sample paper manuscript preparation 36 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 journal of mountain area research a comparison of serial and parallel solutions of two dimensional heat conduction equation a. a. khan2, s. abbas1,*, and b. shakia3 1 institute of computational mathematics and scientific/engineering computing, academy of mathematics and systems science, chinese academy of sciences, beijing china. 2 diamond jubilee institute, hyderabad. hunza 3 elysian academy, gahkuch, ghizer abstract we study a comparison of serial and parallel solution of 2d-parabolic heat conduction equation using a crank-nicolson method with an alternating direction implicit (adi) scheme. the twodimensional heat equation is applied on a thin rectangular aluminum sheet. the forward difference formula is used for time and an averaged second order central difference formula for the derivatives in space to develop the crank-nicolson method. fortran serial codes and parallel algorithms using openmp are used. thomas tridigonal algorithm and parallel cyclic reduction methods are employed to solve the tridigonal matrix generated while solving heat equation. this paper emphasize on the run time of both algorithms and their difference. the results are compared and evaluated by creating gnu-plots (command-line driven graphing utility). keywords: heat conduction equation, adi scheme, crank-nicolson method, openmp. *corresponding author: (email: suhailkiu156@gmail.com) 1. introduction in this work, the problem we have considered is to find the temperature distribution on a two dimensional thin aluminum sheet using a parabolic heat conduction equation, which is homogeneous second order partial differential equation (pde). we have applied cranknicolson method along adi scheme. the discritization method we employed is finite difference method and grid size is considered uniform along both axis. all the solution procedure is done in fortran using serial and parallel programming(openmp). results are represented in the form of graphs using gnu-plots. main focus of this work is to analyze the differences in serial and parallel algorithms with respect to run time cost. 1.1 literature background since the concept of numerical computation is ancient, as it is evident from discovery of the tablet from babylonian times which describes a numerical method to find the value for square of 2. since then numerical computation is evolved and developed throughout centuries. several mathematicians invented various methods during their contemporary times, from vol. 5, 2020 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article abbas et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 36-42 37 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 archimedes "method of exhaustion" to issac newton's various methods and from swiss mathematician leonhard euler to carl friedrich gauss and so on. mathematics of diffusion inspired many related mathematical models. jean joseph fourier developed a partial differential equation describing transient process of heat diffusion through solids in his publication 'analytic theory of heat" 1822 [1]. finding analytical solutions to ode's and pde's is limited by linearity, order and type of boundary conditions, therefore we require numerical approximations. in 1947 john crank and phyllis nicolson published a paper on numerical solution to nonlinear differential equations, in which they proposed a method which is second order accurate and highly convergent [2]. when this scheme is applied on two dimensional parabolic equation it lacks quality of producing tridigonal system. therefore, to overcome this limitation d.w peaceman and h.h. rachford proposed alternating-direct implicit method which retains the advantages of crank nicolson scheme and generates tridiagonal system [3]. almost every numerical method based on finite difference method to produce system of linear equations to compute and some efficient methods generate tridigonal system of equations, which take relatively less time to compute. recent developments in parallel computing and enhancements in computer processors, numerical analysis improved so much. due to the usefulness of tridigonal schemes several such schemes have been developed and parallelism is introduced to take advantage of parallel computing [4]. a gaussian elimination based tridiagonal solver was proposed by llewellyn h. thomas in 1949[5], is an efficient method that only take 𝑂(𝑚) steps and with 𝑂(𝑚3) accuracy. in 1960 r.w. hockney developed a tridigonal solver which can be manipulated to introduce parallelism in it [6]. this method was modified and co-published with c.r. jesshope in 1981 [7]. since then cyclic reduction had gone through different modifications and various versions of it are available. 1.2 heat conduction equation parabolic pde's can represent heat conduction across a material. we can drive a balance heat for differential element of a rectangular aluminum sheet by taking in to account the concept of conservation of heat. the parabolic equation also examines the total heat stored in the element over a unit time period ∆t. following equation represents two dimensional time dependent heat conduction equation [5]. 𝜕𝑉 𝜕𝑡 = 𝛼⟮ 𝜕2𝑉 𝜕𝑥 2 + 𝜕2𝑉 𝜕𝑦2 ⟯ (1) where 𝑉 represents temperature, 𝛼 = 𝑘/𝐶𝜌 and 𝑘 is referred to as coefficient of thermal conductivity of the material considered. 𝜌 is density of the material and 𝐶 is heat capacity of the substance. 2. crank-nicolson method along with adi scheme the crank-nicolson method is an implicit numerical scheme, which has second order accuracy both is spatial dimension and time. it is usually used to approximate first order abbas et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 36-42 38 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 differential equations. the method generates tridigonal matrices in one dimension, which are fairly easy to compute and takes less storage and time. moreover, when cranknicolson method is applied on two or more dimensions it gives system of equations, to solve such matrices we require to allocate huge amount of space to store and it takes more time for computation. therefore, to overcome this difficulty we require adi scheme to employ on crank-nicolson method [8]. crank-nicolson method along with adi scheme is unconditionally convergent and second order accurate both in space and time. it generates tridigonal matrices, which can be solve in less time and using less storage. following equation are numerical approximations to heat equation using cranknicolson method along with adi scheme. −𝛽𝑉𝑖,𝑗−1 𝑘+1 + 2(1 + 𝛽)𝑉𝑖,𝑗 𝑘+1 − 𝛽𝑉𝑖,𝑗+1 𝑘+1 = −𝛽𝑉𝑖−1,𝑗 𝑘 + 2(1 − 𝛽)𝑉𝑖,𝑗 𝑘 − 𝛽𝑉𝑖+1,𝑗 𝑘 (2) −𝛽𝑉𝑖−1,𝑗 𝑘+1 + 2(1 + 𝛽)𝑉𝑖,𝑗 𝑘+1 − 𝛽𝑉𝑖+1,𝑗 𝑘+1 = −𝛽𝑉 𝑖,𝑗−1 𝑘+ 1 2 + 2(1 − 𝛽)𝑉 𝑖,𝑗 𝑘+ 1 2 − 𝛽𝑉 𝑖,𝑗+1 𝑘+ 1 2 (3) where 𝛽 = 𝛼 ∆𝑡 (∆𝑥)2 and 𝑘 represents iterations with respect to time. 3. tridiagonal solvers tridiagonal solvers have been extensively studied in last few decades. the motive for this curiosity is of two parts. first is academic because it is fairly straight forward and easy to understand yet challenging due to almost no intrinsic parallelism. other is practical application, tridigonal system are required to solve in various fields such as adi solver for partial differential equations, approximation of cubic splines and so on. there are several methods to solve such system, for example gaussian elimination, lu decomposition, thomas tridigonal algorithm, cyclic reduction and et cetera. 3.1 thomas algorithm thomas algorithm is particular case of gaussian elimination method. this is solely created to solve tridigonal matrices and solution can be acquired in 𝑂(𝑚) operations while 𝑂(𝑚3/3) operations are needed to obtain a solution using gaussian elimination method. the solution consists of two parts, first is forward elimination and the other is backward substitution. 3.2 cyclic reduction method the cyclic reduction was introduced by hockney in 1965 together with golub [6]. the method was preferred over gaussian elimination scheme because it dealt with periodic boundary conditions efficiently and additional matrices were not require to compute as in gaussian elimination. this method has inherent parallelism, which can be exploited using vector and parallel computers. abbas et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 36-42 39 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 cyclic reduction recursively computes new coefficients and right hand side values of the 𝐴𝑋 = 𝑑 . the different levels of recursion (represented by 'j') continue to produces smaller and smaller tridigonal systems until a single equation is lefts. openmp parallelism can be implemented on the cyclic reduction algorithm, which is thoroughly studied in [9]. 4. results we provide solutions to two dimensional heat conduction equation at different time steps, comparison between thomas algorithm and cyclic reduction run time, and efficiency of parallel cyclic reduction. 4.1 heat conduction through 2-d aluminum plate two dimensional grid of a (100 × 100 𝑐𝑚2) aluminum sheet with dirichlet boundary conditions. the initial condition we consider at time 𝑡 = 0 is 𝑉 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑡) = 0 and the boundary conditions are (temperature is in celsius): 𝑉 (𝑥, 0, 𝑡) = 0 𝑉 (𝑥, 𝑦𝑛, 𝑡) = 125 𝑉 (0, 𝑦, 𝑡) = 85 𝑉 (𝑥𝑛 , 𝑦, 𝑡) = 45 where as ∆𝑥 = ∆𝑦 = 10𝑐𝑚, ∆𝑡 = 10𝑠 . we have 3d gnu-plots for the temperature distribution at each node at 𝑡 = 10 , 𝑡 = 300 , 𝑡 = 600 and 𝑡 = 1000 . these temperature distributions at different times have been shown in figure 1. figure 1: temperature distribution in 2d aluminum plate at various values of 𝒕. 4.2 runtime comparison between serial thomas algorithm and serial cyclic reduction here we discuss the time taken by serial versions of the two methods for computation with respect to different number of equations. it is to be noted that the run-time is taken for both schemes is of whole crank nicolson computation algorithm, moreover the both tridiagonal solvers are called twice in each time iteration. once for y-sweep and second time for x-sweep, each sweep has the same number of equations or same matrix size. following time measurements are taken on a system having an intel core i3 processor with allocated 4gb random-access memory (ram) as shown in table 1. where 𝑛 is number of equation or size of the square matrix and the time is taken in abbas et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 36-42 40 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 seconds. solution is obtained by applying 100 iterations. table 1: execution time for crank nicolson method using two different tridigonal schemes. n thomas algorithm cyclic reduction 0 0 0 3 0.023 0.026 20 0.486 0.371 40 1.518 1.541 80 4.960 4.857 160 19.086 20.478 320 78.150 80.386 640 300.326 314.761 solution is obtained by applying 100 iterations. the data suggests that run-time for the computation is almost identical for the small number equations; however for large matrices thomas algorithm takes less time as compare to serial cyclic reduction. figure 2 illustrates the differences in run-time. figure 2: computational time comparison for crank nicolson method along with adi scheme 4.3 parallel and sequential execution time during computation of implicit finite difference models more than ninety percent of the execution time is taken by recursive tridigonal matrix generated during solution. in 1991 marilyn santiago and david r. kincaid in their publication [10] discussed the improvements in execution time for wave equation by using parallel cyclic reduction method. they used alliant computer for implementation of parallel cyclic reduction. following measurements are taken from [10], which shows difference in run-time of scalar method and parallel implementations of cyclic reduction. hockney and jesshope [9] proposed application of parallel version of cyclic reduction, moreover its implementation is widely known. the scalar method used by marilyn santiago and david r. kincaid is based on gaussian elimination method, which is basically thomas algorithm. the fortran code for scalar method is given in [5] and it is thoroughly studied. execution time in table 2 is taken for single iteration, time is in seconds and for parallel execution number of processors is 4. where n is number of equations or order of tridiagonal system. abbas et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 36-42 41 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 table 2: runtime comparison between scalar and parallel tridiagonal schemes. n thomas algorithm cyclic reduction 0 0 0 100 0.00127053 0.00166068 150 0.00189453 0.00203853 166 0.00208513 0.00208557 175 0.00219822 0.00210630 200 0.00250197 0.00217863 250 0.00312197 0.00232407 300 0.00374203 0.00277244 400 0.00496727 0.00308521 500 0.00621368 0.00338320 700 0.00867713 0.00433912 1000 0.01234523 0.00530377 2000 3000 0.02469464 0.03874320 0.00908263 0.01331816 thomas algorithm runs faster when 𝑛 ≤ 166 and cyclic reduction performs better for 𝑛 > 166 . figure 3 and figure 4 perfectly shows how significant difference in execution time among both the methods. for 100 number of equations speedup is 0.77 which is not significant however for 3000 order of matrix system the speedup is 2.91, which is considerable. figure 3: computational time comparison between scalar and parallel method figure 4: speed-up for the computation 4. conclusion we have solved 2d-parabolic heat conduction equation using a cranknicolson method with an alternating direction implicit (adi) scheme. thomas algorithm and cyclic reduction solver have been used to solve the tridiagonal systems. the serial and parallel solutions have been applied on a 2d aluminum plate. we sum up this work with following observations. 1) we have generated graphs for numerical approximations using gnu-plot for time iteration at 𝑡 = 10𝑠, 𝑡 = 300𝑠, 𝑡 = 600𝑠 and 𝑡 = 1000𝑠 . which is a visual representation of heat conduction through each grid point of (100 × 100𝑐𝑚2) 2d aluminum sheet at single time iteration with grid size of ∆𝑥 = ∆𝑦 = 10𝑐𝑚. abbas et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 36-42 42 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 2) we have developed two fortran codes for crank nicolson's method with different tridigonal solvers. we have compared runtime of the two codes for 100 time iterations and various number of equations. the comparison of sequential algorithms of both tridigonal solvers thomas algorithm and cyclic reduction. we observed that for small number of equations both performs almost same, however for 𝑛 < 160 numerical approximation code for crank nicolson's method with thomas algorithm runs faster as compare to code with sequential cyclic reduction. 3) for an order of matrix 𝑛 ≤ 166 serial method performs better, moreover for 𝑛 > 166 parallel implementation of cyclic reduction accomplishes the task in less time which is evident from the figure 3. speedup is the ratio between run-time of scalar and parallel methods. which provides a clear picture of execution time difference (see: figure 4). speedup for 𝑛 = 100 is 0.77 and for 𝑛 = 3000 speedup is 2.91 which is quite remarkable. references [1] t.n. narasimhan, fourier heat conduction: history, influence and connections. in: rev. geophys, pp. 151-172, (1999). [2] j. crank p. nicolson, a practical method for numerical evaluation of solutions of heat conduction type. in: cambridge philosophical society, pp. 50-64, (1947). [3] d. peaceman, m. rachford, the numerical solution of parabolic and elliptic differential equations, in: j. siam 3, pp. 28-41, (1955). [4] w. h. press, s. a. teukolsky, w. t. vetterling, b. p. flannery, numerical recipes in fortran 90: the art of parallel scientific computing. the pitt building, trumpington street, cambridge: cambridge university press, (1996). [5] h. a. luther, b. carnahan and j. o. wilkes, applied numerical methods, in: john wiley and sons, inc, pp. 440-446, (1969). [6] r.w. hockney. a fast direct solution of poisson's equation using fourier analysis, in: journal of association or computing machinery 12, pp. 95113, (1965). [7] r.w. hockney c.r. jesshope, parallel computers, in: adam hilger ltd (1981). [8] s. c. chapra and r. p. canale, numerical methods for engineers. 2 penn plaza, new york, ny 10121: mcgraw-hill education, pp. 853-885, (2015). [9] c.r jesshope, r .w hockney, parallel computers 2. 6000 broken sound parkway nw, suite 300 boca raton, fl 33487-2742: crc, press taylor francis group, pp. 1-6, (2019). [10] m. santiago, d. r. kincaid, using cyclic reduction on a parallel computer to improve the performance of an underwater sound implicit finite difference model, in: computers math. applic. vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 83-94, (1991). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 13 september 2020. revised/accepted: 6 november 2020. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 25 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 journal of mountain area research stabilized numerical methods for the two kinds of problems of incompressible fluid flows shahid hussain1, * and sajid hussain2 1. school of mathematical sciences, east china normal university china 2. school of mathematical sciences, xian jiaotong university xian china abstract a mixed finite element method (mfem) stabilized for the two kinds of problems related to the incompressible fluid flow is demonstrated. in the first kind, the newtonian fluid flow is illustrated with the mfem and considered discontinuous scheme. initially, the model equations are considered nonlinear and un-stabilize. the model equations are solved for linear terms with the special technique first and then the model equation with the extra added term is utilized later to stabilize the model equations. a steady-state viscoelastic oseen fluid flow model with oldroyd-b type formulations was demonstrated in the second kind of problem with supg method. the nonlinear problems are linearized through the oseen scheme. numerical results for both the model equations are given and compared. the supg method is found more suitable and active. keywords: finite element method, lowest equal order elements, dg method, supg technique. *corresponding author: (email: 52150601025@std.ecnu.edu.cn, phone: 0086-19946036403) 1. introduction we are interested to discuss only the nonsteady state fluid flow problems under the 2dimensional bounded and connected domain. in this case, for the incompressible time independent model equations are standard under applied forces and stresses as follows [1, 2] . total n pi      where  represents the wesenberg number which is well known in the given literature and the term ( . ) a g m  is defined as: 1 1 ( . ) ( . ) (( ) ( . ) ) 2 2 t a a a g m m m m               we can write the model equation for given forces f with the given parameter related to the materials as: ( . ) . total m m f   while the oldroyd model is defined by . total n pi      this denotes the total stress tensor where  with n and without n are the newtonian and viscoelastic parts respectively. the model equation for these important issues are given below in detail formulation. full length article vol. 6, 2021 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v6i0.90 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v6i0.85 shahid hussain et al., j. mt. area res., 06 (2021) 25-29 1.1 model problem the model equations, without time dependent term under the open domain ω is considered. the dirichlet boundary condition with homogeneous nature is regarded for the fluid velocity m in the nonnewtonian form; the model equations are given as: ρ + λ(m ·∇)ρ + λga(ρ,∇m) −β2d(m) (6) = 0 −2(−β + 1)∇·d(m) −∇·ρ (7) ∇p = f inω, ∇·m = 0 inω, (8) m = 0 onγ, (9) let us consider pressure p is zero at the boundary. the solution of the partial differential equations (7)-(9) require boundary conditions to be specified where appropriate [3]. the velocity components are identified along the boundaries where the assumptions of no-slip boundary conditions and nopenetration conditions are applied so that both velocity components vanish there. the inlet and outlet boundaries requirements are applied smartly for the vector fields [4]. so that for the calculation, no boundary conditions are used for the stresses here. for the literature review, the well-posedness of the model equations or about the study of existence and uniqueness of the equations (7)-(9), we would like to motivate the reader to see [5] for further guidance. in the analysis part, we are keen to note the linearized form of the given equations. in the numerical solution of the model equations section, we illustrate the conditions problem(o): solve the problem of (ρ,m,p) such that ρ + λ(m ·∇)ρ + λga(ρ,∇m) (10) −2βd(m) = 0 inω, ∇p− 2(1 −β)∇·d(m) −∇·ρ (11) = f inω, ∇·m = 0 inω, m = 0 onγ.