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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Hydrosphere
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2024.1377367

Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change and Urbanization on Groundwater Resources in Lahore District, Pakistan using Geospatial Modelling

Provisionally accepted
Junaid Ali Junaid Ali 1Fakhrul Islam Fakhrul Islam 2*Tehmina Bibi Tehmina Bibi 3*Muhammad R. Muhghal Muhammad R. Muhghal 1Ijazul Islam Ijazul Islam 4Muhammad Sabir Muhammad Sabir 5Fuad Awwad Fuad Awwad 6Emad Ismail Emad Ismail 6
  • 1 Department of Meteorology, COMSATS University, Islamabad Campus, Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan
  • 2 Khushal Khan Khattak University, Karak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
  • 3 University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, Pakistan
  • 4 Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
  • 5 School of Metallurgy and Environment, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
  • 6 Department of Quantitative Analysis, College of Business Administration, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Urbanization poses a significant threat to environmental sustainability, particularly in Pakistan, where uncontrolled urban growth and water mismanagement have exacerbated water scarcity and climate variability. This study investigates the spatiotemporal impacts of urbanization and climate change on groundwater in Lahore District, Pakistan. various parameters were considered to execute the study including land use/land cover (LULC), rainfall, Land Surface Temperature (LST), ground wells and population data using advanced techniques such as Random Forest machine learning algorithm, Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation, and geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis. Our findings reveal that urbanization has severely impacted the water table in the north, northwest, and southwest areas. There is a significant negative negative correlation (-0.333) between the quantity of groundwater level (GWL) and the annual average LST whereas, the P-value (0.75) is also showing highly significant relation of GWL and LST in the study area. Whereas a positive association (0.666) exist (p-value 0.333 moderately significant) between yearly GWL and the mean precipitation. This research provides crucial insights for policymakers to understand the effects of urbanization and climate change on groundwater and develop strategies to mitigate adverse impacts in the study area.

    Keywords: Urbanization, Climate Change, Lahore, Pakistan, Remote sensing, GIS

    Received: 27 Jan 2024; Accepted: 25 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ali, Islam, Bibi, Muhghal, Islam, Sabir, Awwad and Ismail. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Fakhrul Islam, Khushal Khan Khattak University, Karak, 27200, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
    Tehmina Bibi, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, Pakistan

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