Effect of air pollution on daily morbidity in Karachi, Pakistan

Levels of daily particulates (PM2.5) were monitored at two sites in Karachi, Pakistan. One site (Korangi) is an industrial and residential neighborhood, while the other (Tibet Center) is a commercial and residential area near a major highway. Monitoring was done daily for a period of six weeks during spring, summer, fall and winter. Particulate levels were extraordinarily high, with the great majority of days falling into the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” or “very unhealthy” categories. The mean PM2.5 levels in Karachi exceeded the WHO’s 24 h air quality guideline almost every day and often by a factor of greater than 5-fold. Daily emergency room (ER) visits and hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases were obtained by review of medical records at three major tertiary and specialized hospitals. ER and hospitalizations were reported relative to days in which the concentration of PM2.5 was less than 50mg/m3 , and by 50 mg/m3 increments up to 300mg/m3 . There were statistically significant elevations in rates of hospital admissions at each of the PM2.5 categories at the Korangi site, and at concentrations .150mg/m3 at the Tibet Center site. ER visits were significantly elevated only at PM2.5 concentrations of between 151 and 200 mg/m3 at both sites. These results show that the extremely elevated concentrations of PM2.5 in Karachi, Pakistan are, as expected, associated with significantly elevated rates of hospital admission, and to a lesser extent, ER visits for cardiovascular disease

Neotectonics of Zindapir Anticline and Sulaiman Fold and Thrust Belt: Inferences from SRTM DEM

The current study deals with the significance of surface dynamics (SDs) and its relationship to tectonics and active erosion in Zindapir Anticline (ZPA) and neighboring Sulaiman Fold and Thrust Belt (SFTB) which is a direct result of transform plate movement between Indo-Pak continent and Eurasia. The Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission Digital Elevation Model SRTM DEM with 30 m resolution was employed to compute SDs; Isobase (IBL), drainage density (DD), relative relief (RR) and vertical dissection (VD) thematic maps for the study area. The results obtained show that the DD, RR, VD and IBL have higher values in north west, central segments and south west of the SFTB, whereas the Zindapir anticline represents dextral movement on its east side while sinistral sense of movement is observed on its western edge. High values of RR and VD correspond to highly incised topography with great surface roughness. The enhanced values of IBL and DD in the northwest, south west and central SFTB correspond to uplifted active topography segments and can trigger medium level earthquakes in this region. The conjugate movement of ZPA is an indication of its neotectonic nature and recent uplift is causing surface deformation which needs to be understood in the context of SFTB development as a result of India-Eurasia transform movemen

Collaborative Public Participatory Web Geographic Information System: A Groupware-Based Online Synchronous Collaboration to Support Municipal Planning

Co-PPGIS has a wide variety of applications like municipal planning, emergency response, public health and security, etc. The main focus of this paper is on the development and design of a web collaborative PPGIS (Co-PPGIS) infrastructure. As part of municipality’s planning and management services, Co-PPGIS is developed for real-time map sharing application system. Co-PPGIS is an effective and essential online meeting system for supporting group collaborations on geographic information such as maps and imageries and capturing and sharing of local/domain knowledge in real time. Co-PPGIS permits amalgamation of geospatial data and collaborator’s input in the form of geo-referenced notations. It incorporates coherent components such as map sharing, real-time chat, video conferencing, and geo-referenced textual and graphical notations. The study aims to focus on public participation and geo-collaboration facilitated with information sharing, interactive geo-conferencing, real-time map, and data sharing with tools to draw features or add annotation to the map while discussions, uploading documents, and live communication. Co-PPGIS provides an efficient and reliable platform that will significantly reduce the time to acquire, process, and analyze data. The significance of this study is to contribute to existing public participation practices, to municipal planning, to decision-making, or to geographic information science

Architectural Design and Prototyping of Co-PPGIS: A Groupware-Based Online Synchronous Collaborative PPGIS to Support Municipality Development and Planning Management Workflows

Co-PPGIS has a wide variety of applications like municipal planning, emergency response, public health and security, etc. The main focus of this chapter is on the development and design of a Web Collaborative PPGIS (Co-PPGIS) infrastructure. As part of municipality’s planning and management services, Co-PPGIS is developed for real-time map sharing application system. Co-PPGIS is an effective and essential online meeting system for supporting group collaborations on geographic information such as maps and imageries, and capturing and sharing of local/domain knowledge in real time. Co-PPGIS permits amalgamation of geospatial data and collaborator’s input in the form of geo-referenced notations. It incorporates coherent components as map sharing, real-time chat, video conferencing, geo-referenced textual and graphical notations. The study aims to focus on public participation and geo-collaboration facilitated with information sharing, interactive geo-conferencing, real-time map, and data sharing with tools to draw features or add annotation to the map while discussions, uploading documents, and live communication. Co-PPGIS provides an efficient and reliable platform that will significantly reduce the time to acquire, process, and analyze data. The significance of this study is to contribute to existing public participation practices, to municipal planning, to decision-making, or to geographic information science

MONITORING SPATIOTEMPORAL AND MICRO-LEVEL CLIMATIC VARIATIONS IN LAHORE AND SUBRUBS USING SATELLITE IMAGERY AND MULTI-SOURCE DATA