(12) we understand with the following assumption for the additional term for velocity m(x) which can be searched in the [6] for any positive constant m > 0. this positive constant depends only on the smooth domain, and also it is independent of the other constants and grid size parameters, m ∈ h10 (ω), ∇·m = 0, || m ||∞ ≤ m, || ∇m ||∞≤ m < ∞. 1.2 variational formulation we are keen to introduce some basic required symbols. these are classical for m ∈ n the norm is related to the special type of hilbert space known as sobolve spaces wn,p(ω) by || · ||wn,q , with the given special case wm,2(ω), this can be written as [7,8]: x = h10 (ω) 2 = {v ∈ h1(ω)2,v = 0 hilbertspce}, q = l2(ω) = {q ∈ l2(ω), }, sρ = {ρ = (ρij); ρij = ρji : ρij ∈ l2(ω); i,j = 1, 2} ∩{ρ = (ρij); m ·∇ρ ∈ l2(ω)2×2,x}. in order to find the appropriate weak formulation of the given problem (o). to find unknowns as: (ρ,σ) + λ((m ·∇)ρ,σ) (13) +λ(ga(ρ,∇m),σ) −β((σ,m)) = 0 ∀σ ∈ sρ, (14) −(∇·v,p) + (1 −β)(t(m),t(v))+(ρ,d(v)) (15) = (v,f)∀v ∈ x, (∇·m,q) = 0 (16) . the solution generated is not a minimum in the given spaces, but is indeed a saddle point. the standard existence of this saddle point is satisfied by the chosen finite elements or lagrangian polynomials for the velocity and pressure in discrete form, if it can be proved that a compatibility condition for velocity v and pressure p is satisfied. this important condition (inf-sup or lbb) states that [7,9] sup v∈x (q,∇·v) || v ||1 ≥ c || q || ∀ q ∈ q, it requires the roundedness of the variational operator and restricts the choices for the approximating spaces. for further detail formulation, the multiplication of β with the equation (16) and add together with (14) deals with the bilinear form a and b: a((ρ,m,p), (σ,v,q)) = (ρ,σ) + λ(ga(ρ,∇m),σ) −β(d(m),σ) +β(ρ,d(v)) + 4α(1 −α)(d(m),d(v)) −α(∇·v,p) + β(q,∇·m), (17) λb(m,ρ,σ) = λ((m ·∇)ρ,σ). (18) by using the bilinear form a((·, ·, ·), (·, ·, ·)) and b(·, ·, ·), the equations (14) a((ρ,m,p), (σ,v,q)) + λb(m,ρ,σ) (19) = β(f,v). an equivalent formulation of (19) is given as ñ ((ρ,m,p), (σ,v,q)) = (20) 2β(f,v), ∀(σ,v,q) ∈ sρ ×x ×q, j. mt. area res., vol. 06 (2021) 26 shahid hussain et al., j. mt. area res., 06 (2021) 25-29 where ñ ((ρ,m,p), (v,σ, ,q)) = a((ρ,m,p), (σ,v,q)) + λb(m,ρ,σ). 2 discontinuous fe the dg method and supg method are mostly utilized in viscoelastic fluid flow problems to find the approximate solutions of discontinuous stress strain, in this work, the dg and supg methods are used and compared. let us consider the elements of a triangulation in domain ω is denoted as th i.e., ω̃ = {∪k : k ∈ th}. assume that rmin and rmax are the maximum and minimum diameter of the elements of th, respectively. this will allow us to simplify notation, and use mesh size h to represent the characteristic length of all the triangular elements of th [8]. then there exist positive constants, i.e., rminh ≤ hk ≤ rmaxρk, accordingly, we define discrete subspaces for the fe approximation of the equation (20) xh := {v ∈ x ∩c0(ω̃)2;∀k ∈ th}, qh := {q ∈ q∩c0(ω̃); q|k ∈ p1(k);}, shρ := {σ ∈ sρ; σ|k ∈ p1(k) 2×2;}, we define ∂k−(m) = {x ∈ ∂k; m(x) · n(x) < 0} where ∂k is the boundary of k ∈ th and n, and γh = {∪∂k : k ∈ th}\ γ, ρ±(m(x)) = lim ε→0 ρ(x±εm(x)). also, for any (ρ,σ) ∈ ∏ k∈th [h1(k)]4, we define (ρ,σ) = ∑ k2∈th (ρ,σ)k, 〈ρ±,σ±〉 = ∑ k∈th ∫ ∂k−(m) (ρ±(m),σ±(m))ds, 〈〈ρ±〉〉2h,m = 〈ρ ±,ρ±〉h,m, || ρ ||0,γh = ( ∑ k∈th | ρ |20,∂k) 1/2. the term ((m ·∇)ρ,σ) is solved with an operator bh on (xh,shρ ,s h ρ ), which is stated in [9] by bh(m,ρh,σh) = ((m ·∇)ρh,σh)hmρh,σh) (21) +(1/2)(∇· +〈ρh+ −ρh−,σh+〉h,m, = −((m ·∇)σh,ρh)h (22) −(1/2)(∇·mσh,ρh) + 〈ρh−,σh− −σh+〉h,m, = ((m ·∇)ρh,σh)h (23) +〈ρh+ −ρh−,σh+〉h,m, if ∇·m = 0. thus, bh(m,ρh,ρh) = (24) (1/2)〈〈ρh+ −ρh−〉〉2h,m ≥ 0. the main objective of this work is to find the solution of viscoelastic fluid flow problems with a mixed fe method by applying the fe triples as a polynomial space in discrete formulation due to the deficiency of the inf-sup condition the scheme is not stable more. thus, it is important to add a stabilization term to circumvent the inf-sup condition . this idea was proposed and well-defined for the stokes problem in the finite element method [10,11]. we are interested in working with the same idea to find the approximate solution to the viscoelastic fluid flow problems. we think that this idea is new and very useful for viscoelastic fluid flow problems. specifically, this technique is new for the stable solution of the viscoelastic fluid flow problems, and in the existing research, there is no such technique available. indeed this stabilization method is not expensive as the existing stabilization methods. for more work, to ensure the well-posedness of the confirming finite element methods, we introduce asymmetric, non-trivial, and penalty terms which add the penalizing parameter. for further investigations and brief study see the references we have cited [12,13] h(ph,qh) = ((i − π)ph, (i − π)qh), where π : l2(ω) → r0 is the standard piecewise constant space r0. the reversed operator π has the following feature || πp ||0 ≤ k || p ||0, (25) || p− πp || ≤ kh || p || . (26) in this work, k means as a positive constant, which is free of any mesh size value. j. mt. area res., vol. 06 (2021) 27 shahid hussain et al., j. mt. area res., 06 (2021) 25-29 2.1 analytical solution test the verifications with convergence rates are demonstrated by considering fluid flow across a square domain with a known solution. to verify the numerical values of the new formulated scheme, some one can considered the standard fe triples for the unknowns [14,15]. many researchers used this experimental pattern for the stokes and the navier-stokes equation. in the given example, the known function m(x) is chosen to be the true values of the velocity m [16,17]. however, the true values of the model equations for velocity m = (u1,u2), pressure p and polymeric stress ρ is given by   m = ( −10(x4 − 2x3 + x2)(2y3 − 3y2 + y), 10(2x3 − 3x2 + x)(y4 − 2y3 + y2), ) p = −10.0(2x− 1)(2y − 1), ρ = 2βd(m). the right-hand sides, initial and boundary conditions are derived by model problem(o) with the parameters value a = 0, λ = 5.0 and we illustrated the specific features of the lowest equal order mfe method for the oseen nonnewtonian. we included the h1-norm for fluid velocity, l2-norm error for fluid pressure, and l2-norm error for stress, respectively, with the variable spacing such as h = 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/64. in the computations of the errors for the standard mfe with p1b −p1 −p 1dc pairs. the table gives the dg method. let’s say : ||u−uh||0 = a, ||u−uh||1 = b, ||p−ph||0 = c and ||τ − τh||0 = d h a b c d 1/4 0.017 0.226 0.22 0.109 1/8 0.005 0.102 0.062 0.033 1/16 0.001 0.048 0.019 0.010 table given to demonstrate the supg method h a b c d 1/4 0.018 0.236 0.329 0.117 1/8 0.004 0.110 0.062 0.043 1/16 0.001 0.038 0.019 0.010 3 conclusions we have given the two methods for the stabilization techniques by using finite element lowest equal polynomial elements. since the model equations were non linear partial differential equations. we first made these model equations linear with the help of oseen technique and formulated approximate numerical solutions. two different numerical methods were demonstrated by considering the same finite elements for the same stabilized formulation. from the numerical studies, the results of the supg are more accurate than the dg method. for results and geometrical configuration, readers can see the references given at the end of this manuscript. conflicts of interest the authors declare no any conflict of interest. data availability not applicable. code availability available. authors contributions shahid hussain: conceptualization, methodology, analysis and writing original draft. sajid hussain: methodology editing and reviewing. references [1] j. baranger, s. wardi, numerical analysis of a fem for a transient viscoelastic flow, comput. methods appl. mech. engrg., 125, (1995) 171-185. [2] k. najib, d. sandri, on a decoupled algorithm for solving a finite element problem for the approximation of viscoelastic fluid flow, numer. math., 72, (1995) 223-238. [3] d. sandri, finite element approximation of viscoelastic fluid flow: existence of approximate solutions and error bounds. continuous approximation of the constraints, siam j. numer. anal., 31, (1994) 362-377. [4] e. fernández-cara, f. guillén, r. r. ortega, mathematical modeling and analysis of viscoelastic fluids of the oldroyd kind, in: handbook of numerical analysis, north-holland, amsterdam, (2002) 543-661. [5] c. guillopé, j. c. saut, existence results for the flow of viscoelastic fluids with a differential constitutive law, nonlinear anal., 15, (1990) 849869. j. mt. area res., vol. 06 (2021) 28 shahid hussain et al., j. mt. area res., 06 (2021) 25-29 [6] h. lee, a multigrid method for viscoelastic fluid flow, siam j. numer. anal., 42, (2004) 109129. [7] v. j. ervin, h. lee, defect correction method for viscoelastic fluid flows at high weissenberg number, numer. meth. pdes., 22, (2006) 145164. [8] h. b. zheng, j. p. yu, l. shan, unconditional error estimates for time dependent viscoelastic fluid flow, appl. numer. math., 119, (2017) 117. [9] y. n. he, c. xie, h. b. zheng, a posteriori error estimate for stabilized low-order mixed fem for the stokes equations, adv. appl. math. mech., (2010) 798-809. [10] p. b. bochev, c. r. dohrmann, m. gunzburger, stabilization of low order mixed finite elements for the stokes equations, siam j. number. anal., 44, (2006) 82-101. [11] y. li, j. he, a stabilized finite element method based on local polynomial pressure projection for the stationary navier-stokes equations, appl. numer. math., 58, (2008) 1503-1514. [12] h. jia, k. li, s. liu, characteristic stabilized finite element method for the transient navier-stokes equations., comput. methods appl. mech. engrg., 199, (2010) 2996-3004. [13] z. li, s. chen, s. qu, m. li, stabilization of low-order mixed finite elements for the plane elasticity equations, comput. math. appl., 73, (2017) 363-373. [14] r. a. adams, sobolev space. pure and applied mathematics, vol. 65. academic press, new york (1975). [15] j. m. marchal, m. j. crochet, a new mixed finite element for calculating viscoelastic flow, j. non-newtonian fluid mech., 26, (1987) 77-114. [16] v. j. ervin, h. lee, l. n. ntasin, analysis of the oseen-viscoelastic fluid flow problem, j. non-newtonin fluid mech., 127, (2005) 157168. [17] c. guillopé, j. c. saut, existence results for the flow of viscoelastic fluids with a differential constitutive law, nonlinear anal. tma., 15, (1990) 849-869. j. mt. area res., vol. 06 (2021) 29 hp text box received: 28 may 2021. revised/accepted: 26 august 2021. hp text box this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. hp stamp sample paper manuscript preparation 12 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 journal of mountain area research 3d modeling and production scheduling of khewra salt mines azghar iqbal* pakistan mineral development corporation abstract in this study, autocad based 3d modelling of production scheduling, visualization of mining, and geological features in khewra salt mines are showing. unmanned aerial vehicle (uav), photogrammetry and gis softwares are used to generate 3d surface modelling of khewra salt mining area. khewra salt mines is the oldest and largest mine of sub-continent in the salt range with huge salt reserves from industrial quality to piece grade. being a state-of-the-art mine consisting of 17 levels, 70 chambers with hundreds of tunnels, a layman pattern of development and manual mining procedure is followed with handy-made planes and maps. hundreds of levels and crosssection maps were unified to a single 3d model, presenting all mining features like tunnels, chambers, levels, inclines, and geological deposition of different salt seams with their thickness and qualities, overburden, and surface feature. the quantity of salt excavated since the beginning of mining is calculated for corroboration, and the remaining amounts of different qualities of salt are determined from the model. 3d topographic modelling can also be used for area, volume calculations, and planning of remedial actions for rainwater inundations inside the mine. keywords: 3d modelling, uav, photogrammetry, gis, salt range *corresponding author: (email: azghar728@hotmail.com), phone: (+92-333-9714728) 1. introduction khewra salt mines, operating by pakistan mineral development corporation, is the oldest in the subcontinent in the mineral-rich mountain range called the salt range [1], as shown in figure 1. the lithology of this region belongs to the pre-cambrian age, comprising of sahwal marl member, bhandar kas gypsum member, and billianwala salt member [2]. the sahwal marl member's lithology consists of bright and red marl beds with asymmetrical gypsum, 3-100 meter thick beds of dolomite, dull red marl beds with some salt layers, and gypsum 10 meters thick above the top. the bhandar kas gypsum member is made up of massive gypsum with few clay and dolomite beds (approximately 80 m). similarly, red marl with a ferruginous content and thick layers of salt (approx. 650 m) comprises the billianwala salt member [3]. the leased area covers 2789.29 acres of land [4]. salt occurs in the form of an irregular dome-like structure. there are seven thick beautiful alternate bands of red and white color salt seams with a cumulative thickness of about 150 full length article vol. 6, 2021 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 13 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 meters . at places, rock salt is 99% pure. salt is transparent, white, pink, reddish to beef-color red [5]. in specific horizons, it is crystalline. estimated reserves of salt range from 82 600 million tons [6]. khewra salt mines produce approximately 400,000 tonnes of salt per annum [7] through the room and pillar mining method, mining only half of the salt and leaving the remaining half to support tunnel and chamber roofs. the main tunnel extends about 730 meters (2550 ft.) into the mountains from the tunnel mouth [8]. the accumulative length of tunnels is about 40 km covering 144 sq. km, with a total depth of 748 feet [4]. based on the available survey data and geological knowledge, resource estimates have been made. iftikhar a. malik first measured the salt resources of the entire leased khewra main mine area, as given in table 1 [9]. asrarullah in his report measured salt reserves by considering each salt seam separately in each chamber [10]. table 2 describes his reserves calculations up to chamber-62 and the pillars in between. seven different qualities and color salt seams exist at different levels in khewra main mine, namely south pharwala, middle pharwala (upper pharwala), north pharwala, thin seams, sujjowal, buggy, and nllt as sown in figure 2. the salt seams strike n-e and the dip varies from 10 ° to more than 70 ° and usually dips northward [9]. mining begins with drilling inclined holes 3 or 4 ft (1.21 m) in length and 5058 mm in diameter holes with auger drills. the gun powder charged with cape and fuse is used in the blasting method for initiation purposes [11]. main mine is made up of 17 stages. five levels are higher than ground level, and 11 levels are lower than ground level. the height of each level is 7.62 m, according to available data from 17 levels of the main mine. rock salt is being extracted through room and pillar mining technique in which 35 to 50 feet width of each room and 35 to 50 feet width of each pillar is developed during exploitation of rock salt and upto 70 chambers are developed in different levels. out of 90 functioning chambers, 55 are industrial grade salt chambers and 35 are food grade salt chambers. out of 10 inclines namely inclines number 02, 22, 23, 26, 28, 38, 40, 43, 47, 52 only 04 inclines are safe and operational [4]. the 3d digitalization of resources using different software makes it easy of understanding the underground geological and mining features [12]. the surface modeling generation through different techniques like uav and gis [13] are being used for optimized production scheduling [14]. similarly, rehabilitation and reopening of abandoned underground mines can be done using a 3d digital mine inventory model [15]. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 14 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 1: geological and location map shows salt range from river jhelum to river indus (modifiied after ghazi and mountney, 2009). table 1: rock salt resources of main mine in a million tons (salt resources of khewra salt mines by iftikhar a. malik, pmdc, 2001). mine measured indicated inferred total main mine 264.428 128.137 3144.920 3537.485 table 2: rock salt reserves of khewra main mine leased area (report on the khewra mines by mr. asrarullah, 1962). lease no area (acres) available as pillars (mmt) probable reserves (mmt) proven reserves (mmt) m.ljlm-r-salt (1), khewra main mine 2789.2 49.361 3.464 37.324 azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 15 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 2: columnar section of salt seams in khewra main mine (prepared by site management in 1971). 2. objectives the objective of the research study is to digitalize the resources through autocad software, develop geological model from existing maps and generate 3d object file of khewra salt mining area using unmanned aerial vehicle (uav), photogrammetry and gis software for production scheduling as per market demands. 3. collection of data maps of levels, the cross-section of chambers, and inclines were collected from the site to gather required features like the height of chambers and working, tunnels, seams, deposition and dipping, level, and surfaces drawn on it are shown in figure 3. tunnels of khewra salt mines are driven in the westeast direction while chambers are driven in the north-south direction. all these features are shown by their center line in the chambers of the respective cross-section. the extension of chambers in the north-south direction has been divided into blocks of 100 meter having 0 meters northing in the extreme south of the mines that increases gradually towards the north. 4. digitization of 2d maps and conversion into 3d cross-sections (e-a and 1-65) scanned and then imported in autocad for digitization. datum lines at an rl of 274.39m, northing blocks of 100m, tunnels in all pillars, excavations in the chambers, seams layers, inclines, and surface line were digitized as shown in figure 4. all 2d maps were converted into 3d in se coordinates by the following steps and shown in figure 5. i. datum lines, level lines, and northing blocks lines remained unchanged in 3d. ii. in the first 42 chambers (e-a and 1-37), the excavations and openings were extruded/lofted on both sides of the centerline to 5.334m to a total width of 10.668m. iii. seams lines of the first 42 chambers (e-a and 137) were also extruded/lofted to 5.334m on both sides of the centerline. iv. inclines tunnels were lofted obliquely to a horizontal distance of 5.334m on both sides of the centerline of the incline in every chamber. v. surface lines of the first 42 chambers were also lofted in the same way. vi. in the remaining 28 (38-65) chambers of 15.24m, the centerline of chambers, tunnels, seams, and surfaces were extruded to 7.62m on both sides of the centerline to a total of 15.24m. vii. inclines tunnels in the remaining chambers were also lofted obliquely to a horizontal distance of 7.62m on both sides of the centerline in each chamber. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 16 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 3: previous hand compiled cross-section of chamber 22. figure 4: digitized cross-section of chamber # 22. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 17 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 5: 3d cross section of chamber # 2. 5. generation of 3d model all cross-sections of chambers converted into 3d were placed one by one on the baseline started from chamber e up to last chamber 65. in the lost step, in 3d converted cross-section all features were extended to the next adjacent crosssection feature. a substantial giant 3d model was resulted in having all underground and surface features at one point, as shown in figures 6, 7, 8 & 9. a different color differentiated these features for easy understanding. figure 6: 3d model of first seven chambers showing all feature of salt chambers. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 18 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 7: 3d model showing salt seams and surface of first seven chambers. figure 8: top view of tunnels network in khewra salt mines. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 19 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 9: oblique view of inclines in khewra salt mines. 6. corroboration of the model 3d model generated was corroborated with the production history of the mine. the record shows a total of 21.299 million mts production. the tonnage calculation from the 3d model volume is 18.646 million mts. the remaining difference is of the salt excavated from other adjacent leases like khura, sohal, new mines, and makrach, etc. 7. 3d tophographic modelling 3d surface model and topographic modelling of khewra salt mines are generated using unmanned aerial vehicle (drone), photogrammetry, and gis software as shown in figures 10 and 11. the odm quality report dataset summary provides information of the area covered, processing time, reconstructed images, detected and reconstructed features, average ground sampling distance (gsd), reconstructed points, reconstructed components, and geographic reference as given in figure 12. orthophoto and digital surface model generated is shown in figure 13, feature and reconstructions details are shown in figure 14, survey data and geographic reference details are shown in figure 15 while track details are shown in figure 16. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 20 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 10: 3d surface model of khewra salt mines generated using unmanned aerial vehicle (drone), photogrammetry and gis softwares. figure 11: 3d topographic model of khewra salt mines generated using unmanned aerial vehicle (drone), photogrammetry and gis softwares. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 21 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 12: odm quality report dataset summary processed with odm version 2.4.1. figure 13: orthophoto and digital surface model generated. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 22 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 14: feature and reconstruction details of the digital surface model generated. figure 15: survey data and geographic reference details of the digital surface model generated. azghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 23 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 16: track details of unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) for generating 3d surface model. conclusion i. 3d modeling of underground room and pillar mining operations and salt seems in cad provides a computerized mineral inventory of raw material. ii. mineral inventory of salt of various grades are maintained and updated as a cad and gis file. iii. production schedules for various working faces are prepared for planning and monitoring of weekly, monthly and annual progress. iv. 3d surface/topographic modelling can be used for maintenance and monitoring of changes in surface topography. v. 3d topographic modelling can also be used for area, volume calculations, and planning of remedial actions for rainwater inundations inside the mine. vi. different salt seams thickness, quality, and dipping are visualized for development and future mining. references [1] e. r. gee, "the age of the saline series of the punjab and of kohat.," in proceedings of national academy of science, 1965. [2] s. j. sameeni, "the salt range: pakistan's unique field museum of geology and paleontology," in notebooks on geology, 2009, pp. 65-68. [3] asrarullah, "p. geology of the khewra dome," in 18th and 19th combined session of all pakistan science conference part iii, hyderabad, 1967. [4] c. s. p. iftikhar ahmad, interviewee, leased area of khewra salt mines. [interview]. 2018. [5] pmdc, "pakistan mineral development corporation ministry of energy (petroleum division), government of pakistan," 18 12 2019. [online]. available: http://www.pmdc.gov.pk/?p=khewrasaltmi nes. [6] w. dickinson, "salt products in north america and outlook for the future," in sixth international symposium on salt, vol-2, 1983. [7] d. ateeq-ur-rehman, " a report on salt production of pakistan," 2015. [online]. [8] p. arfan shah (dgm salt, interviewee, production of khewra salt mines. [interview]. 2018. [9] i. a. malik, "salt resources of khewra salt mines," 2001. [10] asrarullah, "khewra salt mine," 1962. [11] y. majeed, m. z. emad, g. rehman & m. arshad, "block extraction of himalayan rock salt by applying conventional dimension stone quarrying techniques," journal of mining science , p. 15, 2019. [12] m. n. &. z. s. kirgizbaeva, "use of geographic information systems at creation threedimensional models of mine object," 2015. [13] g. caumon, p. collon-drouaillet, c. l. c. de veslud, sophie viseur, j. sausse, "surfaceazghar iqbal, j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 12-24 24 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 based 3d modeling of geological structures," 2009. [14] jitesh gangawat, "optimization of production planning in underground mining," 2014. [15] t. makkonen, r. heikkilä, j. jylänki, s. fraser, "reopening an abandoned underground mine 3d digital mine inventory model from historical data and rapid laser scanning,," 2019. [16] p. m. d. corporation, "pakistan mineral development corporation ministry of energy (petroleum division), government of pakistan," 18 12 2019. [online]. available: http://www.pmdc.gov.pk/?p=khewrasaltmi nes. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 05 april 2021. revised/accepted: 18 july 2021. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 56 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 journal of mountain area research experimental investigation of durability and strength of sandstone and shale of united mineral coal company sor-range, balochistan tufail ahmed1, syed hafeez ur rehman1, fahim ahmed ibupoto1,*, asif abbas2, sami ullah1, abbas hussain1, shehzad usman1 1. department of mining engineering, buitems, quetta, pakistan. 2. department of geological engineering, buitems, quetta, pakistan. abstract mining operations deal mainly with hard and soft rocks with different mechanical properties and varying strengths. the aim of the slake durability test is to present an index related to degradation resistance of rock when exposed to standard cycles of wetting and drying. research in geology and rock mechanics is done to explain the influence of the rock index properties in determining the strength, durability and pulse velocity of the rock. this paper enlightens the prediction of the rock’s behavior and nature of the degradation of rocks the index values obtained for sandstone are varying from 97.36 to 99.04% and for shale it ranges from 10.21 to 14.06%. the slake durability index test for sandstone sample indicates that it is high durable and the shale indicates very low durability. the average value of uniaxial compressive strength was calculated to be 83.144 mpa. keywords: slake durability index test (sdi), uniaxial compressive test (ucs), ultrasonic pulse velocity test (upv) *corresponding author: (email: fahim.ahmed@buitms.edu.pk, phone: 0092-332-2623850) 1. introduction safety in the mining industry is considered highly important. hence the stability of the mine excavation and mine working is deeply considered, therefore the geotechnical analysis is done. geotechnical analysis involves, surface and subsurface structures, their strength evaluation and deformability of rock or rock mass [1, 2]. physical properties, strength and durability are essential properties that help to assess the rocks for various applications [2]. durability of sandstone and shale are affected by stresses and weathering which causes the instability of excavation hence making the working unsafe [3]. for checking the durability of the rock materials slake durability is considered. franklin and chandra, firstly developed the slake durability index (sdi) test for shale [4] and was later upgraded by kolay and kayaba [5]. the slake durability test is a standard test for rock durability by isrm and it also became an astm standard [6]. the slake durability test is to supply an index that is associated with the resistance of rock against degradation when subject to standard cycles of wetting and drying [7]. the amount of water absorbed by a stone can be indicated by porosity and saturation coefficient. pore size may also impact the durability as those with fine pores tend to be less durable compared to those with coarse pores [8, 9]. shapes of the specimens have an impact on degradation due to different mechanisms in the slaking processes. in vol. 7, 2022 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.143 full length article ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 56-62 57 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 particular, irregular shapes tends to give lower index values, when compared to specimens that had rounded shapes [10-12]. the weathering process is very slow it takes hundreds or thousands of years. weathering process can be divided into two types, that is physical or mechanical weathering and chemical weathering [13]. hence in this study we predicted the rocks behavior and nature of the rocks when they are subjected to varying conditions of wetting and drying of slake durability index and sudden impacts of load. the results of this study will have implications in designing and safely extracting the minerals from the mine where the strata are of sandstone or shale. the application of this study will be in designing and running the safe mine excavation by providing the knowledge of the durability of the rock strata. in this manuscript we show, by comparison that how safe the mine is for extraction in sandstone compared to the shale rock. 2. methodology 2.1 sample preparation 2.1.1 slake durability index test two rock type samples, shale and sandstone were collected in block form underground coal mine at united mineral coal company sor-range with depth of 4000 ft. samples are collected from the working face above and below the coal seams. 40 specimens of sandstone and shale each were prepared by reducing size with hammering while breaking sharp edges for slake durability index test as shown in figure 1(a) & figure 1(b). whereas the geological map of umc sor-range is shown in figure 2. figure 1. sor-range (a) sandstone (b) shale figure 2. geological map of umc sor-range the samples were brushed to remove fine particles pre-weighing. the samples were first weighed and then dried in oven for 16 hours at 105c, after that they were cooled for 20 mins at 25 c, the samples were intact and weighing between 40-60 grams each. whereas total test specimens weigh 450g to 550g [astmd-4644, 2008] [6]. 2.1.2 uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) test the uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) test samples were prepared by coring following the procedure in astm d-2938 [14]. in order to get standard accurate results, the astm was followed. the core cylinder having smooth flat surface with l/d ratio 2-2.5 as shown in figure 3. core samples were prepared for both sandstone and shale. the same sample were utilized for ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) testing prior to ucs. ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 56-62 58 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 3. ucs testing core samples 2.1.3 ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) tester the ucs test rock core samples were utilized for upv testing prior to ucs testing. 2.2 experimental procedure 2.2.1 slake durability index test for determining the slake durability of the rocks astm d-4644-87 is adopted. standard slake durability device shown in figure 4 is used for testing. testing procedure essentially consists of cycles of wetting and drying. slaking fluid utilized was the tap water. the prepared samples were placed in a test drum then it was weighed. the drum is then dried for 16 hours and cooled off for 20 minutes at room temperature and weighed again. then drum was mounted and rotated for 10 minutes at 20 rpm. water temperature is checked at beginning and ending of the rotation period. after which we dry the drum using previous technique and time. after cooling, the sample were weighed. 2.3 uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) test according to astm d-2938 [14], in this research the length to diameter ratio of a specimen is 2 and a continuous load of 12 kn/s is applied on the specimen. figure 4. slake durability index test apparatus the universal testing machine used for this research from utest model number utc-5431 4000 kn shown in figure 5. figure 5. uniaxial compressive (ucs) test apparatus 2.4 ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) test upv testing is non-destructive method that we adapted for our laboratory testing, in this research the ultrasonic pulse velocity of a sandstone samples were determine by ultrasonic concrete tester that measure time of propagation of ultrasound pulses with an accuracy +/0.1 µs with two 55khz probes with connection cables (figure 6). the shale sample were not tested for upv because they are soft in nature and its core samples cannot be prepared. ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 56-62 59 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 6. ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) tester. 3. results & discussions 3.1 slake durability index test results the slake durability index test was carried out with two different types of rocks sandstone and shale. the initial and final weights of the samples were taken before and after the test. table 1. results of sandstone slake durability index test. test no. initial weight (gm) water content weight after 1st cycle weight after 2nd cycle percentage retained after 2nd cycle sandstone 01 444.47 0.085 442.30 438.39 98.71 02 457.38 0.039 454.84 451.28 99.04 03 502.87 0.072 499.96 479.29 97.36 04 480.55 0.054 478.76 474.67 97.67 05 510.43 0.086 507.72 501.58 98.32 06 486.44 0.059 484.26 481.12 98.56 07 496.23 0.081 495.02 491.85 97.69 08 462.46 0.052 461.03 458.21 98.36 the weight reduction in sandstone after each cycle can be seen in figure 7 for each test. similarly, the weight reduction in shale can be seen in figure 8. the retention percentage of the samples was also obtained after the two cycles. the data is provided in table 1 and table 2 subsequently. the sandstone samples retention was found to be ranging from 97.36 % to 99.04 %. whereas the retention percentage of the shale samples was found to be ranging from 10.21 % to 14.06 %. the results are shown in figure 9 & figure 10. according to the classification of gamble [15] the sandstone of sor-range show a high durability. so-range sandstone is showing the retention percentage to that of the sandstone of dalmatia, croatia [16]. figure 7. sandstone slake durability index figure 8. sandstone slake durability index table 2. results of shale slake durability index test. test no. initial weight (gm) water content weight after 1st cycle weight after 2nd cycle percentage retained after 2nd cycle sandstone 01 444.47 0.085 442.30 438.39 98.71 02 457.38 0.039 454.84 451.28 99.04 03 502.87 0.072 499.96 479.29 97.36 04 480.55 0.054 478.76 474.67 97.67 05 510.43 0.086 507.72 501.58 98.32 06 486.44 0.059 484.26 481.12 98.56 ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 56-62 60 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 07 496.23 0.081 495.02 491.85 97.69 08 462.46 0.052 461.03 458.21 98.36 figure 9. shale slake durability index figure 10. shale slake durability index 3.2 uniaxial compressive strength test results the ucs of the sandstone is determined in the laboratory. the ucs results are portrayed in the table 3. the results of the ucs for sandstone are in the ranges already studied by eren for natural stones [17]. the relationship between the peak load and ucs of sandstone is provided in figure 11. table 3. results of uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) test. test no. lengt h (mm) diameter (mm) l/d loading rate (kn/s) peak load (kn) ucs (mpa) 1 109 54 2.0 12 106.9 48.78 2 108 54 2.0 12 134.9 59.65 3 109 54 2.0 12 198.8 87.20 4 108 54 2.0 12 209.3 98.547 5 109 54 2.0 12 237.8 121.5 figure 11. relationship between peak load & uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) the peak load shows a parabolic behavior with respect to the uniaxial compressive strength. as it is provided with a polynomial fitting in the graph. 3.3 ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) test result an upv of the sandstone is measured with the help of ultrasonic concrete tester. the natural frequency of 55 khz is passed through five cores. that results obtained are given in the table 4. the upv results show similar output as already studied by eren for natural stones [17]. table 4. results of ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) test s. no. no. of cores length of cores l(m) velocity travel in time t(10-5s) velocity v (m/s) velocity v (km/s) 01 a 0.109 1.174 5580.60 5.5806 02 b 0.108 1.870 5561.49 5.5614 03 c 0.109 1.888 5349.57 5.3495 04 d 0.108 1.830 5355.19 5.3551 05 e 0.109 1.858 5543.59 5.5435 as we can see in figure 12 that in each test sample velocity is varying even though we have a standard size of the core and length. this may be explained that due to different internal anomalies in the sample such as ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 56-62 61 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 fissures and cracks are affecting the ultrasonic. figure 12. ultrasonic pulse velocity results conclusions in this study the slake durability index test was performed on shale and sandstone. the uniaxial compressive strength and upv test were conducted on sandstone. the main conclusions that were drawn from the findings of this study are  sandstone sample percentage retention after the second cycle was obtained to be in range of 98.71 % 97.36 %.  shale sample percentage retention after the second cycle was obtained to be in range of 14.06 % to 10.21 %.  it was concluded that the results of ultrasonic pulse velocity (upv) test for sandstone varies due to internal anomalies in the sample such as fissures and cracks.  the slake durability index test for sandstone sample indicates that it is high durable and the shale indicates very low durability. declarations funding: no financial support. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/competing interests. data availability: not applicable code availability: not applicable authors’ contributions: the roles are defined as per the order of authors: conceptualization, tufail ahmed; methodology, tufail ahmed, f.a. ibupoto, syed hafeez ur rehman, shehzad usman; software, tufail ahmed, f.a. ibupoto; formal analysis, tufail ahmed, f.a. ibupoto, asif abbas.; investigation, tufail ahmed, f.a. ibupoto, sami ullah and abbas hussain; resources, tufail ahmed, syed hafeez ur rehman and shehzad usman.; data curation, tufail ahmed and f.a. ibupoto.; writing—original draft preparation, f.a. ibupoto, tufail ahmed and asif abbas.; writing—review and editing, f.a. ibupoto and sami ullah; supervision, tufail ahmed and f.a. ibupoto, references [1]. p. zhang, s. peterson, d. neilans, s. wade, r. mcgrady, and j. pugh, "geotechnical risk management to prevent coal outburst in room-and-pillar mining," international journal of mining science and technology, 26 (2016)9-18. [2]. s. bhattarai and n. k. tamrakar, "physical properties, strength and durability of selected rocks from the central nepal lesser himalaya, malekhu river area for building stones," american academic scientific research journal for engineering, technology, and sciences, 35(2017) 236-250. [3]. p. miščević and g. vlastelica, "impact of weathering on slope stability in soft rock mass," journal of rock mechanics and geotechnical engineering, 6(2014) 240-250. [4]. j. franklin and r. chandra, "the slake-durability test," in international journal of ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 56-62 62 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 rock mechanics and mining sciences & geomechanics abstracts, (1972) 325-328. [5]. e. kolay and k. kayabali, "investigation of the effect of aggregate shape and surface roughness on the slake durability index using the fractal dimension approach," engineering geology, 86(2006) 271-284. [6]. a. standard, "d4644. standard test methods for slake durability of shales and similar weak rocks," annual book of astm standards, 4(2008) 880-88. [7]. z. a. erguler and a. shakoor, "quantification of fragment size distribution of clay-bearing rocks after slake durability testing," environmental & engineering geoscience, 15(2009) 81-89. [8]. d. t. nicholson, "pore properties as indicators of breakdown mechanisms in experimentally weathered limestones," earth surface processes and landforms: the journal of the british geomorphological research group, 26(2001) 819-838. [9]. p. a. hale and a. shakoor, "a laboratory investigation of the effects of cyclic heating and cooling, wetting and drying, and freezing and thawing on the compressive strength of selected sandstones," environmental & engineering geoscience, 92003117-130. [10]. d. s. agustawijaya, "modelled mechanisms in the slake-durability test for soft rocks," civil engineering dimension, 5(2004) 87-92. [11]. h. ankara, s. y. kandemir, and f. çiçek, "compression of slake durability index (sdi) values of sphere and rounded marl samples," procedia earth and planetary science, 15(2015) 93-98. [12]. h. ankara, f. çiçek, i̇. t. deniz, e. uçak, and s. y. kandemir, "determination of slake durability index (sdi) values on different shape of laminated marl samples," in iop conference series: earth and environmental science, (2016)022006. [13]. d. g. price, engineering geology: principles and practice: springer science & business media, (2008). [14]. d. astm, "standard test method for unconfined compressive strength of cohesive soil," astm standard d, (2006)2166. [15]. j. c. gamble, durability-plasticity classification of shales and other argillaceous rocks: university of illinois at urbana-champaign, (1971). [16]. p. miščević and g. vlastelica, "durability characterization of marls from the region of dalmatia, croatia," geotechnical and geological engineering, 29(2011) 771-781. [17]. e. pamuk and a. büyüksaraç, "investigation of strength characteristics of natural stones in ürgüp (nevşehir/turkey)," bitlis eren university journal of science and technology, 7(2017)74-79. received: 16 nov. 2021. revised/accepted: 15 april 2022. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 37 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 journal of mountain area research a preliminary investigation of gemstones, mines, miners and problems in gilgit-baltistan, pakistan muhammad alam1, yasmeen bano², abdur rasheed¹, sajid ali³, abdul lateef4 1. government degree college, gilgit, 15100 pakistan 2. fatima jinnah women degree college, gilgit 15100 pakistan 3. university of baltistan, skardu 4. geological survey of pakistan abstract gilgit-baltistan possesses a complex history of crustal evolution and rich diversity of geological environments, and is favorable for various types of mineralization and production of gemstone all over gb. two batholiths; kohistan batholith and karakorum batholith which are hosting gemstones mineralization. this investigation reveals that thirty-two precious and semi-precious stones are mined, 95% of the total gemstones produced in pakistan come from gb. these varieties of gemstones come from 2150 mines which are in working conditions scattered all over gb and number of miners involved is 25000. miners face problems like lighting, ventilation and drilling. they lack the basic safety equipment like helmets, mining shoes, gloves, googles and masks. due to the fumes of explosives, miners are suffering from different diseases like silicosis. the main gemstone-producing areas are hunza valley, sumayar (nager valley), shengus and haramosh (district gilgit), bulachi and mir malik (district astore), istak nalah and shiger valley. the common gemstones mined are ruby, pargasite, spinel, corundum, sapphire, calcite, aquamarine, tourmaline, beryl, quartz, topaz, albite, microcline, apatite, fluorite, emerald, marganite, diopside, tanzanite, axinite, felsite, kunzite, emerald and garnet. keywords: gemstones, prospects, miners, primitive methods, gilgit-baltistan (gb) *corresponding author: (email: muhammad.alam@gcgilgit.edu.pk) 1. introduction gilgit-baltistan (gb) is divided into three geotectonic blocks separated by two major suture zones. from north to south these are the eurasian plate which is abducted on the kohistan island arc along the northern suture zone called main karakoram thrust (mkt). the kohistan island arc in turn is abducted on the rocks of the indian plate along the indus suture zone or main mantle thrust (mmt)[l]. the metamorphism due to these tectonic activities provides a conducive environment for the mineralization of gems and ore minerals [1]. according to a report [2] submitted gemstone mining is done for a long time in gb, however, due to primitive and unscientific mining methods, the stones extracted are destroyed [3]. gemstone mining is becoming difficult day by day due to quitting of the profession by the miners due to hardships; conservations in gem bearing areas by the local communities, high costs of the equipment used in mining, lack of safety equipment, government restrictions, grant of exploration licenses and mining vol. 7, 2022 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.93 full length article mailto:muhammad.alam@gcgilgit.edu.pk alam et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 37-43 38 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 leases, weather conditions and low production due to use of primitive methods as well [4]. it is important to explore new gem bearings areas with valueable contents of gemstones to encourage the miners to continue this profession by providing trainings based on modern scientific lines and international standards so that they may mine the gems without any damage to them. during gemstone mining miners use (wahbox) which is disastrous for the sensitive plants to grow. for ecosystem of the mountainous area, blasting is also harmful. the environment is disturbed for many such reasons like blasting and excess use of explosives [5]. pmdc (1978) carried out gemstones mining activities first time in gb like hunza, heramosh and istak nalah to study feasibility of gemstone mining sites in gilgit-baltistan [6]. after the exploratory works by pmdc other private mining companies rushed to the area for gems mining. but these private companies did not play their positive role given in mining concession rules and done unscientific mining activities by destroying this mineral wealth of the area. hunza valley is famous for gemstone production since many decades [7]. this study has been conducted to know about the gemstones mined in different areas of gb and the methods they use in mining. how many miners are working in areas and how much mines are in active condition and what are their problems. 2. geology of the study area the brief geology of the study area comprised of the gem bearing areas of gilgit-baltistan (fig.3). the hunza ruby belt is comprised of the rocks of the darkot group (meta sedimentary) intruded by intrusive bodies (karakorum batholith) which is 7000 to 10000 feet in thickness and is continuous up to fifteen miles which is mineralized .the limestone member which is isoclinally folded and regionally metamorphosed to a whitegrey banded coarse crystalline massive and generally friable marble, lies sandwiched between the karakorum batholith at the north and the underlying garnetiferous schist member at the south. it is extensively criss crossed and replaced by acidic dykes ranging in grain from aplite, through granite to typical pegmatite including workable mica pegmatites. the upper and lower parts are generally more heavily affected by the intrusive dykes which apparently are the offshoots from the karakorum granodiorite. figure 1. geological map of gilgit-baltistan 3. origin of rubies the hunza rubies are the products of recrystallization of the aluminous impurities in the original limestone by regional metamorphism [8][9]. origin of rubies is due to hydrothermal solutions [2]. this view based on field observation that hunza ruby has come into existence as the last of the main creative events of the geologic history of hunza. the alam et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 37-43 39 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 field observations about origin of ruby are as under. figure 2. map of study area showing different gemstone locations 1. richer (in quality and quantity both) ruby/spinel mineralization has been found at the places where marble blocks are trapped by some intrusive dykes (aplite, granite or pegmatites). 2. when bedding planes of the host marble are obliquely cut at low angles by some dyke or especially by its offshoots at some distance from the main intrusive. 3. rubies/spinel is mostly found along bedding or cleavage planes of the marble. 4. ruby crystals are seen growing at the expense of the calcite crystals of the host marble. 5. rubies are developed along limited zones, only when the same beds are cut by certain intrusive at certain angles. 6. single ruby crystals as well as clusters of crystals are found loosely packed in envelopes of fuchsite flakes or more commonly of phologopite flakes giving rise to typical onion type of bodies along mineralization planes. 7. hunza valley produces the following gemstones from different localities, ruby, pargasite spinel, corundum, sapphire (black and blue), calcite, aquamarine, beryl, quartz and garnet. figure 3. a blue sapphire and ruby specimen from hasanabad mines and dorkhan mines 3.1 chumar bakor the elevation of chumar bakoor mines is about 4600 meters. its location is 33˚ 43 ́ 66˝ and 73˚ 45 ́ 90˝.the stones mined from this area are calcite. topaz, albite, microcline aquamarine, tourmaline, apatite, beryl, fluorite and quartz. the rocks exposed in study area are calc silicate rocks and amphibolites belonging to the southern karakorum metamorphic complex (kmc) as well as in the intrusive sumayar pluton [10]. the intrusive (pegmatites) are in the form of (sill, dykes and lenses) exposed. the thickness of pegmatite bodies ranges from 0.5 m to 1.5 meter. the gemstone pockets are common. 3.2 the pegmatites swarm of bulachi, heramosh and istak nalah the pegmatites of bulachi area are situated just on the other side of the skardu river in astore district. these pegmatites between heramosh and istak nalah along the indus river are of same origin [11] these pegmatites are hosted by parent rock which is beryllium and lithium rich. beryl, alam et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 37-43 40 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 aquamarine, black tourmaline, topaz and fluorite are the main gemstones in these pegmatites. istak nalah pegmatites produce multi colored tourmaline due to lithium rich pegmatites. the other gemstones produced are aquamarine, black tourmaline, topaz, apatite and garnet due to presence of the granitic pegmatites. according to the miners the gemstones produced from heramosh area are: emerald. topaz, marganite, apatite, black tourmaline, garnet, fluorite, calcite, diopside, microcline and quartz. similarly, bulachi area contains green tourmaline, red tourmaline, tri-colored tourmaline (red, green, black), black tourmaline, apatite, fluorite, calcite, topaz, marganite, diopside, beryl, tanzanite, axinite and albite. 3.3 istak nalah istak nala is rich in green tourmaline, black tourmaline, bi-color tourmaline (green and red), marganite, fluorite, quartz, aquamarine and topaz. figure 4. a gemstone mine in (a) chumar bakoor (nager) (b) istak nalah (skardu) and (c) bulachi area (astore) 3.4 pegmatites swarm of shiger, braldo and basha valleys dassu mines are located at 2420 meters. the location of mines is 34˚ 22 ̍ ̍ 593 ̋ and 72 ̋ 94 ̋ ̋ ̋ 505 ̋. about 150 square kilometers area has the pegmatite swarm. the shiger valley pegmatites are gem bearing as well as nongem bearing. one of the gems’ bearing pegmatite is muscovite schorl-beryl garnet pegmatites and another one is muscovite schorl pegmatite [12]. based on field observations we can conclude that the pegmatites of basha and braldo valleys are same in origin. these pegmatites are zoned and coarse-grained in nature and have gems like quartz, feldspar, muscovite and black tourmaline. 3.5 gemstones found in shiger, braldo and basha valleys according to the miners of the areas following gemstones are found in these valleys are aquamarine, ruby, zoisite, microcline, albite, garnet, quartz, topaz, tourmaline, calcite, manganite, apatite, fluorite, felsites, diopside, kunzite, emerald, sapphire, pargasite and axinite. figure 6. gemstone mines in shiger valley 4. method in gilgit-baltistan the mining sites of gemstones are located at high elevations. some of the mines are at low elevations like aliabad, dorkhan and hasanabad (hunza valley). in shiger valley the ruby-emerald mines are easily accessible which are located near shiger main road. the mines at chumar bakor, istak, shiger, heramosh, bulachi, braldo and basha valleys are at high elevations and only accessible in summers from june to october. to study these mines twenty-five (25) days field was conducted in these entire gem bearing areas. the method adopted was to reach at the actual sites of mining and mines alam et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 37-43 41 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 were visited. a questionnaire was developed to interview the miners about gemstones produced in these mines. meetings were done with miner associations to know about their problems and needs. examinations of the gemstones available at site with miners and confirmations were made about the stones produced from these mines. miners and mines (abandoned and working conditions) were counted for confirmations. figure 7a. a specimen of aquamarine-shiger (irocks.com) figure 7b. topaz specimens-shiger (fossilera.com) 5. problems due to lack of basic facilities like first aid box, the miners have different medical issues. due to absence of roads, tracks and difficult terrain carrying the machinery to the mining sites is very difficult. miners face problems like lighting, ventilation and drilling after the drivage of more than 100 feet. the mines do not meet the standards as specified in the mining concession rules and international standards. the miners lack the basic safety equipment like helmet, mining shoes, gloves, googles and masks. due to the fumes of explosives (wahbox) and dust miners are suffering from different diseases like silicosis (a kind of disease which slowly damages the lungs). another problem is lack of equipment to repair the machinery at the mining sites. 6. results and discussion following table give details of mines and miners working actively in entire gb. the detail of mines in respective valleys and number of miners is as under. table 1. detail of mines and miners in different valleys. s.no area no of mines no of miners 1 hunza valley 40 400 2 chumar bakoor, hoper (distt. nager) 200 4000 3 heramosh (distt. gilgit) 250 4000 4 basha and braldo valley 300 3000 5 shiger (distt. shiger) 700 7000 6 istak (distt. skardu) 200 2000 alam et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 37-43 42 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 7 bulachi (distt. astore) 100 1000 8 mir malik (distt. astore) 20 200 9 distt. ghizer 300 3000 10 rondo valley 40 400 total 2150 25000 from the above figure it is concluded that gemstone mining is extensively done in gilgitbaltistan. all these miners do not work at the same time. they work time to time and season to season depending upon the weather conditions. all the mentioned miners are involved directly or indirectly in the field of gemstone mining which are contributing to the gb economy and earning to their families. the need of the hour is that the miners should be trained on scientific lines as well illegal mining should be discouraged. the gemstone mining industry should be given the status of industry, so that lot of people may benefit from this field. in this connection gemstone exhibitions should be arranged, a gemstone exchange and display center should be setup, trainings to the miners should be given in every district and mining equipment should be provided to the miners. conclusion there are 32 varieties of gemstones (precious and semi-precious) mined here. some of the common gemstones are ruby, emerald, sapphire, quartz, tourmaline, aquamarine, topaz, spinel, corundum, garnet, calcite, fluorite, apatite, zircon, beryl, pargasite and microcline etc. the areas famous for gem bearing are hunza, nager, heramosh, istak, shiger and astore valleys. the miners involved in this sector are approximately 25000 and numbers of mines approximately are 2150. there are difficulties in gemstone mining sector such as, lack of gemstone exchange centers; the miners could not get the actual price of their mined wealth. poor health facilities at mining sites, the miners are suffering from various diseases like silicosis (a kind of lung disease), eyes itching, dust and explosives allergies etc. difficult terrain and short working season cause great psychological pressure on miners. poor mining methods also cause problems in mining such as ventilation; lighting and suffocation etc. declarations conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare that they have no financial and non-financial competing interests. data availability: the data sets used or analyzed during current study are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request, and all data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. code availability: not applicable. author contributions: all authors equally contributed from introduction to conclusion under supervision of our principal investigator and this task completed with the collaboration of all authors. muhammad alam developed the main concept of research, and writing the manuscript. yasmeen bano did review before submission and proof read of the manuscript. abdur rasheed reviewed and edited the paper during review process. abdul lateef helped in the field work. references [1] searle, m.p. geology and tectonics of the karakorum mountains, 1991. alam et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 37-43 43 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 [2] faruqi, s.h., (1978) find report hunza ruby project. pakistan mineral development carporation. [3] alam.m, ali.a. (2008). a brief report on mines and gemstones of gilgit-baltistan. submitted to aga khan rural support program, gilgit. [4] alam et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 32-39. an overall view on gemstone mining in gilgitbaltistan: problems and mitigation [5] clanin, j., jcmining inc. (2007). final report. recommendations for the mining sector/teaching curriculum in gb. . [6] austromineral. (1976). feasibility study of indus gold project: submitted to pakistan mineral development corporation retrieved from the report. [7] gemstone and jewlry resources of pakistan (2017) information release no 1004 by geological survey of pakistan. [8] bunch, t e., dr. h. bunk. (1976) paragenesis and petrogenesis of a corumdum-bearing marble at hunza.mineralium deposita magazine, berlin 278-296. [9] okrusch, m., (1976) corundum bearing marble, pakistan. mineralium deposita magazine. 