This study has revealed that climate change will significantly affect adversely the distribution of some of the most important medicinal, ecological and economically important tree species of the Valley. This change will not only modify the landscape but the whole socio-ecological system of the area. Plants like Abies pindrow, Pinus wallichiana, Cedrus deodara and Pinus roxburghii will be directly affected by the a2a climate change scenario for the year 2080.
This study also predicts the trend in altitudinal movement of species as a consequence of climate change; as the northern parts of the Valley provide high altitudes of significantly colder environment than the southern parts. The ethno-cultural study revealed that the people of the area have a well established ethnomedicinal culture in place and some plants could be at high risk of extinction from the unsustainable practices of plant collection. The core plants of the ethno-culture were Berberis lyceum in five calculated indices: Salience Index (SI), Relative Importance Index (RII), Cultural Value Index (CVI), Cultural Importance Index (CII), and Ali’s Conservation Priority Index (CPI); Skimmia laureola ranked second in the SI, fifth in the RII, seventh in CVI, third in CII, but ninth in CPI, and Mentha longifolia ranked third in the SI, and RII.
Detailed biodiversity analysis has revealed that different parts of the Valley have different biodiversity index values. Some locations like location 1(Landakay, Kota, Aboha and Barikot), Location 4 (Aqba and Saidu Sharif) and Location 7(Fateh Pur), have high rankings in various biodiversity indices and further GIS analysis has identified present and future biodiversity hotspots. Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), extrapolated in the GIS, have revealed species preferences for certain altitudinal zones and the Ordination Analyses confirmed plant-plant and plant-location interaction responses in the area. It is concluded that a real threat to the biodiversity, forests and MAPs exists and only careful policy planning can rescue the area from permanent biodiversity loss in the Swat district.
The Swat district has very varied vegetation structure due to the great geophysical variation. There is a great potential for the Valley to act as an economic hub for Pakistan in the Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs) industry. However, the forest ecosystem services of the Valley are under continuous threat from the direct and indirect anthropogenic stresses.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 General Introduction
1.1. Project justification
1.2. Study area profile
1.2.1. History: The story of Swat state
1.2.2. Ethnology and Social structure of the area
1.2.3. Topographic description of the study area
1.2.4. Climatology and Phytogeography
1.3. Agro-ecological zonation of the Swat district
1.3.1. Sub-humid tropical zones
1.3.2. Sub-tropical zone
1.3.3. Humid temperate Zone
1.3.4. Cool temperate zone
1.3.5. Cold temperate zone
1.3.6. Subalpine zone
1.3.7. Alpine zone
1.3.8. Cold desert zone
1.4. Hydrology and irrigation of Swat Valley
1.5. Economy and Agriculture
1.6. Common Crops and orchards
1.7. Geology and mineral resources of Swat Valley
1.7.1. China clay or kaolin
1.7.2. Marble
1.7.3. Emerald mines
1.7.4. Dolomite/limestone
1.7.5. Granite
1.8. Wild flora and fauna of Swat
1.9. Medicinally and other economically important plants
1.10. Scope and future prospects of MAPs
1.11. Studies of MAPs in Swat
1.12. Project objectives:
1.13. Thesis overview and flow chart of the project
Chapter 2 GIS, Climate Change and Species Distribution
2.1. Introduction
2.2. What is GIS?
2.3. GIS and Remote Sensing
2.4. GIS applications
2.5. GIS use for habitat mapping of individual species
2.6. Mapping of different plant communities
2.7. Modelling of species distribution based on environmental and topographical variables
2.8. Predictive models using past records
2.9. GIS studies in Pakistan
2.10. Climate change and GIS in Pakistan
Chapter 3 Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (A Literature Review)
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Current global trends in the MAP trade
