scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Author

Azhar Abbas

Other affiliations: Leibniz Association
Bio: Azhar Abbas is an academic researcher from University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. The author has contributed to research in topics: Food security & Agriculture. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 40 publications receiving 528 citations. Previous affiliations of Azhar Abbas include Leibniz Association.

Papers published on a yearly basis

Papers
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a detailed analysis of land use maps of the Lower Chenab Canal irrigated region of Pakistan from 2005 to 2012 for LULC change detection is presented. But, the authors did not consider the effect of weather on the quality of the land cover.
Abstract: Detailed analysis of Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) using remote sensing data in complex irrigated basins provides complete profile for better water resource management and planning. Using remote sensing data, this study provides detailed land use maps of the Lower Chenab Canal irrigated region of Pakistan from 2005 to 2012 for LULC change detection. Major crop types are demarcated by identifying temporal profiles of NDVI using MODIS 250 m × 250 m spatial resolution data. Wheat and rice are found to be major crops in rabi and kharif seasons, respectively. Accuracy assessment of prepared maps is performed using three different techniques: error matrix approach, comparison with ancillary data and with previous study. Producer and user accuracies for each class are calculated along with kappa coefficients (K). The average overall accuracies for rabi and kharif are 82.83% and 78.21%, respectively. Producer and user accuracies for individual class range respectively between 72.5% to 77% and 70.1% to 84.3% for rabi and 76.6% to 90.2% and 72% to 84.7% for kharif. The K values range between 0.66 to 0.77 for rabi with average of 0.73, and from 0.69 to 0.74 with average of 0.71 for kharif. LULC change detection indicates that wheat and rice have less volatility of change in comparison with both rabi and kharif fodders. Transformation between cotton and rice is less common due to their completely different cropping conditions. Results of spatial and temporal LULC distributions and their seasonal variations provide useful insights for establishing realistic LULC scenarios for hydrological studies.

98 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article , the authors focused on investigating the role of women entrepreneurship and innovation technologies in contributing to household income in the challenging situation of the pandemic COVID-19 and emphasized identifying the determinants of female entrepreneurial contribution toward household income.
Abstract: Women entrepreneurs innovate, initiate, engage, and run business enterprises to contribute the domestic development. Women entrepreneurs think and start taking risks of operating enterprises and combine various factors involved in production to deal with the uncertain business environment. Entrepreneurship and technological innovation play a crucial role in developing the economy by creating job opportunities, improving skills, and executing new ideas. It has a significant impact on the income of the household. The study focused on investigating the role of women’s entrepreneurship and innovation technologies in contributing to household income in the challenging situation of the pandemic COVID-19. The paper emphasized identifying the determinants of female entrepreneurial contribution toward household income. This study collected data from selected rural and urban areas of district Faisalabad through a self-administered questionnaire. Investigators interviewed female entrepreneurs and chose them through the snowball sampling technique from a population of purposively selected female-run businesses. Interviews were conducted with women entrepreneurs to gather relevant information for the survey investigation at their workplaces and home. The effects of various factors, including age, education, family size, income from other sources, time allocated to entrepreneurial activity, firm size, and location (rural/urban) were estimated empirically using an ordered logit model. The study findings exhibited a positive and significant role of respondents’ education, family size, time allocated to entrepreneurial activities, and firm size. The survey outcomes also indicated that the contribution of entrepreneurial income to household income in the rural areas is significantly higher than that in urban areas. This study signifies that regulations against gender discrimination in public and private institutions are helpful. Besides, encouraging an environment for entrepreneurial culture among women in the country would increase family income. The study’s findings and policy implications directly link to Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 5 of Gender Equality (GE) and SDG 8 related to decent work and economic growth.

73 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the acceptability and potential of flood insurance as a viable mechanism to cope the financial risk associated with flood events in rural Pakistan was analyzed. And the factors influencing rural households' willingness to pay for flood insurance are also analyzed.
Abstract: The present study aims at unraveling the acceptability and potential of flood insurance as a viable mechanism to cope the financial risk associated with flood events in rural Pakistan. Moreover, the factors influencing rural households’ willingness to pay for flood insurance are also analyzed. Currently, the country faces an increasing rate of flooding due to climate change phenomenon resulting in abnormal monsoonal cycles and the melting of Himalayan glaciers in the region. The current flood management strategy of the country mainly involves ex-post relief and rehabilitation programs along with financial transfers to the flood victims from public funds without the involvement of private insurance companies. This puts enormous pressure on the public exchequer, leading to budgetary adjustments and tax escalation. Under such a scenario, flood insurance is thought to be a viable alternative to mitigate the financial risk associated with the catastrophic events like the flood that occurred in 2010. The study utilized primary level data from five districts in Pakistan to evaluate the willingness to pay for flood insurance as well as the factors affecting that willingness by using contingent valuation methodology. The results show that the acceptability of this intervention among flood victims depends on a multitude of factors such as the age of the household head, landownership, off-farm income sources and a preconception concerning the effectiveness of flood insurance. Moreover, rural families’ readiness to pay an insurance premium is not significantly influenced by perceived risk of flooding but by their financial position.

