What is environmental degradation?

• Degradation occurs when a part of the environment in

which we live is damaged or polluted in some way.
• Pesticides can contaminate water sources, the air we
breathe, and harm animals such as bees that are beneficial
to human beings.
• Contamination can make resources less usable or even
dangerous to use.
Climate Change
• Climate change is already impacting global crop yields, and the quality of crops and
these impacts will intensify in the future, as highlighted by the recently published
IPCC report on climate impacts.
• For instance, researchers estimated that under a 2°C scenario, wheat production
yields would be reduced by 12% in the southern regions of Europe.
• Grain maize yield potential would also be reduced, reaching crop losses of up to -
80% in some southern European countries (Portugal, Bulgaria, Greece and Spain).
• For instance, it has been estimated that the absence of pollination would lead to a
reduction of between -25% and -32% in the total production of the 85% of food
crops (mainly, fruits and vegetables) that partially depend on insect pollination in
the EU.
• Soil degradation, which affects 61% to 73% of agricultural soils in the EU, is
also having a negative impact on food production
• Pakistan is the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to climate
change (Ahmad et al., 2015).
• As Pakistan increases its population and urbanization, these climate
change impacts will have devastating effects (Anwar, Younis, and
Ullah, 2020).
• Pakistan is especially vulnerable to climate and has been ranked as
the 12th most detrimentally impacted country due to climate change
impacts on agriculture and livelihoods (Awan and Yaseen, 2017).
• Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from the extensive use of fossil fuels
is presumably the chief cause due to its effect on holding heat in the
upper atmosphere.
• Pakistan is an agriculture economy-based country,
providing employment to almost 25 million people.

• Moreover, Pakistan is the 6th highest populated country in

the world with an annual population increase of
approximately 2 percent (Awan and Yaseen, 2017).
 Role of Agriculture in Pakistan’s Economy
• Agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy and a major source of
food security.
• It accounts for 21% of Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 45% of
national employment.
• The agriculture sector has performed poorly, especially during the last
decade; mainly due to the slow production of all major crops caused by low
water availability.
• This low output has a profound impact on the livelihood of rural
communities.
• Poverty in Pakistan is widespread and growing, especially fast in rural
areas.
• Pakistan is the country where both Rabi and Kharif crops are
cultivated.
• One of the major rabi crops is wheat while Kharif crops includes
sugarcane, rice, maize, etc.
• Kharif crops are grown in summer commencing the period of
• sugarcane; February,
• cotton; March-May;
• rice; June–July,
• and maize; July–August.
• Major cropping system including rice-wheat, maize–wheat, cotton–
wheat, and sugarcane– wheat.
• In irrigated as well as spate farming systems, crops are exceedingly
sensitive to water quantity and temperature fluctuations.
• It is predicted that by 2040, as the temperature goes up, the
agricultural production will reduce by around 8%–10%
• As revealed in Fig. 1, less than 6% of the land area is under
forests and another 14% is the culturable waste area (land
suitable but not cultivated)
The Diverse Climate and Agroecological Zones—A
Blessing for Agriculture in Pakistan
• Pakistan has been blessed with the diverse agro-ecological zones,
comprising
• High Mountain Corridor (HMC),
• Wet Mountain Corridor (WMC),
• Barani Lands—Potowar Corridor (PC),
• Sandy Desert—Thal Corridor (TC),
• Northern Irrigated Corridor (NIC),
• Southern Irrigated Corridor (SIC),
• Sulaiman Belt Corridor (SBC),
• Dry Mountain Corridor (DMC),
(Fig. 2).
• The majority (60%) of total annual precipitation falls
during the summer monsoon.
• There is variation in climate from arid to semiarid.
• Three-fourths of the country receives rainfall of less than
250 millimeters (mm) yearly.
• There is an exception in the Southern slopes of the
Himalayas and the sub-mountain area in the Northern
portion of the state, where annual rainfall varies from 760
mm to 2000 mm.
• The Northern area comprises many of the world’s
• highest mountains (i.e., K-2 at 8611 m [m] high) and
• biggest glaciers, including Siachen (70 km [km] long), and Biafo
(63 km) that feed the Indus River and several of its branches
(Chaudhry, 2017).
 The Climate in Pakistan
• Cold winters in Pakistan are characterized by
extremely low temperatures like in the
Northern High Mountain areas temperatures
drop to as low as −50 °C and stay around 15 °C
in the warmest months of May to September
(McSweeney et al., 2008).

