one way to bridge this gap. Here, we employed dendrochronological methods on climate-sensitive tree rings from Abies pindrow to reconstruct the SSM in the Western Himalayan mountain region of Pakistan from 1855 to 2020. December (r = 0.41), May (r = 0.40), and June (r = 0.65) SSMs were found to be the limiting factors for A. pindrow growth. However, only the June SSM showed reconstruction possibility (coefficient of efficiency = 0.201 and reduction of error = 0.325). Over the studied period, we found 6 years (wet year) when June SSM was above the threshold of 32.04 (mean + 2 δ) and 1 year (dry year) when June SSM was below the threshold of 21.28 (mean − 2 δ). It was revealed that 1921 and 1917 were the driest and wettest SSM of all time, with means of 19.34 and 36.49, respectively. Our study shows that winter soil moisture is critical for the growing season in the context of climate change. Climate change has broad impacts on tree growth in the Western Himalayas. This study will assist various stakeholders in understanding and managing local and regional climate change.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge technical assistance from the Pakistan Forest Institute and National Centre of Excellence Geology at University of Peshawar, Pakistan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pakistan Forest Institute (PFI), Peshawar, 25000, Pakistan

    Zahid Rauf, Nowsherwan Zarif, Seerat Fatima, Wahiba Iqbal & Tahir Iqbal

  2. National Centre of Excellence Geology (NCEG), University of Peshawar, Peshawar, 25000, Pakistan

    Zahid Rauf & Samina Siddiqui

  3. University of Lakki Marwat, Lakki Marwat, 28420, Pakistan

    Adam Khan

  4. Department of Forestry Economics & Management, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, People’s Republic of China

    Hira Amin

  5. Biological Science Research Center, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, People’s Republic of China

    Muhammad Arif

  6. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Swabi, Swabi, 23561, Pakistan

    Shehla Sattar

  7. Multan, Pakistan

    Muhammad Tahir Rauf

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  1. Zahid Rauf
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Appendix

Appendix

Table 3 Anomalies in soil moisture in the flood years and the following years
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Fig. 12
figure 12

Graphical representation of the anomalies in soil moisture during flood years (orange) and their respective subsequent years (blue). Flood occurrence years have a lower soil moisture value than their respective follow-up years

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Rauf, Z., Zarif, N., Khan, A. et al. The Western Himalayan fir tree ring record of soil moisture in Pakistan since 1855. Int J Biometeorol 67, 1477–1492 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-023-02517-0

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