Spatial Analysis of Vegetation Cover in Urban Green Space under New Government Agenda of Clean and Green Pakistan to Tackle Climate Change

Abstract

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.

Preliminary Assessment of Air During COVID-19 Lockdown: An Unintended Benefit to Environment

“…Lahore, a well-known historical and cultural city of gardens (Ghaffar, 2015;Pervaiz et al, 2019), was chosen to carry out the present study. Lahore is located in the north-east of Punjab.…”

“…Environmentally, the city of gardens 'Lahore' has been converted into the city of concrete in the past three decades. Urban sprawl (Liaqat et al, 2017;Sabir and Anjum, 2017), economic development (Pervaiz et al, 2019), industrial expansion (Raja et al, 2010;Rehman et al, 2019) vehicular emissions (Ilyas, 2007;Shirwani et al, 2019;Ali et al, 2020) and biomass burnings (Sidra et al, 2015;Abas et al, 2019) are the variety of sources deteriorating the natural environment (Pervaiz et al, 2019) of the city. On the top, semi-arid climate of the city strongly supports to accumulate the air pollutants in the atmosphere (Shahid et al, 2013).…”

Is Lahore's urban system ready to sustain climate change? The case in Pakistan

“…Due to lack of integrated urban planning, vegetation is decreasing; prediction map of Land cover of Lahore for year 2035 forecasted further decrease in vegetation (Bhatti et al, 2015). A recent research recommends to plant pollution tolerant trees in the city (Pervaiz et al, 2019). Not only this, the city is also facing severe issue of mobility.…”

Análise Da Distribuição Espacial Da Vegetação E Áreas Verdes Na Cidade De Fortaleza – Ce

“…O crescimento urbano acelerado sem o devido cumprimento do Plano Diretor Municipal ocasiona impactos significativos nas áreas verdes (NOR et al, 2017;PERVAIZ et al, 2019). Durante o processo de expansão urbana das cidades brasileiras, são raros os casos em que se observa um cuidado com a preservação da vegetação e, portanto, das áreas verdes, a ponto de promover uma qualidade ambiental significativa e bem distribuída para todos os habitantes.…”

“…De fato, o crescimento urbano acarreta a redução da cobertura vegetal das cidades ao longo do tempo, o que pode ser verificado em estudos como, por exemplo,Nor et al (2017),Pervaiz et al (2019) e Borges e Batista (2020). Isso ocorre em um contexto de expansão do capitalismo global no pós-guerra (meados do século XX), com grande crescimento da industrialização, da economia e, consequentemente, da urbanização.…”