Impacts, Drivers, and Future Adaptation Opportunities for a Warming Pakistan: Learnings from an Industrialized City

Abstract

Long-term assessments of temperature variability and its association with different influencing factors at sub-national scales are imperative to aid effective climate policy in urban regions. However, such assessments are rare to find in Pakistan, which is among the top 10 countries expected to be impacted from climate change, particularly global warming. Here, an empirical analysis of the mean monthly temperature in Faisalabad city during 1975–2014 is made. Further, the interlinkages between temperature, land use, and land cover change are explored to facilitate countermeasures in the context of climate change management. The Mann Kendall test and the Sen’s slope estimation coupled with the Theil-Sen slope trend estimator reveal significant rising temperature trends for March to May and November in Faisalabad city (>90% confidence). This condition results in a prolonged summer season, which could lead to urban heat island effect causing heatwaves. Further, significant possible interdecadal regime shifts are identified for each month using the Student’s two-tailed t-test-based algorithm, for the first time in the context of Pakistan. The vegetation loss to built-up area particularly industrial and residential growth – increase in impervious surface due to urbanization – has strong correlation with increasing temperature trends in Faisalabad. Therefore, adaptation measures boosting the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal-13 (climate actions focusing local planning) to tackle the possible impacts of these rising temperature trends are recommended. Additionally, from the perspective of increasing impervious surface, a “no-net-loss” policy for urban greenness – which is not yet introduced in the country – is highly recommended as it is proved to be an effective countermeasure for rising temperatures in the wake of urbanization and climate change.