This research is aimed at monitoring of spatio-temporal and micro-level climatic variations for the Lahore region. The monitoring period spans six decades from year 1950 to 2010. For accomplishing the study objectives, multi-concept satellite imageries, meteorological data and anthropogenic parameters were analyzed in detail. A set of four imagery datasets, three from Landsat sensors and one from the ASTER, were digitally processed for major land cover features. Results of digital image-classification revealed prominent variations in various landcover features, specifically in terms of increased urbanization at the expense of oxygen-rich vegetal cover in the form of previously existing agriculture activity. The analysis of meteorological data for the said period indicates an increase of 2.0oC in the average minimum temperature and decrease of 0.6oC in the average maximum temperature of Lahore. The study proposes that rapidly increasing urbanization is causing a drastic increase in the emission of CO2 and smog. The smog can be observed as dark-gray inversion layer underpinning greenhouse effect and causing increase in the minimum temperature. All these factors lead to local climate change.  Such effects are contributing towards the local climate change along with the increased urbanization, traffic density, de-vegetation and construction/ earth-moving practices. Resultantly, the use of remotely-sensed imagery and multi-source data facilitates in estimating the spatiotemporal variations in the micro-level climate. &nbsp

Remote sensing study of cloud top absolute temperature with surface rainfall over Lahore (Pakistan) during monsoon

The study attempts to build a relationship between clouds top absolute temperature and rainfall during monsoon period over Lahore during 2019. For this purpose, meteorological data was taken from Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) of few parameters (temperature and rainfall) for Lahore during monsoon period, i.e., from July to September, 2019. The study revealed interesting results for the observed three months. In July and August, the rainfall and temperature trend showed an inverse relation, whereas a decreased trend was observed for both temperature and rainfall during September, 2019. In Pakistan, most of the rainfall is a result of the depressions created over Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. High temperatures cause lower pressure that becomes a reason for originating of low pressures/depressions resulting in monsoon rainfall. During September, the average temperature of the study area was lower comparatively that ultimately resulted in low rainfall, and only 54 mm of total rainfall was recorded over Lahore during September, 2019 which was quite less than in July and August. Satellite cloud top temperatures were also taken from EUMETSAT to establish a relation between cloud top absolute temperature and surface rainfall over Lahore

Design of Mega LEO Constellations for Continuous Coverage over Pakistan: Satellite Communication

Satellite communication was effectively done in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) in the past years. Recently the trend has shifted from GEO to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The objective of our study is to propose a satellite constellation for Pakistan in LEO that will provide continuous coverage over Pakistan. As LEO is much closer to the earth as compared to other orbits such as GEO and High Earth Orbit (HEO) etc. one can achieve benefits like low latency rate, less fuel consumption, and signal transmission loss. In ongoing research, an attempt has been made to design the satellite constellation in LEO using the software, System Tool Kit (STK) which has 2D and 3D environment modeling. In the designed constellation, the satellites pass over Pakistan and access the target area. To get uninterrupted continuous coverage, the number of satellites per plane and the number of orbits is increased. The orbital inclinations were also adjusted to achieve the objective. One of the important tasks for continuous coverage is the concept of satellite handshaking which means that soon a satellite gets away from the line of sight of the ground station antenna; another satellite comes within the line of sight of that antenna. LEO satellites are more favorable for communication purposes as they provide reliable communication as well as higher bandwidth

Design of Mega LEO Constellations for Continuous Coverage over Pakistan: Satellite Communication

Satellite communication was effectively done in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) in the past years. Recently the trend has shifted from GEO to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The objective of our study is to propose a satellite constellation for Pakistan in LEO that will provide continuous coverage over Pakistan. As LEO is much closer to the earth as compared to other orbits such as GEO and High Earth Orbit (HEO) etc. one can achieve benefits like low latency rate, less fuel consumption, and signal transmission loss. In ongoing research, an attempt has been made to design the satellite constellation in LEO using the software, System Tool Kit (STK) which has 2D and 3D environment modeling. In the designed constellation, the satellites pass over Pakistan and access the target area. To get uninterrupted continuous coverage, the number of satellites per plane and the number of orbits is increased. The orbital inclinations were also adjusted to achieve the objective. One of the important tasks for continuous coverage is the concept of satellite handshaking which means that soon a satellite gets away from the line of sight of the ground station antenna; another satellite comes within the line of sight of that antenna. LEO satellites are more favorable for communication purposes as they provide reliable communication as well as higher bandwidth

Variation in Meteorological Parameters Over Pakistan during April 2014

In this study we investigated the meteorological data comprising temperature, dew point, humidity and mean sea level for four major cities of Pakistan (Karachi, Multan, Lahore and Peshawar) on varying latitudes from 25°N to 34°N. These cities are selected to study the variation of coastal, southern, central and northern parts of Pakistan and different variations are observed in ranges i.e difference between lowest and highest values. A clear variation in ranges of meteorological parameters are investigated for these cities to validate this research. This variation in meteorological parameters is because of climate change due to flow of high moisture laden winds from Arabian sea towards Karachi coast in the south. The results obtained regarding dew point temperature, moisture content and atmospheric pressure in the southern city of Karachi represent low values instead of high. As a result, Karachi has different climatic patterns as a coastal city than other areas which are continental in climatic effects