282283. [10] hussain, a., shah,m.t., arif, m., agheem, m. h., mughul, m.t., ullah,m., hussain, a.s., sadiq, i. chemical composition of gemstones and charaterization of their host pegmatites and country rocks from chumar bakoor, gilgitbaltistan, pakistan: implications for the source of gemforming fluids.arabian journal of geosciences 14, article number: 1303(2021) [11] qureshi, j.a., ali. m., hassan. z., alam. m., neelofer.m. and raheem.s. gemological characterisitcs of gemstone varieties found in the pegmatites of heramosh area, gilgitbaltistan. int. j. econ. environ. geol. vol. 11 (3) 01-04, 2020 [12] agheem, m.h., shah, m.t., khan,t., laghari, a., & dars, h., field feature and petrography used as indicators for the classification of shiger valley pegmatites, gilgit-baltistan region of pakistan. himalayan journal of earth sci, univ peshawer, [2011] ,44(2), 1-7. received: 08 aug. 2021. revised/accepted: 28 march 2022. sample paper manuscript preparation 28 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 journal of mountain area research three-dimensional reconstruction and visualization of plant cells sharifa zaman1,2 b. fatima1 1 mountain area research center gilgit 2 shining light academy, gilgit, pakistan abstract the mechanical properties (like sensory texture etc.) of plants/fruits directly depend on their microstructures. therefore, it is very important to well understand the geometry and topology of cells in order to control the microstructure for better mechanical response. in this research, techniques of digital image processing and segmentation in conjunction with mathematical morphology models are used to visualize and analyze the 3d cells of potato. imagej and matlab are used throughout in this study. the labeled image stacks are essential for studying quantitative characterization of 3d cells, matlab is used to label each image stacks. by using matlab 12420 cells were segmented within a short period of time and labeled each cell uniquely. keywords: mechanical properties; cellular structure; image processing; visualization *corresponding author: (email: sharifakhan30@gmail.com) 1. introduction nature is composed of three-dimensional structures. we observe different materials and objects in our daily life that contain microstructure which is composed of cell/grains, which are called cellular structures. the properties of materials strongly depend on their microstructure. biological science and engineering are also influenced by the cellular structure, it is found in biological tissues and foams. the most important topological properties of cells are their shape and size, which play a vital role in evolution of microstructure [1]. cell is a building block of living thing, which is extremely composite having different shape and size. to study cellular properties its spatial association of the cell is most important than that of epigenetic conditions [2]. to study the geometrical and topological properties of cells, microscopy techniques play a vital role. a complete explanation of cellular structure needs the knowledge of mechanical and geometrical characteristics of each cell, but this is not an easy task to know the pure characteristics of an irregular arrangement of cells, therefore volume and shape of individual cell is needed[3]. there are many techniques which are used to visualize and characterize the cellular structure in 3d like tomography (x-rays or ultrasound) and stereology [4]. in the case of plants, we study the cellular structure at considerable non-homogeneity and instability with numerous areas of discontinuity of relatively large dimensions. the morphology of plant structure is a derivative of number of factors, which are plant variety, size of object and shape, type of tissue and techniques of storage situations [5]. vol. 5, 2020 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article sharifa et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 28-35 29 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 the mathematical study of properties that are conserved by deformation, stretching’s, twisting’s of objects is known as topology. by using voronoi construction, the study of the topological properties of system can be achieved, which gives a division of the entire space in irregular panels (cells). such process has been fruitfully used to describe the evolution of many natural systems. such as propagation of defects in foams, soap froths and biological tissue cells. all these works are fundamentally mean-field studies and only interpretation for correlation between adjacent cells, numerous topological relations discussed in the past, containing aboav-weaire law on nearest neighbor correlations [6, 7] an growth rate of single cells[8], the lewis law is based on the statistics of cell area and the scaling law is based on distribution of the cells, the aboav weaire law is an essential empirical manifestation to define the short-range topological correlations between a center grain and its first nearest neighbors in two dimensions, 1 1 1 ( ) /m n a b n  . here 1m is the average number of edges of first nearest neighbor, 1 a =5 and 1 b =6+ 2 u . a large dataset of the topology of cells and their nearest neighbor is needed to study long-range topological properties [9]. visualization of 3d microscopic images help us to recognize the data clearly. it also helps to find suitable analysis techniques or parameters. the 3d microstructure representation, visualization and correlation are of most necessary concern to study and model processing structure property interaction; most frequently due to the 3d nature and complexity of material microstructure, studies are usually carried out in 2d image sections through 3d microstructural region of interest using stereological methods. these stereological methods have been very useful in studying the progress of microstructure and provide important insights into the microstructural characterization. nevertheless, the connectivity or topology of cells in microstructure cannot be studied by using the methods of stereology, and there are many other factors like true size, shape and curvature of interfaces that needs the understanding of 3d microstructure. thus, 3d reconstruction and visualization of microstructures are very important to obtained true 3d morphology of cells. there are many methods for the representation of 3d microstructure as well as serial sectioning, magnetic resonance imaging and x-ray tomography [10]. serial sectioning is a commonly used method in microstructural visualization, which can attain approximately all the information concerning 3d geometry of cells in cellular structure. image processing and segmentation techniques play a vital role in micro structural visualization and analysis. latest advancements in imaging techniques have significantly reduced the efforts required to perform 3d analysis and made it possible to computerize these processes to some extent. the objective of this contribution is to explain an approach to apply automated image processing and segmentation for 3d visualization, reconstruction and analysis of 3d cell microstructure. the image processing and analysis software nih imagej [11] and matlab are used for such performances. grew felt that plant cells needed to study in 3d because they were composed of microscopic structure having distinct shape and size, he first worked on reconstructing vascular element (xylem and phylum) in three dimensions by using depth and perspective to his illustrations, sharifa et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 28-35 30 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 and deal with the technological limitations of visualizing the inner part of opaque 3d tissues. grew’s illustrations gave us the first indications of how varied and complex the cellular structure of plants. to understand the relationships between xylem structure and its function is a challenge of visualization of 3d structure with traditional, two dimensional methods. in the time of grew photography and histological methods were invented, which are used in visualizing and reproduction of xylem networks compared with manual illustration. to reconstruct the path that water passed through roots and stems, number of serial sections are needed, then stacked the sections and these stacks must be perfectly aligned to visualized and reconstruct the xylem network manually, which is tedious task [12]. in this paper, advanced digital image processing techniques in combination of mathematical morphology models are used to reconstruct and visualize 3d cellular structure of potato. 2. materials and methods 2.1 plant material plant cell are composed of microscopic structure with different spatial relationships. to better understand the cellular structure of cell, it needs to be visualized and modeled in 3d. therefore, potato about 4 5 10 um diameter was chosen for sampling. the sample was cut into square shape of 4 2 10 um in diameter. only images of this region of potato were chosen for study. since the purpose of this research study was to visualize the cellular structure of plant cell (cells of potato). 2.2 microtome microtome is a device used to cut extremely thin slices of material, called sections. microtomes are used in microscopic studies, allowing for the preparation of samples for observation under transmitted light or electron radiation for further studies. in this study we used microtome (model mrs cat no 213, nippon optical works co.ltd) for serial sections of potato. the sample was 4 2 10 um in diameter, were cut into 28 serial sections of thickness 714.286 um. 2.3 optical microscope with integrated digital camera optical microscope is an instrument invented by dutch optician and van jansen in 1595. it is very simple device for generation of magnified images of material or object which were not seen by naked eyes [5]. in this research study optical microscope was used for observation of serial sections with magnification ratio of (10x/18) and objective lens of (10x/0.25). sections were imaged using a (sone) digital camera of 20 mega pixel. 2.4 image processing software’s (imagej and matlab) to visualize the internal cellular structure of potato cells in a suitable way digital image processing and segmentation techniques in combination with mathematical morphology models are used. image processing software’s matlab and imagej are used in this research study. these software’s are easy to used and understand, are very effortless to carry out various steps of visualization. the detailed steps are as under. firstly, the images were imported into imagej and then set the measurement scale. for this sharifa et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 28-35 31 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 purpose, we used a stack of 28 images of potato cell. the alignment of 28 images, to remove the translational and rotational shift by using plugin, during performing the steps of visualization which may affects the stacks. to get the region of interest the stack of aligned images was cropped in a square shaped. circular and rectangular shape stack are also available but square and rectangular shaped stack was more optimal. the researcher used this roi to segment the 2d images. for clean up the dust present in every 2d images various segmentation processes (adjusting the brightness or contrast, dilation, erosion, thresholding, watershed, distance map and finding maxima) were used. for binary images apply threshold on an image, because of this binary image got noise in the objects which makes the images not clear. dilate and erode are used to remove the noise, because of the dilation and erosion noise on the boundaries of cell get clean and clear. watershed is used for filling the gaps and separates the overlapping particles. to find local maxima of images euclidean distance map is used. selecting segmented particles from dropdown menu to creates one segmented particle per maximum. a stack of 28 segmented images having very clear and clean boundaries and neat cells, which were labeled by using matlab program. 3. results and discussions the 3d visualization and correlation of 28 images of potato cell is the 3d quantitative analysis of the microstructure; we studied the cellular structure of cell without disturbing its true morphology. for quantitative analysis of cell, firstly convert the serial sections of images into 3 dimensional stacks. there are several steps of image processing and segmentation to visualize the cellular structure and to study morphology of cells. these are as under. 3.1 importing of images in to image j the first step is to import images into imagej, initially we open image j window and put all images in a folder by a proper manner. this can be done by browsing through file>import>image sequence. then stack the images, the stack contains 28 images which we used throughout in the research study. shown in fig. 1 fig.1 the stack of 28 images 3.2 alignment of images (image registration) second step is registration of images, which was done by over lapping two consecutive images manually translating and rotating the images with respect to each other. the second image with respect to first and third image with respect to second and continued the process until all images are registered with respect to each other by applying plugins>align stacks>align3tp.see in fig.3 the alignment was done in few minutes and got a perfectly aligned sharifa et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 28-35 32 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 stack as a result. to show the true feature of microstructure, during the serial sectioning of image its need to remove translational and rotational shift by using alignment of images. fig.2 aligned stack. 3.3 segmentation and 3d reconstruction of images third step is image cleanup and segmentation.it is an important step to analyze the cells without difficulty. the main objective of image segmentation is to separate the object of interest from background. there are many types of mage segmentation software’s but the most reliable and preferable software’s in every field like soil science, astronomy, biological sciences is imagej. imagej is easy to use and easily available which is used by every person from every field of life, because it gives the quantitative results without disturbing the true morphology of cells in a very short period of time. the several methods used for segmentation and image cleanup include methods like thresholding, watershed segmentation, region growing, edges detection and so on are used to segment each twodimensional image in a stack to view the cell in three dimensions to get desired quantities. the detail of following steps which are used in image segmentation are 3.3.1 cropping image before doing segmentation process, first to select the region of interest (roi), this was done by selecting the rectangular bar from the menu bar of imagej and cropped the desired area by using image>cropped. 3.3.2 thresholding after cropping the region of interest, the researcher needs to find the boundaries of cells and separation from back ground. first convert the images into a binary stack by applying a threshold command using image>adjust>threshold. this command gives black color to pixels in background and while interior of cell is considered white. fig.3 cropped stack. sharifa et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 28-35 33 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 fig.4 thresholding process in imagej 3.3.3 morphological operations by using imagej, we applied some morphological operations to clean up the spots which were left inside the cell after threshold. the morphological operations are erosion, dilation, watershed and euclidean distance map. these commands can be reached by processs > binary > dilate and process > binary > erode are used to clean up the image stack, due to thresholding and morphological opening some boundaries of cells are unfilled and some cells overlap due to low contrast among them, therefore 3d watershed segmentation is considered to be a best choice to filled these gaps, which is reached by process>binary>watershed command from menu. fig.5 dilation of images fig.6 erosion operation on images fig.7 watershed segmentation 3.3.4 euclidean distance map and finding maxima create a euclidean distance map by selecting process>binary>distance map and to find maxima reached by process>find maxima.as shown in fig.8 fig.8 euclidean distance map of images sharifa et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 28-35 34 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 fig.9 the euclidean distance map of images fig.10 result of maxima operation 3.4 three dimension visualization labeling method for labeling 2d images, analyze>analyze particle command are used. it can be applied to 3d image stacks but in result it labels every particle independently and gives different identifiers to same cells, to avoid this 3d object counter is used by research plugin> 3d object counter, but in this research 2d images analysis is used because of irregular shape of cells of images stacks. in this research matlab is used to label each images stack.3d microstructure are visualizing to better comprehend the data and it helps for appropriate analysis methods or parameter. furthermore, it is also useful to study the grain morphology and for understanding connectivity of microstructural place. once the image stack is scaled correctly, it is ready for visualization fig.11 labeling of 28 images stack and image stack in 3d fig.12 labeled image stack in 3d conclusion the mechanical properties (like sensory texture etc.) of plants/fruits directly depend on their sharifa et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 28-35 35 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 microstructures. therefore, it is very important to well understand the 3d geometry and topology of cells in order to control the microstructure for better mechanical response. in this paper, techniques of digital image processing and segmentation in conjunction with mathematical morphology models are used to visualize and analyze the 3d cells of potato. imagej and matlab are used throughout in the study. the labeled image stacks are essential for studying quantitative characterization of 3d cells and matlab is used to label each image stacks. by using matlab 12420 cells were segmented within a short period of time and labeled each cell uniquely. references [1] n. rivier, "topological correlation in random cellular structures," de physique, pp. 9-155, 1985. [2] marshall, "origins of cellular geometry," bmc bology, 2011. [3] r. gliclesman, "modeling polycrystalls with regular polyhedral materials research," pp. vol 9,no. 2, 2006. [4] m. grandjean, ". in vivo analysis of cell division, cell growth and differentiation at the shoot apical meristem in arabidopsis," plant cell, pp. 74-87, 2004. [5] m. k. gancarz, "micro-structure analysis of plant tissues," institute of agrophysics polish academy of sciences,centre of excellence for, p. 168, 2005. [6] aboav, "metallography," p. 383, 1970. [7] weaire, "metallography," p. 157, 1974. [8] j. von neumann, "in metal interface," american society for metals, cleveland, p. 108, 1952. [9] h. wang g. liu, li meng, "study on topological properties in the two dimensional grain networks via large scale monte carlo simulation," elsevier b.v, pp. 165-169, 2015. [10] h . peng. "proof of -editing is the bottle neck of 3dneunon reconstruction,the problem and soluctions," neuroin formatics, pp. 92-93:103-105, 2011. [11] k. cwajna et al, "image processing and image analysis in materials science allas part1," in proc int conf sterelogy and image analysis in material, 1994,1995,200,2002. [12] a. ullah. "3d visualization and qutitative characterization of grains in polycrytalline iron, materials characterizatiob," american scientific publishers, pp. 65-75, 2014. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 11 june 2020. revised/accepted: 6 august 2020. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 63 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 journal of mountain area research statistical analysis of covid-19 vaccinations: karachi as a case study danish hassan1, usama raza2, zaubaria malick2, abu bakar2, hamza khan2*, muhammad danish khan3, kashif javed2 1. department of applied sciences, national textile university karachi campus 2. department of textile & clothing, national textile university karachi campus 3. shaheed zulfiqar ali bhutto institute of sciences and technology (szebist), pakistan abstract the entire world has started to vaccinate their respective countries' citizens to get rid of covid-19 from their country. likewise other countries, pakistan has also started the vaccination process for its citizens and unlike the rest of the world, there have been different types of vaccines in pakistan with different manufacturers and with different immunity booster levels. through statistical analysis of vaccination in this research paper, we have tried to understand the diverse level of vaccines in karachi and tried to get an understanding of the vaccination process happening in karachi. for this kind of research, we have maintained the questionnaire and spread it through emails, whatsapp, and facebook. the questionnaire was sent to about 500 people from july to august 2021. the results obtained depict the satisfaction of the vaccination process with normal side effects. unlike other countries, pakistan is among the countries where the mass vaccination process has always been very difficult to conduct. further using the data of seven stations for prediction purposes multiple linear regression (mlr) models were constructed. a better future trend analysis of covid-19 can be observed using these constructed models. the data for the time series modeling from, 1st january 2021 to 25 august 2021, was taken from national command and control (ncoc) pakistan. keywords: covid-19, statistical analysis, vaccination *corresponding author: (email: hamzakhan@ntu.edu.pk, phone: 0092-333-3032982) 1. introduction 1.1 paper length pakistan is a country which is situated in the south-asian region, sharing borders with india, china, iran, and afghanistan. the population of this country stands 225,427,731 [1, 2]. to vaccinate such a huge population requires some good management skills [3]. the vaccination drive in pakistan started in april 2021 [4]. initially pakistan got their first vaccine from china, donating half million doses of sinopharm [5]. the vaccination process was conducting in two ways, either to get vaccinate from any hospital, who have access to vaccines which is approved by the pakistani government or get vaccinated through vaccination centers which was government’s plan to do mass vaccination by setting up vaccination centers at different parts of city for people’s convenience. the government also started electronic registration, so people and especially daily wager do not have to skip a day only for registration process. the key thing which we wanted to observe was how efficiently and effectively the vaccination drive is really vol. 7, 2022 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.140 full length article hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 63-69 64 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 going in pakistan, for that purpose this survey form sort of paved our way through better understanding of vaccination process [6, 7, 8]. multiple linear regression (mlr) is a technique to find the best relationship between the variables that socially affects. this technique is applied in any field where a particular data is possible to collect then for prediction and forecasting the mlr models are constructed [9, 10, 11]. in the mlr models shown below y indicates the confirmed cases, 𝑥1 shows deaths and 𝑥2 shows recovered patients. �̂�𝐴𝐽𝐾 = −5.681𝑥1 + 1.307𝑥2 − 39.957 (1) �̂�𝐺𝐵 = 25.960𝑥1 + 0.735𝑥2 − 1157.147 (2) �̂�𝐼𝐶𝑇 = 251.057𝑥1 − 0.803𝑥2 − 46888.926 (3) �̂�𝐾𝑃𝐾 = 6.758𝑥1 + 0.800𝑥2 + 6960.446 (4) �̂�𝑃𝑢𝑛𝑗𝑎𝑏 = 62.138𝑥1 − 0.981𝑥2 + 5753.399 (5) �̂�𝑆𝑖𝑛𝑑ℎ = 72.683𝑥1 − 0.064𝑥2 − 36446.125 (6) �̂�𝐵𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛 = 30.322𝑥1 + 0.693𝑥2 + 174.915 (7) where equation 1 to 7 are the models of azad jammu and kashmir (ajk), gilgit baltistan (gb), islamabad capital territory (ict), khaybar pakhtunkhwa (kpk), punjab, sindh and baluchistan respectively. 