This study sought to learn how women participated in the recovery process after the Kashmir earthquake of October 2005 in Union Council Langarpura, Azad Kashmir state of Pakistan. Focus-group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and participant observations were conducted with a total of 48 participants. The results revealed that women played various important roles in the reproductive, productive, and community spheres, encompassing, inter alia, normal household responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, and caring for cattle, and non-traditional tasks such as rebuilding the home. In addition, they participated in income-generating activities such as carrying construction materials and water for daily wages, dairy farming, and working in fields and in the education and health sectors. Community endeavours, meanwhile, consisted of search and rescue, caring for the injured, collective cooking and food sharing, and supervising the reconstruction of public structures, including schools, roads, and water supply facilities, and establishing a sewing centre to provide vocational training to local women.

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The Land use Land cover (LULC) change due to rapidly growing population is a common feature of urban area. This research aims to detect the variations in LULC from 1991-2017 of Malakand Division in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The study relies on secondary dataset downloaded from United State Geological Survey (1991, 2001, 2011 & 2017 imageries) and UN OCHA website. Maximum Likelihood technique under supervised image classification was adopted to analyze the LULC changes in between 1991 and 2017. Total six land use classes were generated including agriculture built-up area, vegetation cover, water bodies, snow cover and barren land. The results from 1991 to 2017 show a substantial reduction in snow cover and barren land which is consequence of climate change. Whereas the areas underbuilt-up, vegetation cover, and water bodies were increased. The vegetation cover increased from 28.89% to 44.67% while barren land decreased from 45.68% to 40.29 of the total area. Furthermore, the built-up area increased from 1.02% to 6.2%, whereas water covers increased from 0.63% (1991) up to 0.86% (2017) of the total area. The study concludes that there is immense need of planning to preserve natural habitat for sustainable development in the area.

Jhelum Fault is the north–south-oriented major structural lineament originating from the Hazara-Kashmir Syntaxis and extending southwards towards the Mangla Lake. Geographic extent, nature and significance of Jhelum Fault are the subjects which have been approached by different researchers in the past. The previous research provides enough evidence for the presence of Jhelum Fault as well as they discourse its surface extent. None of the previous research addresses the subsurface model of this fault; consequently, its surface extent has been ambiguous and variably reported. The current research takes into account both the surface lineament as well as the subsurface behaviour of the deformed strata to draft the most reasonable depiction of this fault. Field data were coupled with satellite image of 1.5 m ground resolution to produce the geological map of the study area at 1:25,000 scale. The subsurface model was created along four traverse lines by considering the lateral extent of the structures and their shifting trends on the geological map. The stratigraphic package was taken from the nearby hydrocarbon exploratory well data (Missakeswal-01 well of OGDCL) as no rocks older than middle to late Miocene were exposed in the area. The consistent through-going map extents of many faults in the study area prove that faults are playing the major role in the tectonic evolution of the Jhelum Fault Zone. In the subsurface model, the same faults show very little stratigraphic throw, which signify the major stress component to be associated more with wrenching than pure compression. Therefore, most faults in the area are of transpressional nature having dominant lateral component with relatively smaller push towards west on steeply east dipping faults. The model also shows the positive flower structure with dominantly west verging fault system with few east verging back thrusts. The subsurface proposed model shows that the Jhelum Fault is extendible southwards to the Mangla Lake in the subsurface; however, it acts like a continuous shear zone on the surface where there all the shearing is accommodated by tight refolded fold axes. The east–west shortening does not exceed 14.5% which shows smaller compression in the study area. The 3D model further clarifies the model by showing the consistency of the fault system along strike.

In this study, the fracture and fracture pressure analysis of the carbonates of the Lockhart Formation from the Makhori-1 well in Kohat Basin is presented. The fracture density, connectivity, is explained while fractured porosity range is 0.77–2.18% and the permeability ranges are 1.32–7.97 Darcie’s. The statistical plots of Makhori 1 Well confirm the continuous conductive fractures having strikes in EW, NS, and NE-SW and NW-SE directions. The discontinuous conductive fractures dominantly strike in the NW–SE and WNW–ESE directions. The induced fractures trend in the NNE-SSW direction, whereas the breakout shows a trend in the ENE-WSW. The FMI based open fracture porosity and fracture aperture range from 0 to 0.1% and 0.001–0.04 mm. The 4585 psi formation fracture pressure is also calculated on the basis of unconfined compression strength test and mud losses. The pore pressure gradient for the Lockhart Formation is 0.55 psi/ft, and the fracture gradient is estimated to be between 0.9 and 0.94 psi/ft. Therefore, the safe drilling window is 0.55 psi to 0.910 psi/ft. The minimum fracture gradient of 0.910 psi/ft should be used for all calculations and estimations in drilling plans, mud designs, and hydraulic fracture plans in the study area.