3.3. What Plants are in the Trade?
3.4. Plants and their active ingredients (leads)
3.5. Threat to MAPs
3.6. Conservation measures for MAPs
3.7. Phyto-chemical and ethnomedicinal research in Pakistan
3.8. Ethnomedicinal Study in the Swat Valley
3.9. Threats and future prospects of the Swat MAPs and NTFPs
Chapter 4 Climate Change and Species Modelling
4.1. Introduction
4.1.1
4.2. Material and Methods
4.2.1. Species presence data
4.2.2. Bioclimatic layers: extraction and formatting
4.2.3. Software requirements for modelling
4.2.4. Species data
4.3. Results
4.3.1. Abies Pindrow
4.3.2. Acacia modesta
4.3.3. Alnus nitida
4.3.4. Aesculus Indica
4.3.5. Cedrella serrata
4.3.6. Cedrus deodara
4.3.7. Celtis caucasica
4.3.8. Diospyrus lotus
4.3.9. Eucalyptus species
4.3.10. Ficus species
4.3.11. Juglans regia
4.3.12. Melia azedarach
4.3.13. Morus species
4.3.14. Olea ferruginea
4.3.15. Picea smithiana
4.3.16. Pinus roxburghii
4.3.17. Pinus wallichiana
4.3.18. Platanus orientalis
4.3.19. Quercus dilatata
4.3.20. Quercus incana
4.3.21. Quercus baloot
4.3.22. Salix species
4.3.23. Taxus baccata
4.4. Review of the results
4.5. Discussion and Conclusions
4.5.1. Species walking effect
4.5.2. Species association and bioclimatic variables
4.5.3. Scarcity of the NTFPs and MAPs
4.5.4. Socio-cultural effects of the floristic changes on the study area
4.5.5. Accuracy of the predictive modelling
Chapter 5 Ethnobotany of the Swat Valley
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Materials and Methods
5.3. Results and Discussions
5.3.1. Results for Questionnaire 1
5.3.2. Data analysis and results from Questionnaire 2
5.3.3. Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC)
5.3.4. Relative Importance Index (RII)
5.3.5. Salience Index (SI)
5.3.6. Informant Agreement Ratio (IAR)
5.3.7. Cultural Value Index (CVI)
5.3.8. Cultural Importance Index (CII)
5.3.9. Ali’s Conservation Priority Index (CPI)
5.4. Discussion and Conclusions
5.4.1. Objectives achieved
5.5. Recommendations
Chapter 6 Vegetation Analysis of the District Swat
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Materials and Method
6.2.1. Data collection
6.2.2. Analysis of the data
6.3. Results
6.3.1. Cluster analysis for locations
6.3.2. Cluster analysis of species interaction
6.3.3. Biodiversity indices
6.4. Locations ranking
6.5. Linear regression model
6.6. Discussion and Conclusions
Chapter 7 GIS Mapping of the Plant Communities
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Materials and Method
7.2.1. Digital elevation model (DEM) and species elevation maps
7.2.2. Ordination analysis
7.2.3. Hotspot analysis
7.2.4. Extinction risk estimate (Future directions)
7.2.5. Next step (Red listing species)
7.3. Results
7.3.1. Digital Elevation Maps
7.3.2. Ordination results
7.4. Conclusions and Discussion
Chapter 8 Discussion and Conclusions
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Loss of forest is the loss of MAPs and NTFPs
8.3. Climate change and the consequences for the Swat Valley
8.4. Species-walking effect
8.5. Species association and bioclimatic variables
8.6. Lack of the NTFPs and MAPs
8.7. Socio-cultural effects
8.8. Reliability of the predictive models
8.9. Conclusions regarding biodiversity analysis
8.10. The use of GIS and ordination analysis
8.11. Research objectives accomplished
8.11.1. Objective 1
8.11.2. Objective 2
8.11.3. Objective 3
8.11.4. Objective 4
8.12. Limitations and obstacles in the project
8.13. Recommendations
Research Objectives and Themes
This thesis aims to evaluate the conservation status of medicinal and aromatic plant species in the Swat Valley by integrating ethnobotanical field data with predictive species distribution modelling and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It addresses the urgent need to understand how climate change and anthropogenic pressures impact the distribution, availability, and cultural significance of these vital forest resources for local communities.
- Predictive modelling of tree species distribution in response to climate change scenarios.
- Documentation and ethnomedicinal analysis of plant use by local communities.
- Detailed biodiversity analysis and ranking of different locations within the Swat District.
- Development of conservation priority indices to support local and governmental policy planning.
- Assessment of the link between forest ecosystem degradation and the availability of medicinal and non-timber forest products.
Excerpt from the Book
1.1. Project justification
Biodiversity incorporates the range and abundance of plant and animal species, the interactions between them and the natural systems that support them (Armsworth et al., 2004). “Biodiversity” the term first used by the wildlife scientist and conservationist Dasmann in 1968 (Dasmann, 1968). Since then the term is defined, used and very much exploited in a variety of ways. There are estimated 5-50 million living organisms (Wilson, 1988) of which over 2 million are formally classified and named (May, 1988) contributing to the biodiversity of the earth’s complex ecosystem. Currently, over 1.7 million of the world's species of animals, plants and algae have been described (IUCN, 2010). Among these millions of species, different estimates have been given, according to the one by IUCN (2010), the total numbers of plants are 321,212 of which 281,821 are Angiosperms and 1,021 are Gymnosperms (IUCN, 2010).