1.1 vaccination centers government have announced different vaccination centers in different big cities to conduct mass vaccination, if we talk about only karachi, there had been 29 allotted centers where people can get their vaccination done, amongst 29 of the allotted centers, two are the makeup vaccination centers setup by the government to conduct mass vaccination at expo center and khaliq dina hall. the rest of the centers are already operational hospitals. to vaccinate such hugely populated city (karachi) government tried different strategies and policies to drive people for vaccination, but none of the policy or strategy worked at the beginning of vaccination drive which started in april 2021. people showed reluctance over the vaccination process and had different mindset regards to vaccines and vaccination process, from april to july the vaccination process was sluggish and by the end of july 4th wave of covid-19 had also emerged [12, 13, 14]. to tackle such situation government now has announced to block sim (subscriber identity module) and social media accounts of unvaccinated people by the end of july 2021 [15, 16]. after this announcement people have turned towards vaccination centers in huge numbers and finally the vaccination drive in pakistan has taken some progress. vaccination centers of every zone of karachi are listed below [17, 18]. 1.2 vaccine supply to pakistan since pakistan is a third world country which hugely relies over foreign funds sometimes, to move the economic cycle. with covid-19 outbreak, same as rest of the world, pakistan was looking up to the developed countries and w.h.o (world health organization) to facilitate pakistan with covid-19 vaccines. initially pakistan got their first covid-19 vaccination consignment through china, who donated half million doses of sinopharm to pakistan [5]. pakistan, then received the first consignment of uk’s astrazeneca through covax facility, where the donation of doses was 1,238,400 followed by another donation of 1,236,000 doses of astrazeneca [19]. hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 63-69 65 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 pakistan got vaccine donation from usa (united states of america) as well, the usa government donated 2.5 million doses of moderna vaccine in the first batch which followed the second batch of three million doses of moderna [20]. china further donated 1.55 million doses of sinovac vaccine to pakistan as well [21]. china also donated 60,000 doses of cansino vaccine to pakistan as well [22]. moreover, pakistan also received 100,000 doses of pfizer vaccines as well through covax facility [23]. among all above vaccines, pakistan was also able to import first private vaccine consignment as well from russia, pakistan imported 50,000 doses of sputnik vaccine which solely would be provided to big private hospitals [24]. so, to break down the above-mentioned vaccines received to pakistan, here what the overall vaccines donation stands. 2. material and method 2.1 questionnaire just as mentioned above, we just wanted to sort of get the understanding of how well the vaccination process is happening in pakistan and how many different types of vaccines are being used and which vaccine is standing alone as compared to all different types of vaccines. in the questionnaire/survey form [25]. we asked only eight basic questions which were enough to get the desire understanding and these are as under.  did you get vaccinated?  from where did you get vaccinated?  which vaccine did you take?  how did the staff treat you?  when you get vaccinated, how often did the management look after your health progress?  in the vaccination center/hospital, was everybody following the sops?  after vaccination, did you feel any type of side effects of the vaccine?  are you satisfied by the procedure/process of vaccination?  using mlr method for few stations the trend analysis models were constructed. 2.1.1 did you get vaccinated? the reason to ask this particular question at the very beginning of the questionnaire was to help others indirectly, if somebody who have not vaccinated, he/she would leave the questionnaire from the beginning which sort of help us to get the understanding of the ratio of people who got vaccinated or not. especially at times when the vaccination drive has really got overwhelmed by people at the vaccination centers, are there still some people who are still reluctant to get vaccinated? figure 1. pie graph of the response, showing the 94% agreed. as the result was pretty satisfying as only 6% people did not get vaccinated, which shows that the ratio to unvaccinated to vaccinate people is low. 2.1.2 from where did you get vaccinated? the reason to ask this question was to get understanding of how many people are getting vaccination from hospitals rather than hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 63-69 66 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 vaccination centers, since vaccination centers have mass vaccination process going but it has proper and organize way of conducting vaccination. figure 2. pie graph showing that most of the people were vaccinated in vaccination center. we can see that most of the people get vaccinated from vaccination center, since numbers of hospitals are not according to the population of the karachi city. 2.1.3 which vaccine did you take? this question has very much significance than any other question; in fact, this question was the pillar of this questionnaire. figure 3. pie graph of vaccine, showing that most of the people vaccinated by sinovac. as we discussed earlier that pakistan received different types of covid-19 vaccines, so it was necessary to find out which vaccine has highest intake in karachi. the result showed that more than 50% people have taken sinovac vaccine. 2.1.4 how the staff did treat you? this is a very important question in regard to the management level of hospital and vaccination center, because when there has been mass vaccination, then it becomes very important and noticeable thing in order to understand the professionalism of the staff. figure 4. bar graph of people satisfaction. the result showed that the treatment of staff to patient was quite mixed, but still, it gives an insight that the vaccination process is going in a well-organized manner. 2.1.5 when you get vaccinated, how often did the management look after your health progress? this question had a lot to do with the basic practice of medical school, where the candidates are advised to check the health progress of their patient till the time of their discharge. since covid-19 vaccines have two doses and the time interval between first and second dose is 2-3 weeks, this question was for getting the understanding of the management of hospital and vaccination centers to check whether they check the health progress of their patient or not. hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 63-69 67 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 5. bar graph of staff attitude. 2.1.6 in the vaccination center/hospital, was everybody following the sops? the purpose of this question is to understand whether the staff of the hospital or vaccination centers were following the sops (standard operating procedure) or not, because they are on the receiving end and they are the ones with high chance of getting infection directly. so, the result showed some satisfying and good result. figure 6. pie graph showing that 75% were compliance the covid sops. 2.1.7 after vaccination, did you feel any type of side effects of the vaccine? it was important to get an idea whether the vaccines have any unknown side effects or no, because there have been rumors of unknown side effects of vaccines which played keen role towards reluctant behavior of people with vaccination. figure 7. pie graph indicating the side effects of vaccine. 2.1.8 are you satisfied by the procedure/process of vaccination? this question sort of conclude the whole experience of people who got vaccinated, it may include the level of facilities provided, level of transparency, level of professionalism, and level of all round experience of the patients. figure 8. public satisfaction percentage indicating that 83% were satisfied. the 83% of the people are satisfied with the vaccination process by the government. 3. results and discussions by the short survey conducted in karachi city the behavior of the people toward the covid19 vaccination was analyzed. the questionnaires helped to understand the clear thinking of the people. it is clear from figures 1 that 94% people are agreeing to follow the sops however, 75% are following the sops shown in hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 63-69 68 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figures 6 and 51% like to get vaccination from the governments established vaccinated centers as depicted in figure 2. figure 3 clears the choice of the people as 54% like to get sinovac. the satisfactory conditions of the mass after getting vaccine regarding the care and attitude of the vaccination centers is not too much remarkable as clear from figure 4 & 5. the 25% people were reported the side effects after getting vaccination and 83% feels satisfaction as clear from figures 7 and 8 respectively. conclusion the overall work was performed through this questionnaire (survey form) sort of reflect the vaccination procedure happening in karachi. how well they are vaccinating the people and how many different types of vaccines are used in karachi. the sole purpose of this survey was to get real response from people so that it can be helpful to others who are considering to get their vaccination but either they are afraid or may be some negative rumors have trashed their decision to get vaccinated. covid-19 is an rna virus which can affect the vaccinated persons again, so whichever vaccine are taking, just bears in mind that this virus will remain with us for 3 to 4 years with different types of variants. furthermore, using the data for few stations of pakistan for the future trend analysis mlr models were constructed. the higher authorities can use such models for the prediction and forecasting purposes in future. declarations funding: this research work was the part of mini project and there is no funding for this work. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest. data availability: not applicable. code availability: not applicable. authors’ contributions: hassan: conceptualization, methodology usama raza, zaubaria malick, abu bakar. muhammad amir: visualization, investigation hamza khan, muhammad danish khan and kashif javed software, validation hamza khan: writing-the final version. references [1] chandir, s., siddiqi, d. a., mehmood, m., setayesh, h., siddique, m., mirza, a., ... & khan, a. j. impact of covid-19 pandemic response on uptake of routine immunizations in sindh, pakistan: an analysis of provincial electronic immunization registry data. vaccine, 38(2020) 7146-7155. 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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 82 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 journal of mountain area research a unique combination of mask in binary four-point subdivision scheme uzma mukhtar1and kashif rehan2, * 1. department of mathematics, university of engineering and technology, lahore, pakistan. 2. department of mathematics, university of engineering and technology, new campus, lahore, pakistan. abstract a unique binary four-point approximating subdivision scheme has been developed in which one part of binary formula have stationary mask and other part have the non-stationary mask. the resulting curves have the smoothness of c3 continuous for the wider range of shape control parameter. the role of the parameter has been depicted using the square form of discrete control points. keywords: binary, stationary and non-stationary, approximating, s ubdivision scheme. 2010 ams subject classifications: 41a05, 41a25, 41a30, 65d17, 65d10. *corresponding authors: (email: kashif rehan: kkashif_99@yahoo.com) 1. introduction geometric modelling is the heart of computer graphics and computer aided geometric design and covers a wide range of applications. computer aided geometric design is a branch of applied mathematics that designs smooth curves/ surfaces with algorithms. the computer aided geometric design field compiles the visual display. computer aided geometric design studies the design and handling of curves / surfaces provided by a collection of points. the development of new geometric objects and shapes is an important task in the field of computer aided geometric design, computer graphic, computer animation industry, and image processing etc. subdivision is an important tool to create different geometric objects and shapes in computer aided geometric design. algorithms of subdivisions are suitable for computer applications. subdivision develops different types of smooth curves and surfaces using refining rules by subdividing them from a collection of discrete data points. for the development of subdivision field, g. de rham firstly developed a subdivision scheme in 1947. subdivision is a method that generates smooth curves and surfaces just as successive arrangement of refined control polygons. the current polygon is included to new points at each refining level and the basic points continue to remain or are thrown away across all resultant control polygons. the number of points placed from step 𝑘 to level 𝑘 + 1 between two successive points is termed also the scheme’s arity. if there are 2,3,4 ,…, n inserted then the subdivision schemes are known as binary, ternary,…, n-ary respectively. subdivision is also a technique for construction of smooth curves / surfaces, which first applied as an extension of splines to arbitrary topology control nets. simplicity and flexibility of the subdivision algorithms make them suitable for vol. 8, 2023 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v8i0.168 full length article mailto:kkashif_99@yahoo.com uzma et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 82-89 83 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 many interactive computer graphics applications. purity of the subdivision lies in the construction of smooth curves / surfaces. however, the uses such as special aspects of an objects, animations, and construction of composite geometric shapes which mostly like real world geometry. an important characteristic of these schemes is that these schemes have local effect and not global effect on curve by changing the control points. although the mathematical surface analysis resulting from subdivision algorithms is not always easy. subdivision scheme takes the attention of scholars and researchers in this field because of its simplicity and understanding. in the last two decades, many papers have been published. there will be a lot of new computer aided geometric design applications in the future. in computer aided geometric design, the most frequently used and attractive schemes are subdivision schemes that draw different types of objects in the form of curves and surfaces. iterative refinements use the subdivision schemes to build continuous curves/surfaces from the collection of specific control points. subdivision schemes have been valued in various areas, just as image processing, computer graphic and computer animation, due to their clarity and easily handling. dyn et al. [1] conditions are algebraic and easy to check by considering the subdivision scheme symbol, but also relate to the scheme’s parameterization. the convexity of four-point ternary interpolating subdivision scheme by cai [2] is analysed with a tension parameter. it is shown that the resulting curve is c2 for a certain range of the tension parameter. victoria et al. [3] shows that the subdivision curve converges and is continuous. in addition, starting with the initial polygon’s chord-length parameterization. we get a subdivision curve parameterized by an arc-length multiple. the weights of the masks of the scheme are defined by daniel and shummugaraj [4] in terms of some values of trigonometric b-spline functions. mustafa et al. [5] proposed and analysed the mpoint approximating subdivision scheme with single parameter where 𝑚 > 1. compared to the existing binary and ternary subdivision scheme, smoothness of schemes is higher. zheng and peng [6] presented an explicit formula that unifies the mask of ternary interpolation and approximation of subdivision scheme (2𝑛 − 1) points. augsdorfer et al. [7] proposed a different form of binary four-point scheme that is helpful in computer designing. deng and guozhao, [8] developed an in-centre subdivision scheme for curve interpolation. siddiqi and rehan [9] improved the binary 4point approximating subdivision scheme by introducing a global tension parameter. a new subdivision scheme for corner cutting was also proposed, which generates a limiting curve of c1 continuity. siddiqi and rehan [10] presented ternary three-point non-stationary approximating subdivision scheme that generates a limiting curve c2. tan et al. [11] proposed a new four-point shape preserving c3 subdivision technique. tan et al. [12] developed a non-stationary three-point binary approximating subdivision scheme that generates c3 smooth curves using the discrete control points. kim et al. [13] proposed a binary subdivision scheme with four points that generates a smooth c3-continuous limiting curve. with the help of local cubic polynomial fitting, floater [14] derived an approximation property of four-point interpolatory curve subdivision. uzma et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 82-89 84 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 2. stationary binary four-point subdivision technique kim et al. [13] introduced a binary subdivision technique with four points which creates a smooth c3-continuous limiting curve. given the set of control points 𝑞0 = {𝑞𝑖 0}𝑖∈𝑍 at step 0, the binary four-point subdivision scheme for the design of curves develops a new collection of control points {𝑞𝑖 𝑘+1}𝑖∈𝑍 at step 𝑘 + 1 using the following subdivision rules 𝑞2𝑖 𝑘+1 = −𝛽𝑞𝑖−2 𝑘 + 4𝛽𝑞𝑖−1 𝑘 + (1 − 6𝛽)𝑞𝑖 𝑘 + 4𝛽𝑞𝑖+1 𝑘 − 𝛽𝑞𝑖+2 𝑘 𝑞2𝑖+1 𝑘+1 = − 1 16 𝑞𝑖−1 𝑘 + 9 16 𝑞𝑖 𝑘 + 9 16 𝑞𝑖+1 𝑘 − 1 16 𝑞𝑖+2 𝑘 (1) where 𝑞0 = {𝑞𝑖 0}𝑖∈𝑍 is the collection of initial control points at step 0 and the sum of the mask of the scheme should be one as described in equation (1). they found that the scheme is c1-continuous when −0.12 < 𝛽 < 0.21 and the scheme is c2continuous and c3-continuous when −0.88 < 𝛽 < 0.13. 