70 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Evidence is found for the negative effect of both season-long and terminal heat stress on rice and wheat yields in Pakistan, suggesting the importance of reviewing existing climate change adaptation policies that aim to increase cereal farmers’ resilience in Pakistan and more broadly in South Asia.
Abstract: Rice and wheat are the principal calorie sources for over a billion people in South Asia, although each crop is particularly sensitive to the climatic and agronomic management conditions under which they are grown. Season-long heat stress can reduce photosynthesis and accelerate senescence; if extreme heat stress is experienced during flowering, both rice and wheat may also experience decreased pollen viability and stigma deposition, leading to increased grain sterility. Where farmers are unable to implement within-season management adaptations, significant deviations from expected climatic conditions would affect crop growth, yield, and therefore have important implications for food security. The influence of climatic conditions on crop growth have been widely studied in growth chamber, greenhouse, and research station trials, although empirical evidence of the link between climatic variability and yield risk in farmers’ fields is comparatively scarce. Using data from 240 farm households, this paper responds to this gap and isolates the effects of agronomic management from climatic variability on rice and wheat yield risks in eight of Pakistan’s twelve agroecological zones. Using Just and Pope production functions, we tested for the effects of crop management practices and climatic conditions on yield and yield variability for each crop. Our results highlight important risks to farmers’ ability to obtain reliable yield levels for both crops. Despite variability in input use and crop management, we found evidence for the negative effect of both season-long and terminal heat stress, measured as the cumulative number of days during which crop growth occurred above critical thresholds, though wheat was considerably more sensitive than rice. Comparing variation in observed climatic parameters in the year of study to medium-term patterns, rice, and wheat yields were both negatively affected, indicative of production risk and of farmers’ limited capacity for within-season adaptation. Our findings suggest the importance of reviewing existing climate change adaptation policies that aim to increase cereal farmers’ resilience in Pakistan, and more broadly in South Asia. Potential agronomic and extension strategies are proposed for further investigation.

59 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Many studies have examined the impact of climatic variability on agricultural productivity, although an understanding of these effects on farmland values and their relationship to farmers' decision has not been explored.
Abstract: Many studies have examined the impact of climatic variability on agricultural productivity, although an understanding of these effects on farmland values and their relationship to farmers’ decision...

57 citations


Cited by
More filters
Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a document, redatto, voted and pubblicato by the Ipcc -Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.
Abstract: Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

4,187 citations

01 Jan 2016

1,907 citations

01 Dec 2013
TL;DR: This paper found that the most intensive glacier shrinkage is in the Himalayan region, whereas glacial retreat in the Pamir Plateau region is less apparent, due to changes in atmospheric circulations and precipitation patterns.
Abstract: Glacial melting in the Tibetan Plateau affects the water resources of millions of people. This study finds that—partly owing to changes in atmospheric circulations and precipitation patterns—the most intensive glacier shrinkage is in the Himalayan region, whereas glacial retreat in the Pamir Plateau region is less apparent.

1,599 citations

01 Jan 1987
TL;DR: Eisma et al. as mentioned in this paper showed that the CEC can vary over 2 orders of magnitude for various types of, minerals and can vary one order of magnitude within one soil type.
Abstract: Positive ions that are available in soils absorb on grain surfaces. The total sum of cations that can be absorbed bij a soil/sediment at a certain PH is defined by the cation-exchange capacity (CEC, in meq g-1: mol equivalents per gram). The uptake of cations is an important parameter in agriculture and the larger the CEC, the more cations can be absorbed to the soil. The CEC depends highly on the pH of soil and sediments, where the CEC decreases with decreasing PH (increasing acidity). The exchange of ions on sediments occurs commonly fast on geological time scales, but the kinetics of adsorption in natural environments is still poorly understood. The strength of the bonding between the cations and the sediments varies from weak Van der Waals bondings (physical adsorption) to strong chemical bonds. The CEC is widely used for agricultural assessment because it is a measure of general soil fertility as well as an indicator of structural stability because CED is capabel of enhancing development of shrinkage cracks. The list below shows the CEC for different types of minerals. The data indicate that the CEC can vary over 2 orders of magnitude for various types of , minerals and can vary one order of magnitude within one soil type. Cation exchange capacity for different types of sediment (Eisma, 1992; Locher and de Bakker, 1990):

1,169 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The red harvester ant is a child of the Enlightenment, paying homage to Bacon and Newton but most of all to Condorcet, who trod the same intellectual path (and who came to grief in the Revolution for reasons probably not unrelated to his philosophy).
Abstract: When the red harvester ant is threatened, nestmates rush to its assistance. The message is a chemical one. Distress is communicated and help summoned by the potential victim ejecting a tiny cocktail of alkanes and terpenoids. Professor E 0 Wilson, who made this discovery, is a distinguished zoologist whose writings have twice been awarded Pulitzer Prizes. His interests extend far beyond entomology, however. Why should human communication be qualitatively different from that of the ant, in being achieved by definable, physicochemical processes? And, if this is the case, surely the same must be true of other social phenomena? Having conceded so much, on what grounds can we exclude other products of human activity such as the social sciences, arts, humanities and ethics? In a mechanistic universe, the whole of human civilization is the ultimate product of the interaction between genes and environment, incredibly complex, as Wilson admits, but susceptible to fundamentally the same analytic techniques as communication in the harvester ant. Consilience (literally, a 'jumping together') is the notion that a common groundwork of explanation applies not only to the sciences but also to the arts, ethics and religion. In his book Consiliencel Wilson applies a combination of broad learning and a style of baroque exuberance to put the case for such a unity of knowledge. Wilson is thus, as he makes clear, a child of the Enlightenment, paying homage to Bacon and Newton but most of all to Condorcet, who trod the same intellectual path (and who came to grief in the Revolution for reasons probably not unrelated to his philosophy). He mourns the triumph at the end of the eighteenth century of revelatory religion fearful of the outcomes of science, and most of all of Romanticism although regrettably overlooking the

829 citations