HYDROLOGICAL SIGNALS IN TREE-RING WIDTH CHRONOLOGIES OF PINE

TREE SPECIES IN NORTHERN PAKISTAN

Presented ByMuhammad WahabAssistant Professor, Department of Botany, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan.

4th Asia 2k workshop in Kyoto, Japan (19-20, March, 2015) 1

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1. Objectives2. Introduction to study area3. Materials and Methods4. Results5. Discussions and Conclusion

This Presentation includes:

Mega drought (late half of 18th century)

• To recognize suitable (sensitive) Conifer species for dendrohydrological potential

• To explore suitable locations, where precipitation and river flow mainly responsible for controlling tree’s growth,

• To develop tree-ring width chronologies and establish correlation between tree’s radial growth and recorded climate,

• To know the most appropriate months or season for reconstruction of past precipitation record and various rivers flow discharged in the study area.

Objectives:

64 68 72 76 78

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24

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Jammu & Kashmir(Disputed)

Afgh

anista

n

Iran

India

ChinaTajikistan

Pakistan

Arabian Sea

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Study area and its Geographical Location:

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Climate of Study area……

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Climate of Study area……

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Different rivers and their tributariessystem in the study area

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World most arid countries rainfall less than 240 mm/year (Economy heavily dependent of an annual influx of river water),

Severe decline in flow of Indus River poses a great threat (Many civilization have been destroyed or destabilized due to past drought or change of behavior of Indus),

World Bank 2005 Report 3408-PK (Water Economy : running dry)

IPCC prediction (Initial increase of flow followed by widespread and sever drought )

We need to understand past river flow changes,

Tree-ring Science can address, but it is still in infancy and that there is an inadequate knowledge

Why Tree-ring study?

Sampling Sites

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• Rapidly Developing Science

• In early stages in Pakistan

• Applied in trees age and growth rates studies.

• Developed a network of tree-ring width chronologies for the last 700 years

• Found its strong correlation with climate

• In Pakistan its wide scope in various fields include:• Climatology• Hydrology and

Hydroelectricity• Agriculture• Forestry• Tourism

STATUS AND SCOPE OF TREE-RING RESEARCH IN

PAKISTAN

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• Samples were obtained from each forest and species mostly in the forms of increment cores.

• Field and lab methods were followed the standard methods described by Stokes and Smiley (1968), Fritts (1976), Cook and Kairiukstis (1990) and Speer (2010).

• The visual cross dating was statistically confirmed using the COFECHA program (Holmes, 1983).

• Standardized tree-rings width chronologies were developed using ARSTAN program (Cook, 1985)

• Multiple correlation coefficients and response functions were established between tree-rings record versus recoded precipitation at various observatory and different rivers flow data.

Materials and Methods

Wood sampling from deodar

Results:

Sampled following pine tree species from the study area,

1. Abies pindrow2. Cedrus deodara3. Juniper excelsa4. Picea smithiana5. Pinus gerardiana6. Pinus roxburghii7. Pinus wallichiana8. Taxus fuana

Site Name Species MRW Span MS AC1 Rbar SNR EPS

Murree – Ayubia ABPI 1.59 ± 0.93 328 0.203 0.481 0.369 3.6 0.782

Astore – Rama ABPI 0.83 ± 0.31 501 0.141 0.387 0.494 17.6 0.946

Astore – Rama PIWA 0.93 ± 0.61 689 0.119 0.427 0.490 31.2 0.969

Islambakay CDDE 1.07 ± 0.58 496 0.182 0.290 0.519 41.1 0.976

Zairat CDDE 1.79 ± 0.73 534 0.137 0.548 0.378 6.3 0.863

Bumburet CDDE 0.88 ± 0.59 596 0.163 0.605 0.512 12.6 0.926

Chitral – Gol NP CDDE 1.44 ± 0.71 470 0.172 0.477 0.529 13.6 0.932

Bumburet PIGE 0.67 ± 0.29 604 0.168 0.400 0.541 11.0 0.917

Chitral – Gol NP PIGE 0.52 ± 0.24 747 0.162 0.316 0.523 11.9 0.922

Naltar PCSM 0.83 ± 0.40 619 0.147 0.300 0.571 29.9 0.968

1- Several Conifer species available 2- Several different climatic regimes recognized3- Several locations have more than one species. Present potential for multi climate comparison 14

Statistical Values of different Tree-rings width chronologies.

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Tree-ring Characteristics:

Pine tree species with

Dendrochronological potential

• Abies pindrow• Cedrus deodara• Pinus wallichiana• Pinus gerardiana• Picea smithiana

Our aim is to collect sample from the above long-lived species and provide strong data base for Tree-ring studies for the entire region

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PSKAR PSJUT PSHAR PSBAG PSNAL PSCHR PSCHP JECHP JENAL

PSJUT0.614

***

PSHAR0.595

***0.641

***

PSBAG0.478

***0.737

***0.56***

PSNAL0.402

***0.288

***0.232

**0.294

***  

PSCHR0.487

***0.602

***0.606

***0.678

***0.462

***

PSCHP0.344

***0.295

***0.203

**0.398

***0.247

***0.342

***

JECHP0.383

***0.293

***0.459

***0.189

* 0.009 0.155 0.067

JENAL0.206

** -0.010.385

*** -0.033 -0.107 -0.052 -0.1080.469

***

PGCHP0.383

***0.539

***0.289

***0.456

*** 0.0120.399

***0.248

**0.222

** -0.146

Correlation matrix vlues among various chronologies

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% Variance explained by Tree-rings data versus Water related instrumental data

S.No. Water Parameters % variance1. Precipitation (total monthly

mm)35-55

2. River flow (Water discharge in Cusec)

21-47

3. Humidity (mean monthly in Percent)

18-34

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Highest strength of signals were seen in Picea smithiana but Pius roxburghii and Taxus fuana have no signlas.

This study also supported the statement of Ahmed et al (2011) that higher correlations are observed between two different species in close proximity to each other than between two sites of the same species but further apart.

Growth in some forest increases at high altitude in May–September as water discharge increased may be due to high temperature that caused rapid glaciers melting (Cook et al 2013).

These current study shows positive response of precipitation in February-April also support previous results (Ahmed et al 2011,2012,2013)

Here we observed that Low and high humidity also affected the growth of these tree species.

Tree-rings chronologies of mentioned pine species could be used for the models generating of precipitation and riverflow .

Preliminary work has been done and reconstructions is in Progress.

Discussions and Conclusion:

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THANK YOU…..

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