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Impacts of Stressors on Riparian Health Indicators in the Upper and Lower Indus River Basins in Pakistan

Riparian zones along rivers and streams provide ecosystem services that may change over time as disturbances increase and deteriorate these buffer zones globally. The effect of stressors on ecosystem services along the rivers in underdeveloped countries is unclear, which impacts the environment dire...

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Autores principales: Hira, Amin, Arif, Muhammad, Zarif, Nowsherwan, Gul, Zarmina, Liu, Xiangyue, Cao, Yukun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9603529/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36293824
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013239
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author Hira, Amin
Arif, Muhammad
Zarif, Nowsherwan
Gul, Zarmina
Liu, Xiangyue
Cao, Yukun
author_facet Hira, Amin
Arif, Muhammad
Zarif, Nowsherwan
Gul, Zarmina
Liu, Xiangyue
Cao, Yukun
author_sort Hira, Amin
collection PubMed
description Riparian zones along rivers and streams provide ecosystem services that may change over time as disturbances increase and deteriorate these buffer zones globally. The effect of stressors on ecosystem services along the rivers in underdeveloped countries is unclear, which impacts the environment directly in the form of riparian health indicators (RHIs). This study fills this gap and measures the impact of stressors on RHIs (parameters of habitat, plant cover, regeneration, exotics, and erosion) in the Indus River basin (IRB) in Pakistan. Data on 11 stressors and 27 RHIs were collected using a field-based approach in 269 transects in the upper and lower Indus basins (UIB and LIB) in 2020 and analyzed using multivariate statistical methods. The Kruskal–Wallis tests (p < 0.05) indicated that RHIs varied significantly under the influence of stressors in the UIB and LIB. However, their highest mean values were found in the UIB. Principal component analysis revealed the key RHIs and stressors, which explained 62.50% and 77.10% of the variance, respectively. The Pearson correlation showed that stressors had greater impacts on RHIs in LIB (with r ranging from −0.42 to 0.56). Our results also showed that stressors affected RHI indices with r ranging from −0.39 to 0.50 (on habitat), −0.36 to 0.46 (on plant cover), −0.34 to 0.35 (on regeneration), −0.34 to 0.56 (on erosion), and −0.42 to 0.23 (on exotics). Furthermore, it was confirmed by the agglomerative hierarchical cluster that indices and sub-indices of RHIs and stressors differ across the UIB and LIB. These findings may serve as guidance for managers of large rivers and ecosystem service providers to minimize the environmental impact of stressors in terms of RHIs.
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spelling pubmed-96035292022-10-27 Impacts of Stressors on Riparian Health Indicators in the Upper and Lower Indus River Basins in Pakistan Hira, Amin Arif, Muhammad Zarif, Nowsherwan Gul, Zarmina Liu, Xiangyue Cao, Yukun Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Riparian zones along rivers and streams provide ecosystem services that may change over time as disturbances increase and deteriorate these buffer zones globally. The effect of stressors on ecosystem services along the rivers in underdeveloped countries is unclear, which impacts the environment directly in the form of riparian health indicators (RHIs). This study fills this gap and measures the impact of stressors on RHIs (parameters of habitat, plant cover, regeneration, exotics, and erosion) in the Indus River basin (IRB) in Pakistan. Data on 11 stressors and 27 RHIs were collected using a field-based approach in 269 transects in the upper and lower Indus basins (UIB and LIB) in 2020 and analyzed using multivariate statistical methods. The Kruskal–Wallis tests (p < 0.05) indicated that RHIs varied significantly under the influence of stressors in the UIB and LIB. However, their highest mean values were found in the UIB. Principal component analysis revealed the key RHIs and stressors, which explained 62.50% and 77.10% of the variance, respectively. The Pearson correlation showed that stressors had greater impacts on RHIs in LIB (with r ranging from −0.42 to 0.56). Our results also showed that stressors affected RHI indices with r ranging from −0.39 to 0.50 (on habitat), −0.36 to 0.46 (on plant cover), −0.34 to 0.35 (on regeneration), −0.34 to 0.56 (on erosion), and −0.42 to 0.23 (on exotics). Furthermore, it was confirmed by the agglomerative hierarchical cluster that indices and sub-indices of RHIs and stressors differ across the UIB and LIB. These findings may serve as guidance for managers of large rivers and ecosystem service providers to minimize the environmental impact of stressors in terms of RHIs. MDPI 2022-10-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9603529/ /pubmed/36293824 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013239 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hira, Amin
Arif, Muhammad
Zarif, Nowsherwan
Gul, Zarmina
Liu, Xiangyue
Cao, Yukun
Impacts of Stressors on Riparian Health Indicators in the Upper and Lower Indus River Basins in Pakistan
title Impacts of Stressors on Riparian Health Indicators in the Upper and Lower Indus River Basins in Pakistan
title_full Impacts of Stressors on Riparian Health Indicators in the Upper and Lower Indus River Basins in Pakistan
title_fullStr Impacts of Stressors on Riparian Health Indicators in the Upper and Lower Indus River Basins in Pakistan
title_full_unstemmed Impacts of Stressors on Riparian Health Indicators in the Upper and Lower Indus River Basins in Pakistan
title_short Impacts of Stressors on Riparian Health Indicators in the Upper and Lower Indus River Basins in Pakistan
title_sort impacts of stressors on riparian health indicators in the upper and lower indus river basins in pakistan
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9603529/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36293824
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013239
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