For hundreds of millions of people, biodiversity is about eating, staying healthy, and finding shelter (Kaimowitz and Sheil, 2007). People use natural resources like forest for the extraction of more and more in order to fulfil their growing demands of a modern life style. Human beings from time immemorial are dependent on plants and plant resources. There are numerous examples of plants that are used by humans in day-to-day life. Plants are used for food, construction and shelter, clothing, furniture, fibres, resins and medicine. Plants have great industrial uses as well; they are used for making rubbers, dyes and colours, oils, etc. Not to mention the black market of the plant products like heroine, cannabis and cocaine, worth billions of dollars and which have an enormous socioeconomic and socio-cultural effects on a huge part of the human population.
Summary of Chapters
Chapter 1 General Introduction: Provides background on the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services, specifically focusing on the environmental and socio-economic context of the Swat Valley.
Chapter 2 GIS, Climate Change and Species Distribution: Reviews the application of GIS and remote sensing in ecological research, detailing how these technologies are used to model species distribution and predict the impacts of climate change.
Chapter 3 Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (A Literature Review): Discusses global and local trends in the MAP trade, emphasizing the importance of these plants for traditional medicine and the threats posed by their unsustainable exploitation.
Chapter 4 Climate Change and Species Modelling: Presents the methodology and results of predictive models for 23 tree species in the Swat Valley, assessing their vulnerability to future climatic shifts using Maxent software.
Chapter 5 Ethnobotany of the Swat Valley: Examines the cultural importance of medicinal plants through questionnaire surveys, calculating key indices like the Salience Index and Conservation Priority Index to identify species at risk.
Chapter 6 Vegetation Analysis of the District Swat: Provides a detailed biodiversity assessment across 23 different locations, using various statistical indices to evaluate vegetation structure and disturbance levels.
Chapter 7 GIS Mapping of the Plant Communities: Details the GIS-based mapping of species elevation and habitat hotspots, providing a visual assessment of vegetation communities and conservation risks.
Chapter 8 Discussion and Conclusions: Synthesizes the research findings, confirms the project objectives were met, and provides recommendations for sustainable forest and MAP management in the Swat region.
Keywords
Biodiversity, Swat Valley, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs), Climate Change, Species Distribution Modelling (SDM), Maxent, GIS, Ethnobotany, Conservation Priority Index (CPI), Forest Ecosystem Services, Anthropogenic Stress, Vegetation Analysis, Sustainable Livelihoods, Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs), Species-walking effect
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this research?
The research focuses on evaluating the conservation status of important medicinal and tree species within the Swat Valley in Pakistan, specifically addressing the impact of climate change and anthropogenic activities on their distribution and use.
What are the central thematic areas covered in the work?
The core themes include ethnobotanical documentation of medicinal plant usage, ecological modelling of species distribution, biodiversity index analysis, and the application of GIS for forest resource management.
What is the primary research goal or key question?
The research aims to determine the present distribution patterns of key tree species and predict their future range shifts due to climate change, while also documenting the cultural importance and traditional medicinal knowledge associated with these plants.
Which scientific methods are employed throughout the study?
The study uses Maxent modelling software for predictive species distribution, GIS for spatial mapping of vegetation, and statistical indices (such as the Saliency Index and Conservation Priority Index) to analyze ethnomedicinal survey data.
What topics are discussed in the main body of the text?
The chapters cover the general introduction to the study area, comprehensive literature reviews on MAPs, methodologies for climate change modeling, detailed biodiversity analysis per location, and management recommendations based on GIS data.
How can one define the most characteristic keywords for this work?
The most defining keywords reflect the intersection of traditional ecological knowledge and modern technological tools, such as Biodiversity, Swat Valley, Climate Change, Species Distribution Modelling, GIS, and Ethnobotany.
How does the author specifically approach the concept of plant conservation in Swat?
The author develops a novel "Conservation Priority Index" (CPI) to quantitatively assess which plant species are most at risk based on their versatility in culture, frequency of use, and part-use vulnerability.
What is the "species-walking effect" described in the study?
It refers to the observed trend of tree species shifting their habitats toward higher, colder altitudes in the northern parts of the valley as a consequence of rising temperatures due to global climate change.
How did political conflict in the region affect the research process?
The study faced significant obstacles due to security issues in the Swat Valley, which resulted in the loss of soil samples and restricted access to certain field areas, forcing the author to adapt the research scope.
- Quote paper
- Kishwar Ali (Author), 2011, The conservation issues of medicinal plants of the Swat Valley, with special reference to the tree flora, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/373729