3. non-stationary binary fourpoint subdivision technique the refining rules of the binary non-stationary four points subdivision scheme is defined as 𝑞2𝑖 𝑘+1 = −𝛽0 𝑘 𝑞𝑖−2 𝑘 + 𝛽1 𝑘 𝑞𝑖−1 𝑘 + 𝛽2 𝑘 𝑞𝑖 𝑘 + 𝛽3 𝑘 𝑞𝑖+1 𝑘 − 𝛽4 𝑘 𝑞𝑖+2 𝑘 𝑞2𝑖+1 𝑘+1 = − 1 16 𝑞𝑖−1 𝑘 + 9 16 𝑞𝑖 𝑘 + 9 16 𝑞𝑖+1 𝑘 − 1 16 𝑞𝑖+2 𝑘 (2) where 𝑞𝑘 = {𝑞𝑖 𝑘 } 𝑖∈𝑍 is the collection of initial control point at any level ‘k’ and the mask of the scheme must satisfy the relationship 𝛽0 + 𝛽1 + 𝛽2 + 𝛽3 + 𝛽4 = 1. the binary non-stationary four-point subdivision scheme (2) is counter part of stationary scheme [13]. the mask of the proposed scheme is given by 𝛽0 𝑘 = 𝑔(𝛽𝑘+1) = 𝛽4 𝑘 , 𝛽1 𝑘 = 4𝑔(𝛽𝑘+1) = 𝛽3 𝑘 , 𝛽2 = 1 − 6𝑔(𝛽 𝑘+1); 𝑔(𝛽𝑘+1) = 1 2 [ (𝛽𝑘+1)2−1 (𝛽𝑘+1)2+60 ] (3) with 𝛽𝑘+1 = √𝛽𝑘 + 2, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝛽0 ∈ [−2, +∞). (4) in this way, the coefficients 𝛽𝑖 𝑘 at each different steps k can be calculated using the given formula and an initial parameter 𝛽0 ∈ [−2, +∞). starting with any 𝛽0 ≥ −2, we have 𝛽𝑘 + 2 ≥ 0, 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑘 ∈ 𝑍+, so 𝛽 𝑘+1 is constantly characterized. a wide range of definitions enables to achieve significant modification in the form of the smooth curves. remark 1. as the initial values of 𝛽0 extend in its definition range, the behaviour of the smooth curve develops significantly from the figure (1) and tends toward approximation the initial control polygon just as 𝛽0 → +∞. remark 2. equation (4), the sequence {𝛽𝑘 }𝑘∈𝑁 will be stationary, if we have 𝛽0 = 2 then 𝛽𝑘 = 2 , ∀ 𝑘 ∈ 𝑍+ . so that the non-stationary subdivision scheme is then retrograde to the stationary subdivision scheme. if 𝛽0 > 2 , then 𝛽𝑘 > 2 , the sequence {𝛽𝑘 }𝑘∈𝑁 will be decreases strictly that 𝛽𝑘 converges to 2 as the 𝑘 → ∞. if 𝛽0 < 2 , then 𝛽𝑘 < 2 , the sequence {𝛽𝑘 }𝑘∈𝑁 will be increases strictly and 𝛽𝑘 converges to 2 as the 𝑘 → ∞. therefore, in the definition domain of any 𝛽0 we always have lim 𝑘→+∞ 𝛽𝑘 = 2. 4. smoothness in this section, we will demonstrate that for the given initial discrete polygon, the subdivision scheme (3) gives a smooth c3 continuous curves for any selection of the parameter values 𝛽0 in its definition range. considering, dyn and levin’s well-known results [14], smoothness about non uzma et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 82-89 85 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 stationary scheme to its counterpart stationary scheme, asymptotically equivalent method has been used. theorem. a non-stationary subdivision scheme defined in equation (3), the masks are asymptotically equivalent to the stationary scheme (1). so the proposed scheme has c3continuous limit curves for the shape control parameter 𝛽0 ∈ [−2, +∞). proof. to check the smoothness of the proposed scheme c3-continuous, it is necessary to obtain the second divided difference mask. the mask of the scheme is 𝑚𝑘 = [−𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1), − 1 16 , 4𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1), 9 16 , 1 − 6𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1), 9 16 , 4𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1), − 1 16 , −𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1)] then it turns out its first divided difference masks are 𝑒(1) 𝑘 = 2 [−𝛽, (𝛽 − 1 16 ) , (3𝛽 + 1 16 ) , ( 1 2 − 3𝛽) , ( 1 2 − 3𝛽) , (3𝛽 + 1 16 ) , (𝛽 − 1 16 ) , −𝛽] then it turns out its 2nd divided difference masks are 𝑒(2) 𝑘 = 4 [−𝛽, (2𝛽 − 1 16 ) , (𝛽 + 1 8 ) , ( 3 8 − 4𝛽) , (𝛽 + 1 8 ) , (2𝛽 − 1 16 ) , −𝛽] then it turns out its 3rd divided difference masks are 𝑒(3) 𝑘 = 8 [−𝛽, (3𝛽 − 1 16 ) , (−2𝛽 + 3 16 ) , (−2𝛽 + 3 16 ) , (3𝛽 − 1 16 ) , −𝛽] the application of remark 2 now provides 𝑒(3) ∞ = lim 𝑘→+∞ 𝑒3 𝑘 = 8 [− 3 128 , 1 128 , 18 128 , 18 128 , 1 128 , − 3 128 ] this is only the coefficients of the stationary technique’s third divided differences with equation coefficients in (1). in this case, the stationary technique is c3-continuous, the technique associated with 𝑒3 ∞ will be c3 smooth. if it is as ∑ ‖𝑒(3) 𝑘 − 𝑒3 ∞‖ ∞ < +∞+∞𝑘=0 . (5) the two techniques are then equivalent asymptotically. and one can conclude this that the 𝑒3 ∞ of the technique is c3, since then 𝑒(3) 𝑘 − 𝑒3 ∞ = 8[−2𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) + 6 128 , −3 (−2𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) + 6 128 , 2(−2𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) + 6 128 )] ‖𝑒(3) 𝑘 − 𝑒3 ∞‖ ∞ = 8𝑚𝑎𝑥 {3 |−2𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) + 6 128 | , |−3| |−2𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) + 6 128 | , 2 |−2𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) + 6 128 |} = 24|−2𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) + 6 128 | = 48| 3 128 − 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1)| now we are proving the series smoothness ∑ | 3 128 − 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1)|+∞𝑘=0 (6) which depends on the 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) function. now, since 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) is expressed in terms of the 𝛽𝑘+1, the behaviour of 𝛽𝑘+1 varies in the interval [0, +∞). from now on 3 128 − 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) = 0  𝛽𝑘+1 = 2(i.e., 𝛽𝑘 = 2)). 3 128 − 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) > 0  𝛽𝑘+1 ∈ (−1, 2)(𝑖. 𝑒. , 𝛽0 ∈ [−2,2)). 3 128 − 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) < 0  𝛽𝑘+1 ∈ (2, +∞). uzma et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 82-89 86 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 now, we are talking about smoothness of (6) in the three cases. case 1: 𝜷𝟎 = 𝟐 (𝒊. 𝒆. , 𝜷𝒌+𝟏 = 𝟐) then ‖𝑒(3) 𝑘 − 𝑒3 ∞‖ ∞ = 0. smoothness of (6) follows. case 2: 𝜷𝟎 ∈ [−𝟐, 𝟐)(𝒊. 𝒆. , 𝜷𝒌+𝟏 ∈ [𝟎, 𝟐)). in this case ‖𝑒(3) 𝑘 − 𝑒3 ∞‖ ∞ = 48 [ 3 128 − 1 2 [ (𝛽𝑘+1)2−1 (𝛽𝑘+1)2+60 ]] thus ∑ ( 3 128 − 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1))+∞𝑘=0 = ∑ ( 3 128 −+∞𝑘=0 1 2 [ (𝛽𝑘+1)2−1 (𝛽𝑘+1)2+60 ]) < +∞. we use the ratio test to this end. since 3 128 − 𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) > 0 and the sequence {𝛽𝑘 }𝑘∈𝑁 is increases surely in this case, we got it 3 128 − 1 2 [ (𝛽𝑘+2)2 − 1 (𝛽𝑘+2)2 + 60 ] 3 128 − 1 2 [ (𝛽𝑘+1)2 − 1 (𝛽𝑘+1)2 + 60 ] < 1. the smoothness of (6) has therefore been proven. case 3: 𝜷𝟎 ∈ (𝟐, +∞)(𝒊. 𝒆. , 𝜷𝒌+𝟏 ∈ (𝟐, +∞)). in this case ‖𝑒(3) 𝑘 − 𝑒3 ∞‖ ∞ = 48 [ 1 2 { (𝛽𝑘+1)2 − 1 (𝛽𝑘+1)2 + 60 } − 3 128 ] thus ∑ (𝑔( 𝛽𝑘+1) − 3 128 ) +∞ 𝑘=0 = ∑ ( 1 2 { (𝛽𝑘+1)2 − 1 (𝛽𝑘+1)2 + 60 } − 3 128 ) +∞ 𝑘=0 < +∞. case 3.1 in this case, the sequence {𝛽𝑘 }𝑘∈𝑁 is reducing strictly. use ratio test to this end. the sequence {𝛽𝑘 }𝑘∈𝑁 reducing strictly as follows. 1 2 [ (𝛽𝑘+2)2 − 1 (𝛽𝑘+2)2 + 60 ] − 3 128 1 2 [ (𝛽𝑘+1)2 − 1 (𝛽𝑘+1)2 + 60 ] − 3 128 < 1 the smoothness of (6) has therefore been proven. 5. graphical representation we would like to give an example in this section to depict the benefit of the developed scheme (3). as discussed in section 2, generated curves appear to approximate the basic discrete control polygon while 𝛽0 → +∞. in figure 3.1, generating wide range of c3continuous limiting curves for different values of parameters. (a) 𝛽0 = −2 (b) 𝛽0 = −1, (c) 𝛽0 = 0, (d) 𝛽0 = 1, (e) 𝛽0 = 5, (f) 𝛽0 = 10, (g) 𝛽0 = 25, (h) 𝛽0 = 50, (i) 𝛽0 = 100. uzma et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 82-89 87 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 uzma et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 82-89 88 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 figure 1. generating wide range of c3-continuous limiting curves using the proposed scheme (3) for different values of parameter. (a) 𝛽0 = −2, (b) 𝛽0 = −1 , (c) 𝛽0 = 0 , (d) 𝛽0 = 1 , (e) 𝛽0 = 5 , (f) 𝛽0 = 10 , (g) 𝛽0 = 25, (h) 𝛽0 = 50, (i) 𝛽0 = 100. conclusion a nonstationary binary four-point approximating subdivision scheme with the shape control parameter has been developed that generates the smooth resulting curve of c3 continuous for the wider range of shape control parameter 𝛽0 ∈ [−2, +∞). declarations funding: no funding was received to conduct this study. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no conflict of interest or competing interest. authors’ contributions: the authors uzma mukhtar and kashif rehan have equally contributed to this study in all stages from conceptualization to the write up of the final draft. references [1] n. dyn, k. hormann, m. a. sabin and z. shen, polynomial reproduction by symmetric subdivision schemes, journal of approximation theory. 155 (2008) 28-42. [2] z. cai, convexity preservation of the interpolating four-point c2 ternary stationary subdivision scheme, comput. aided geom. des. 26 (2009) 560-565. [3] h. m. victoria, e. s. jorge, m. s. silvio and i. ioannis, curve subdivision with arc-length control, computing. 86 (2009) 151-169. [4] s. daniel and p. shummugaraj, an approximating non-stationary subdivision scheme, comput. aided geom. des. 26 (2009) 810-821. [5] g. mustafa, f. khan and a. ghaffar, the m-point approximating subdivision scheme, lobachevskii journal of mathematics. 30 (2009) 138-145. [6] h. zheng, m. hu, and g. peng, constructing (2n-1)point ternary interpolator subdivision schemes by using variation of constants, in proceedings of the international conference on computational intelligence and software engineering wuhan, china, (2009). [7] u. h. augsdorfer, n. a. dodgson and m. a. sabin, variations on the four-point subdivision scheme, comput. aided geom. des. 27 (2010) 78-95. [8] c. deng and g. wang, incenter subdivision scheme for curve interpolation, comput. aided geom. des. 27 (2010) 48-59. [9] s. s. siddiqi and k. rehan, improved binary four point subdivision scheme and new corner cutting scheme, comput. math. appl. 59 (2010) 2647-2657. [10] s. s. siddiqi and k. rehan, a ternary three point scheme for curve designing, int. j. comput. math. 87 (2010) 1709-1715. [11] j. q. tan, x. l. zhuang and l. zhang, a new four point shape-preserving c3 subdivision scheme, comput. aided geom. des. 31 (2014) 57-62. [12] j. tan, j. sun and g. tong, a non-stationary binary three-point approximating subdivision scheme, appl. math. comput. 276 (2016) 37-43. [13] o. h. kim, y. r. kim, j. l. yeon and j . yoon, quasiinterpolatory refineable function and construction of uzma et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 82-89 89 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 biorthogonal wavelet system, adv. comput. math. 33 (2010) 255-283. [14] m. s. floater, the approximation order of fourpoint interpolatory curve subdivision, j. comput. appl. math. 236 (2011) 476-481. [15] n. dyn, and d. levin, analysis of asymptotically equivalent binary subdivision schemes, math. anal. appl. 193 (1995) 594-621. received: 04 october 2022. revised/accepted: 20 february 2023. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 21 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 journal of mountain area research evaluation of gin waste as a growing substrate, enriched with different volume percentage of the wheat bran for cultivation of oyster mushroom (pleurotus ostreatus) m. m. akhtar1, *, m. m. jahangir2, m. zeeshan1, m. abdullah1 1. world wide fund for nature pakistan (wwf-pakistan) 2. institute of horticultural sciences, university of agriculture faisalabad, pakistan abstract pleurotusostreatus mushroom was cultivated on cotton gin waste amended with wheat bran in order to judge its growth potential. two substrates (cotton gin waste and wheat bran) were employed alone and with different combinations. experiment consisted of four treatments t0 (100 % cotton gin waste), t1(97% cotton gin waste + 3% wheat bran), t2(94% cotton gin waste + 6% wheat bran) and t3(91% cotton gin waste + 9% wheat bran). data about time needed for commencement of spawn run, time needed for completion of mycelial growth, time needed for initiation of pinheads, time needed for harvesting of 1st, 2nd and 3rd flush, fresh weight of 1st, 2nd and 3rd flush harvested, total yield, ph of mushroom, total soluble solids of mushroom, acidity and ascorbic acid contents, reducing sugars, non-reducing sugars and total sugars of mushroom, total nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents of mushroom was recorded. t0 (100 % cotton gin waste) performed better as compared to other treatments. keywords: cotton gin waste, wheat bran, biochemical, yield, mushroom growth *corresponding author: (email: makhtar@wwf.org.pk) 1. introduction oyster mushroom pleurotusostreatus is a famous mushroom and is an important part of daily diet of the people in various countries of the world like; china, korea and japan. this mushroom grows wildly in forests of hilly areas and flourishes better at temperature range of 22-28°c and atmospheric humidity more than 85%. in pakistan, oyster mushroom grows naturally on trunk of trees and stumps in northern areas, azad jamu and kashmir [1]. oyster mushroom is popular enriched source of proteins, vitamins such as b, d, e, and k (fats (0.5-3.5%) and various health beneficial [2]. in pakistan production of oyster mushroom is getting popularity due to its high economic returns. globally farmers cultivate oyster mushroom on different agricultural waste materials such as wheat straw, rice straw, sorghum straw, rice husk, alang-alang grass, artichoke waste, azolla, banana leaves, banana pseudostems, bean pods, bean straw, cactus, agave and yucca, cardamon pulp, cinnamon leaves, peels of citrus fruit, coconut husks, coconut coir and coconut pith, coffee parchment, coffee sawdust corn fiber, crushed corncobs, hammer milled corn vol. 1, 2016 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article mailto:makhtar@wwf.org.pk akhter et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 21-27 22 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 cob, corn stapes, corncobs, corn leaves, corn stover, corn stalks, lemon grass leaves, oat straw, ragi straw, sesame stems, sugarcane bagasse sunflower husks, sunflower peels, chopped heads and stipes of sunflower and tea leaves etc. [3]. the cotton gin waste is normally composed of leaves, sticks, soil particles, burs, other plant materials, cotton lint and mote etc. one of the biggest problems faced by the cotton ginning industry in pakistan and rest of the world is cotton gin waste management. it has been estimated that ginning one bale (227 kg) of spindle harvested seed cotton lint approximately contributes between 37 and 147 kg of waste [4]. as reported by the pakistan cotton ginners association (pcga), total cotton production in pakistan in 2012-13 stood at 12.915 million bales, approximately 12.81% or 1.898 million bales less than previous year. considering that on the average annually about 12 million bales are ginned in pakistan, the amount of cotton gin waste produced in pakistan could be approximately close to 3.5 billion pounds per year. disposal of such huge amount of cotton gin waste is an alarming issue as it may cause serious threats to the environment. at the moment, global cotton industry is trying to reduce their cotton gin waste by alternative options for handling this as a by-product, which has potential as a multiuse product. use of cotton gin waste as a growing media for oyster mushroom cultivation could be a viable option in this regard. as growing of oyster mushroom on cotton gin waste can be helpful in reducing environmental pollution caused by cotton gin waste. the objective of this study was to investigate the possibility of oyster mushroom production on cotton waste and wheat bran and their different combinations. 2. methodology present research work was accomplished in mushroom farm of a village in basti misson bahawalpur, in a project entitled “farmers’ capacity building for mushroom growing using cotton gin waste as growing substrate” under wwf-pakistan’s spring project “sustainable cotton production in pakistan’s cotton ginning smes” funded by european union. while all the biochemical analysis was performed at institute of horticultural sciences, university of agriculture, faisalabad during 2013-2014 for evaluation of growth and yield response of oyster mushroom specie viz. pleurotusostreatus by using cotton gin waste mixed with wheat bran at different ratios. cotton waste was used as substrate in this research work. cotton gin waste was soaked in water. two percent lime was mixed in cotton gin waste to maintain its ph. after soaking, the substrate was piled up and covered with polythene sheet. cotton gin waste was allowed to ferment for 4 days. cotton gin waste was then spread on floor for evaporation of excess water. latter on wheat bran was added @ 3, 6 and 9% respectively. substrate was filled in polypropylene bags of size (7×9 inch) and bags mouths were loosely tied with rubber bands. the bags were pasteurized by local method in an ordinary drum for two hours. when bags were pasteurized, they took one day for cooling. after cooling the bags were inoculated with spawn at the rate of 10gm per bag. during akhter et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 21-27 23 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 spawn running the temperature in growth room was controlled between 22-26°c for spawn running. the required humidity was maintained between 70-80% by sprinkling water on the floor several times a day. after completion of spawn running the temperature of growing room was maintained between 16-250°c. fructification or fruit body was started as soon as the substrate was fully impregnated with mycelial growth. the humidity of the growing room was maintained between 80-90% by sprinkling water on floor and moisture requirements of the bags was accomplished by sprinkling water on them thrice a day using sprinkler. experiment was conducted under complete randomized design and every treatment was replicated five times. t0= cotton waste (100%) control t1=cotton waste (97%) + wheat bran (3%) t2= cotton waste (94%) + wheat bran (6%) t3= cotton waste (91%) + wheat bran (9%) data regarding different parameters like time taken for commencement of spawn run (days), time taken for completion of mycelial growth (days), time taken for initiation of pinhead formation (days), number of days for completion of 1st flush (days), number of days for completion of 2nd flush (days), number of days for completion of 3rd flush (days), fresh weight of 1st flush (g), fresh weight of 2nd flush (g), fresh weight of 3rd flush (g), total yield (g), ph, total soluble solids (°brix), acidity (%) [5], ascorbic acid (mg/100ml) [6], reducing sugars, nonreducing sugars, total sugars [5], notrogen contents of mushrooms, phosphorus contents of mushrooms and potassium contents of mushrooms [7] was commemorated. 2.1 statistical analysis in this experiment completely randomized design (crd) was used. the data collected sequentially was examined statistically using lsd test at 5% probability level [8]. 