• The major (65%) of the country’s total area

falls in the transboundary Indus basin,
including the entire provinces of Punjab,
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and the Eastern
part of Balochistan (FAO, 2011).
• Pakistan has the world’s largest irrigation
system, known as the Indus Basin Irrigation
System, which is 95% of the country’s total
irrigation system (Chaudhry, 2017).
Climate Change Intensity
• According to National Geographic (2020), “climate change is a
long-term shift in global or regional climate patterns.
• Often climate change refers specifically to the rise in global
temperatures from the mid-twentieth century to the present.
• The root causes of climate change are natural events and human
activities.
• Overtime, human population has drastically increased which
requires more food, feed, and fibre.
• The climate change, triggered by mounting greenhouse gas
emissions, affects the atmosphere
Climate Change and Its Intensity in
Pakistan

• The annual average temperature in Pakistan has increased

by approximately 0.5 °C in the past 50 years.
• The number of heatwave days per year has grown by almost
fivefold in the previous 30 years (Chaudhry, 2017).
• Historically, annual precipitation
in Pakistan has shown high
inconsistency,
• As seen in Fig. 5, the sea level
along the Karachi coast has risen
approximately 10 cm (cm) in the
last century (Rabbani et al.,
2008).
• By the end of this century, the
annual mean temperature in
Pakistan is expected to rise by 3–
5 °C
• Sea level is expected to rise by a
further 60 cm by the end of the
century
• In Pakistan, the emissions are increasing at an annual rate
of 6% or 18.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2).
• Emissions were 147.8 million tonnes of CO2 in 2008.
• It will reach 400 million tonnes of CO2 (per year) by 2030
(Government of Pakistan, 2012).
• Pakistan’s contribution to total global greenhouse gas
emissions is less than 1% (among the lowest in the world),
• but it is among the countries most vulnerable to climate
change, and it has very limited technical and financial
capacity to adjust to its adversaries (Chaudhry et al., 2015).
Climate Change Impacts on
Pakistan’s Agricultural Sector
• Agriculture is the most climate-sensitive economic sector, and
climate change has both positive and negative effects on it (NCA,
2014).
• There is a significant change in crop productivity and yields due
to temperature or precipitation changes.
• Many experts have struggled to measure the effect of climate
change on crop yields using international climate models (Khan
& Tahir, 2018).
• “Global warming affects agriculture in a number of ways,
including through changes in average temperatures, rainfall, and
climate extremes (e.g., heat waves), changes in pests and
diseases, changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (Hoffmann,
2013: 3).
Crop Sector
• The consequence of climate change on crop yield varies by agro-climatic
zone due to differences in their climate environments.
• Temperature and rainfall are the main determinants affecting the yield of
major crops across different agro-climatic zones throughout Pakistan.
• Hussain and Bangah (2017) reported that wheat productivity has been
impacted more in the Northern Irrigated Plan zone by an average
temperature and in the Northern Dry Mountain region by rainfall changes
than in other zones.
• Rice yield has been more affected in dry mountain regions by average
temperature and in the Indus Delta by rainfall changes than in other zones.
• Sugarcane productivity has been affected more by average temperature and
rainfall changes in the Indus Delta as in other Zones.
• In the Northern dry mountains zone, maize productivity has been impacted
more than in other zones
• According to 2020 report of Global Climate Risk Index,
Pakistan is the fifth among the countries most highly
vulnerable to global warming (Garg, 2021).
• The agricultural sector is the one sector most affected by
climate change.
• Many studies suggested that temperature increases will
shift Pakistan's copping seasons and could potentially
