Conserving the threatened woody vegetation on dune slopes: Monitoring the decline and designing adaptive strategies for restoration

By

Khan, Amin
Abbas, Asad
Sharif, Faiza
Mansoor, Asma
Siddique, Zafar

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023

Original Publication

Nature conservation

Volume

53

Pages

165--182

Subjects

Anthropogenic factors , Conservation , desertification , restoration , threatened tropical thorn forest

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers 2012-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.53.106406

 

Abstract

The southern tip of the Thal desert in Pakistan harbors the remnants of the original tropical thorn forest, amounting to two percent, which covered the province of Punjab a hundred years ago. In the past three decades, there has been a progressive decline in woody species cover on dunes, which is directly related to the increase in population in the surrounding area. Stabilized and destabilized dunes were subjectively selected followed by quantification of cover and diversity of woody species on the top and lower slopes. Dunes closely resembling the overall cover were grouped to suggest corresponding restoration measures. The results suggest that trends of decrease in cover and diversity of woody species were evident in the upper slopes of some stabilized dunes having less than 50% cover. The destabilized dunes with less than 20% cover are highly vulnerable to erosion. A general trend observed among dunes was that with a decrease in the cover of upper slopes, there is a decrease in the cover on lower slopes. The number of destabilized dunes is increasing without effective restoration measures against the prevailing trends of disturbances. Ranking dunes on the basis of cover could help in proposing simple restoration measures as a first step towards developing an understanding of designing adaptive strategies to restore the woody cover.