permanently eliminate some crops (Gbetibouo and
Hassan, 2005).
• Climate change is threatening the crop production system of
our major crops (wheat, maize, cotton, rice, and sugarcane).
• It is predicted that there will be a 3°C temperature rise by
2040 and by the end of the century temperatures are
predicted to have risen 5-6°C that will cause loss up to 50%
of wheat productivity (Ghanem, 2010) in Asian countries.
 Livestock Sector
• Livestock is a vital sector in Pakistan’s economy and delivers about 11.2% of Pakistan’s GDP.
• The livestock sector is a source of stable livelihood for rural and small-agri-business holders.
• Moreover, it can play a major role in poverty alleviation in rural areas of Pakistan.
• It contributed about 60.5% of the output from the agricultural sector in 2018–19.
• The sector also contributes about 40% of the agricultural sector’s GHG emissions (Mir & Ijaz,
2015).
• Livestock emissions by a source show that feed production and processing add almost 45% of
the whole sector’s emissions (3.2 Gigatonnes of carbon dioxide).
• Enteric fermentation creates about 2.8 Gigatonnes (39%) and manure storage accounts for
0.71 Gigatonnes (10% of the total).
• The rest (6% or 0.42 Gigatonnes of carbon dioxide) is attributable to the processing and
transportation of animal products (Gerber et al., 2013).
• “The impact of climate change on livestock production
systems, especially in developing countries, is not known,
and although there may be some benefits arising from
climate change, however, most livestock producers will face
serious problems.
• direct impacts of climate change on livestock are associated
with loss in body weight, disease occurrence, reproduction
problems, and reduced milk production.
• The indirect impacts are reductions in their feed resources,
and water.
Forest Sector
• Forestry is an important sector for Pakistan; it provides
fuel, wood, paper, medicine, food, wildlife
• According to total forest cover assessed by the consultant in
2012 is only 5.4% of total land area.
• Climate change disturbs forests by altering the duration,
intensity, and timing of fires, drought, new species
introductions, insect and pathogen outbreaks, hurricanes,
windstorms, ice storms, and landslides (Virginia et al.,
2000).
• In Pakistan, the major negative influence of climate change
on forest and rangelands is longer drought durations.
• This has serious impacts on plants.
• In arid and semiarid regions, it results in desertification.
• As forage availability is badly affected, it also affects
animals’s health and body weight; and, ultimately, the
livelihood of poor people living in these areas (Lyons et al.,
2018).
• Dry weather also causes lightning strikes in forest and
triggers fires, which causes serious biodiversity losses
Agricultural Land Value
• There is a complex relationship between land use and climate.
• An altering climate can lead to changes in land use: for example,
growers might move from their regular crops to crops that will
have higher economic profit under fluctuating climatic
circumstances.
• Higher temperatures affect vegetation as well as water needed
for irrigation.
• The understanding of the interactions between climate and land-
use change is improving, but the continued scientific
investigation is needed.
• The present level of precipitation is inadequate for agricultural
production which results in downward pressure on land value.
Climate Related Disasters in
Pakistan
• Climate change is the biggest common threat faced by
Pakistan and India (Ashan, 2018).
• Over the past two decades, Pakistan has witnessed many
climate-related catastrophes.
• The intensity and frequency of extreme climate events have
increased (Fraaqi et al., 2005).
• Climate change has profound impacts on
• glacier melting,
• Flood,
• drought,
Book Chapter
Behnassi, Mohamed, Mirza Barjees Baig, Mahjoub El Haiba, and
Michael R. Reed, eds. Emerging challenges to food production
and security in Asia, Middle East, and Africa: Climate risks and
resource scarcity. Springer International Publishing, 2021.