3. results and discussion data regarding effect of cotton gin waste, wheat bran and their different amendments on growth of oyster mushroom (pleurotusostreatus) is shown in table 1. the minimum time for commencement of spawn run was taken by t0(1.4 days) while t3 took maximum time (2.4 days) for commencement of spawn run followed by t2 and t1 respectively. likewise, time taken for completion of mycelial growth was commemorated in days. treatments showed significant results regarding completion of mycelial growth. the treatment t0 performed well and took minimum time (22 days), followed by t1(30.2 days), t2 (42.4 days) and t3 (47 days) respectively for completion of mycelial growth. time taken for initiation of pinhead formation was also commemorated in days. t0 took minimum time (26.8 days) for initiation of pinheads followed by t1(34.8 days),t2(47 days)and t3(52 days) respectively as shown in table 1. an experiment done by khan et al. [9] support our work as they reported better performance of pleurotus species on cotton waste as compared to different other mushroom growth media. the fluctuation in above cited parameters may be ascribed to fluctuation in lignocellulosic and chemical composition of growing substrates [10]. akhter et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 21-27 24 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 table 1. effect of substrate on time taken for completion of mycelia growth of oyster mushroom (pleurotusostreatus). treatments time taken for commencement of spawn run (days) time taken for completion of mycelial growth (days) time taken for initiation of pin head formation(da ys) t0 1.4000 c 22.000d 26.800 d t1 1.8000 bc 30.200c 34.800 c t2 2.000 ab 42.400b 47.000 b t3 2.4000 a 47.000a 52.000 a lsd value 0.5996 2.5963 2.4540 figures not sharing the same letters differ significantly at p = 0.05. data concerning time taken for completion of 1stflush, time taken for completion of 2ndflush and time taken for completion of 3rdflush is shown in table2. t0 (31.2 days) took minimum time for completion of 1stflush followed by t1(42.2 days),t2(43.2 days), and t3(55.8 days) respectively. likewise, t0 (39.2 days) took minimum time for completion of 2ndflush followed by t1(49.2 days),t2(51.4 days)and t3(62.8 days) respectively. likewise, t0 (46.8 days) took minimum time for completion of 3rdflush followed by t1(56.2 days),t2(57.2 days)and t3(69.8 days) respectively. similar behavior of mushroom harvesting pattern was reported by dundar and yildiz [11]. table 2. effect of substrate on number of days for completion of flush of oyster mushroom (pleurotusostreatus). treatments number of days for completion of 1st flush number of days for completion of 2nd flush number of days for completion of 3rd flush t0 31.200 c 39.200 c 46.800c t1 42.200 b 49.200 b 56.200b t2 43.200 b 51.400 b 57.200b t3 55.800 a 62.800 a 69.800a lsd value 3.8974 3.8743 4.0667 figures not sharing the same letters differ significantly at p = 0.05. data regarding fresh weight of 1stflush (g), fresh weight of 2ndflush (g), fresh weight of 3rdflush (g) and total yield (g) is shown in table 3. in case of fresh weight of 1stflush harvested t0 yielded best (76.2 g) followed by t1(63.4 g),t2(50 g) andt3(42.2 g) respectively. while, in case of fresh weight of 2ndflush harvested t0 yielded best (48.6 g) followed by t1(39.75 g),t2(31.20 g)and t3(22.8 g) respectively. similarly, in case of fresh weight of 3rdflush harvested t0 yielded best (35.99 g) followed by t1(28.31 g),t2(20.95 g)and t3(15.76 g) respectively. on the other hand, in case of total yield t0 performed best (159.8 g) followed by t1(131.39 g),t2(107.86 g)and t3(80.76 g) respectively. with the passage of time gradual decrease in mushroom yield was noticed from 1st flush to 3rd flush which might be ascribed to gradual reduction in nitrogen contents of substrates [12]. akhter et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 21-27 25 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 table 3. effect of substrate on yield parameters of oyster mushroom (pleurotusostreatus). treatments fresh weight of 1st flush (g) fresh weight of 2nd flush(g) fresh weight of 3rd flush(g) total yield (g) t0 76.200 a 48.600 a 35.998 a 159.80 a t1 63.400 a 39.756 ab 28.31b 131.39 b t2 50.000 b 31.204 bc 20.952c 107.86 c t3 42.200 b 22.800 c 15.76d 80.76 d lsd value 13.046 10.975 4.0811 16.991 figures not sharing the same letters differ significantly at p = 0.05. data regarding ph, total soluble solids (0brix), acidity of mushroom (%) and ascorbic acid contents of mushroom (mg/100ml) is shown in table 4. highest ph value was observed in case of t3 (7.96) followed by t2(7.84),t1 (7.7)and t0(7.54) respectively. in case of total soluble solids of mushroom maximum total soluble solids were observed in case of t0 (3.6) followed byt1 (3.3) and t2 (3.19) and t3(3.02) respectively. in case of acidity of mushroom maximum acidity of mushroom was observed in case of t0 (0.042) followed by t1(0.036), t2(0.034) and t3(0.032) respectively. in case of ascorbic acid contents of mushroom, maximum ascorbic acid contents were observed in case of t0 (10.61 mg/100ml) followed by t1(8.2 mg/100ml), t2 (7.4 mg/100ml) and t3 (7.0 mg/100ml) respectively. mycelial growth is maximum at high ph while it is minimum at low ph [13]. table 4. ph of substrate their amendments on biochemical attributes of oyster mushroom (pleurotusostreatus). treatments ph total soluble solids tss (°brix), acidity (%) ascorbic acid (mg/100ml) t0 7.542 b 3.6000 a 0.0429a 10.614 a t1 7.7000 ab 3.3000 a 0.0365ab 8.200 a t2 7.8400 ab 3.1980 a 0.0346ab 7.400 a t3 7.9600 a 3.0200 a 0.0322a 7.000 a lsd value 0.3082 0.6475 8.394 3.6749 figures not sharing the same letters differ significantly at p = 0.05. data regarding reducing sugars contents of mushroom (%), non-reducing sugars of mushroom (%) and total sugar contents of mushroom (%) is shown in table 5. in case of reducing sugars contents of mushroom (%), maximum reducing sugars contents were observed in case of t0 (3.44%) followed by t1(3.35%), t2(3.21%) and t3(3.15%) respectively. similarly, in case of non-reducing sugars contents of mushroom (%), maximum non reducing sugars contents were observed in case of t0 (6.99%) followed by t1(6.18%), t2(6.03%) and t3(5.96%) respectively. similarly, in case of total sugars contents of mushroom (%), maximum total sugars contents were observed in case of t1 (10.51%) followed by t0(10.49%), t2(9.97%) and t3(9.34%) akhter et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 21-27 26 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 respectively. maximum non reducing sugars, reducing sugars in mushroom were observed which grow on substrate having cotton wastes only [13]. table 5. effect of substrate and their amendments on reducing sugars, non-reducing sugars and total sugars of oyster mushroom (pleurotusostreatus). treatments reducing sugars(%) non reducing sugars (%) total sugars (%) t0 3.4440 a 6.9980 a 10.492 a t1 3.3580 ab 6.1840 b 10.518 a t2 3.2180 ab 6.0340 b 9.9780 ab t3 3.1520 b 5.9680 b 9.3460 b lsd value 0.2298 0.6131 0.8380 figures not sharing the same letters differ significantly at p = 0.05. data about nitrogen contents of mushroom (%), phosphorus contents of mushroom (%) and potassium contents of mushroom (%) is shown in table 6. in case of nitrogen contents of mushroom (%), maximum nitrogen contents were observed in case of t0 (0.71 %) followed by t1(0.69%), t2(0.60%) and t3(0.50%) respectively. similarly, in case of phosphorus contents of mushroom (%), maximum phosphorus contents were observed in case of t0 (0.45 %) followed by t1(0.43%), t2(0.31%) and t3(0.24%) respectively. likewise, in case of potassium contents of mushroom maximum potassium contents were observed in case of t0 (0.76 %) followed by t1(0.70%), t2 (0.57 %) and t3(0.56%) respectively. it is reported that phosphorus, potassium and sodium are vital minerals of mushrooms [14]. table 6. effect of substrate and their amendments on nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents of oyster mushroom (pleurotusostreatus). treatments mushroom nitrogen contents (%) mushroom phosphorus contents (%) mushroom potassium contents (%) t0 0.7140 a 0.4540 a 0.7660 a t1 0.6900 a 0.4360 a 0.7080 a t2 0.6000 b 0.3140 b 0.5780 b t3 0.5000 c 0.2460 c 0.5600 b lsd value 0.0864 0.0425 0.1076 figures not sharing the same letters differ significantly at p = 0.05. 4. conclusion it can be concluded from the present research that t0, which is 100% cotton gin waste used as growing substrate, performed best as compared to other treatment. so, cotton gin waste can be successfully used for cultivation of high quality oyster mushroom (pleurotusostreatus). references [1] z. sher, f. hussain and l. badshah. micromineral contents in eight forage shrubs at three phenologicaltages in a pakistan’s rangeland. african journal of plant science, 5 (2011) 557564 [2] m. bozena, s. katarzyna, l. mciej, o. wlodzenriers, z. magdalena, r. jack. edible akhter et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 21-27 27 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 mushrooms in prophylaxis and treatment of human diseases. j. mir. 4 (2013)170-183 [3] m. s. sangwan and l. c. saini. cultivation of pleurotussajorcaju (fr.) singer on agro-industrial wastes. mushroom res. 4 (1995) 33–34. [4] j. a. thomasson, a review of cotton gin trash disposal and utilization. beltwide cotton conferences: (1990)689-705. [5] w. hortwitz, official and tentative methods of analysis, 9(1960) 320–41. association of the official agriculture chemist. washington, d.c. [6] j. a. ruck, chemical methods for analysis of fruits and vegetables. research station summerland, canada department of agriculture, (1969) publication no:1154 [7] d. h. chapman and f. parker, determination of npk. in: methods of analysis for soils, plants and water. 1st ed. california university, agriculture division, usa. (1961) 150-179. [8] r.g.d. steel, j. h. torrie and d.a. dickey. 1997. principles and procedures of statistics: a biometrical approach. 3rd ed. mcgraw hill book co., new york. [9] n. a. khan, m. i. haq and m. a. khan. growth comparison of local and exotic strains of oyster mushrooms on different agricultural wastes. pak. j. phytopathol. 21 (2009) 139-143. [10] e. a. adebay and d. martinezcarrera. oyster mushrooms (pleurotus)are useful for utilizing lignocellulosic biomass. african journal of biotechnology, 14 (2015) 52-67 [11] a. dundar and a. yildiz. a comparative study on pleurotusostreatus (jacq.) p. kumm. cultivated on different agricultural lignocellulosic wastes. turk. j. biol., 33 (2009) 171-179. [12] m. m. jahangir, g. samin, n. a. khan, a. rehman, z. aslam, m. amjad, k. ziaf, r.w.k. qadri, i. khan and m. atiq. performance of oyster mushroom (pleurotus) grown on cotton waste and sorghum straw based growing substrate. pak. j. phytopathol. 27 (2015) 77-81. [13] h. sardar, m. a. ali, c. m. ayyub, and r. ahmad. effect of different culture media, temperature and ph level on the growth of wild and exotic pleurotus species. pak. j. phytophathol. 25 (2015) 139-145. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 13 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 journal of mountain area research evaluating the effect of industrial effluents on chemical composition of soil in village dingi, district haripur k. asghar1,*, a. hussain2, z. malik1, a. asghar1 and a. bibi1 1. department of environmental sciences, university of haripur, pakistan 2. forestry and wildlife management, university of haripur, haripur, pakistan abstract the present report is an outcome of research work conducted in dingi village, district haripur in 2012. the research aimed to assess and analyze the effects of industrial effluents on the soil fertility of the village, investigate contributing factors responsible for soil pollution and underlying causes creating the problems. data analysis revealed that area had problems pertaining to water and soil quality. the key factors affecting soil fertility were the careless discharge of the untreated industrial effluents from hattar industrial estate (hie) into the natural stream passing through village. the results were compared with the soil standards set by the world wide fund for nature (wwf) and european committee commission (ecc) and all of these were exceeding the permissible limits and affecting the soil fertility. the soils were found not fit for agriculture. the investigation highlighted the need to take some effective steps to manage the monitoring program set for checking of industries by the government according to set rules and regulation. key words: industrial effluents, soil fertility, heavy metals, soil ph, electrical conductivity, polluted water. *corresponding author: (email: abassi.teej@yahoo.com) 1. introduction soil is composed of weathered parent rocks and fossils of many living and non living organisms. it is the upper most layer of earth crust [1]. the physical, chemical, and biological parameters like ph and susceptibility can be checked on the basis of the constituents of the original parent rock. all of the three components are interlinked like if any plants residues are added to soil then it will affect the water and nutrient holding capacity of soil which will in turn effect the chemical environment of microorganisms [2]. effluent is defined by the united states environmental protection agency as “wastewater treated or untreated that flows out of a treatment plant, sewer, or industrial outfall. generally refers to wastes discharged into surface waters”. effluents in the artificial sense are in general considered to be water pollution, such as the outflow from a sewage treatment facility or the wastewater discharge from industrial facilities [3]. most of the land of district haripur is used for agricultural purposes. being hattar industrial estate in haripur and also due to high vol. 1, 2016 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article asghar, k. et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 13-20 14 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 population of haripur, there is a lot of pollution. waste produced by such a high population and the industrial estate is damped into open fields. dingi is the village which is adjacent to hie, the larger industries of hie discharge their effluent into the main stream passing through dingi. due to this the soil fertility is affecting. so, it must be studied to lower the effects of industrial effluents by suggesting some better ways. for this problem the null hypothesis given that industrial effluents have no effect on composition of soil while alternative hypothesis given is that the industrial effluents coming from different industries are effecting the composition of soil. contamination of soil with pig iron slag caused drastic reduction in microbial population [4]. ‘soil fertility’ is the important quality of soil which sustains plants and helps them to grow properly [5]. agricultural land is very fastly decreasing due to increased urbanization and land use for industries. proper and managed use of available agriculture land is the easy way to overcome the deficiency of land [6]. due to different anthropogenic activities like industrialization, agricultural activities and sewage disposal, many toxic and radionuclide metals are increasing in the environment [7]. the release of leather industry effluents into the agricultural fields causes indicative changes in nutrient cycling and organic matter processing [8]. soil being an important system of terrestrial ecosystem has direct effect of pollutants on minerals, organic matter and microbial community [9]. pollution is increasing due to increased urbanization and industrialization and population. as common practice to damp industrial effluents and wastes is to dispose off them in open fields or water and it is contaminating the soil and ground water as well [10]. industrialization comes with its effects on life if left with untreated discharge leading to water, soil and sediment pollution [11]. water is polluted not only by industries but also by households. industrial pollution has been and continues to be, a major factor causing the degradation of the environment around us, affecting the water we use, the air we breathe and the soil we live on. but of these, pollution of water is arguably the most serious threat to current human welfare [12]. by conducting this research, it can be found /explored that either the industrial effluents have negative or positive effects on soil fertility. to enlist the different effluents being disposed off into the main stream. to study the effect of polluted water on the soil fertility and to study the status of concentration of heavy metals in the soil. 2. methodology 2.1 field survey field survey was conducted for selection of samples, sites and for selection of various locations to identify the source and extent of pollutions. samples of water were collected in august 2012 from different sites of study area. in total eight samples were taken from representative sites. six soil samples were collected three from each of the two fields. one field was near from the main stream that marked polluted and other agriculture field marked as non-polluted lied at distance of 300 m from the stream. all the data gathered were subjected to the statistical analysis. 2.2 water sampling asghar, k. et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 13-20 15 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 a reconnaissance survey was undertaken in may 2012 to assess the bio-physical characteristics of the area and to demark it permanent features for site location of sampling points. samples of water were collected from different sites of study area. in total eight samples were taken from representative sites. first sample a1 was taken from the main stream passing through village and receiving industrial effluents from neighboring industrial estate hattar. a2 taken from the same stream at the distance of 100 m away from a1. similarly, b marked samples taken from the home well dug in the nearby houses. b1 is the sample taken from well at the distance of 150 m from one side of main stream and b2 is the sample taken from 100 m away from b1. c2 is taken at the distance of 150 m from other side of main stream and c2 is taken at the distance of 100 m from c3. c1 is taken from tube well at distance of 300 m from main stream. all samples were collected in clean dry plastic bottles of 1 litre capacity. the bottles and their caps were thoroughly washed with detergent and tap water to ensure the removal of all organic and inorganic chemicals if present. caps of bottles were tightly closed. each bottle was marked and labelled in which sample number, date, time and site of collection were included. table 1: loci of water samples in dingi village sr.no sample.no location description 1 a1 natural stream receiving effluent of different industries. 2 a2 natural stream receiving effluents of industries from100 m distance. 3 b1 sample from home well 150 m distance from one side of natural stream. 4 b2 sample from home well 100 m distance from b1. 5 b3 sample from home well 100 m distance from b2. 6 c1 sample from tube well 300 m distance from main stream. 7 c2 sample from home well 150 m distance from other side of main stream. 8 c3 sample from home well 100 m distance from c2. 2.3 laboratory work the analytical work was done in the laboratory by using the standard methods for the examination of wastewater for various parameters. the physical parameters are temperature, ph, conductivity, dissolved solid, total suspended solids, and turbidity. chemical analyses were comparing with previous studies to monitor the trend. atomic absorption spectrometer was used to monitor the concentration of heavy metals in water and soil. various methods were employed and a comparative record regarding their efficiencies was maintained. the procedure for determining the ph of water samples was use of a ph meter. the temperature was determined by the help of asghar, k. et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 13-20 16 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 mercury thermometer. electrical conductivity (ec) values of samples were measured with ec metered ec meter was washed with distilled water. the color of each sample was matched with the standards and to measure turbidity meter was calibrated according by. the soil samples were air dried, crushed and sieved via 2mm sieve, all preservation standards were followed. procedure for determining the ph of soil samples was through use of a ph meter. the temperature was determined on the spot by the help of mercury thermometer. electrical conductivity (ec) values of the soil samples were measured with ec meter. heavy metals were detected by use of atomic spectrometer. all the data gathered were subjected to the statistical analysis. the mean values of the readings are marked to show the significance of the treatments. 2.4 statistical analysis all the data gathered were subjected to the statistical analysis. the mean values of the readings are marked to show the significance of the treatments. these values have been depicted in tabular forms. to check the significance of the results got by the laboratory tests standard deviation method has been applied. these results are shown in tables no. 3 and 4. 3. results and discussion sampling and analysis of industrial effluents was carried out to identify the pollutants being discharged by industries and evaluate their impacts on soil. 3.1 effluents being discharged into the main stream haripur is highly industrialized area of hazara. various effluents discharged by hie industries are shown in table 2. table 2: pollutants released in effluents of different industries in hie, haripur. s.n o. industries effluent composition formulae of composition 1 chemical phenol minerals acids 2,4,6trinitrophenol (t np) 2 fertilizers phosphates h3po4, n2h4o3 etc. 3 food processing starch (c6 h12 o6)n 4 soft drinks citric acid c6h8o7 5 petrochemica l hydrocarbo ns c3h8, c3h6 6 diaries sugar c2h6o2 7 galvanizing zinc zn 8 paint lead, paper pb, mixture of cellulose 9 wood processing zinc, sugar, sulphides zn, c2h6o2, h2s 10 textiles mineral acid, fats, oil, hcl, (c3h5(oh)3) 11 laundries alkalinity fats, oils, greases free chlorine -- 12 electronics zinc, iron, mercury, lead zn, fe, hg, pb 13 glass silicon si 14 steel iron, copper fe, cu 15 plastic pvc, hydrocarbo ns c2h3cl, c3h6 asghar, k. et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 13-20 17 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 16 match sulphur, wood residue s, cellulose etc. 17 drugs and pharmaceuti cal a lot of different chemicals -- it showed that some of the industries like galvanizing, wood processing, and electronics have same composition of the effluents i.e. zn, fe, hg, pb. oil seeds crops are used to make ghee and vegetable cooking oils in ghee industries. different oil seeds like cotton, soybeans, sunflower and palm oils are either crushed or chemically extracted. the pollutants which are released in this process are suspended solids greasy material, nickel (ni), resultant high ph, hydrogen sulphide (hs), copper (cu) and chromium (cr). the textile industries carryout spinning, weaving, bleaching and dying. during textile processing different chemicals used are enzymes, detergents, dyes, acids, and many other salts. the effluents from these industries contain suspended salts, chlorides (nacl), unused organic / non-organic dyes, heavy metals i.e. pb, zn, ar, cd etc. these industries, although developed with a proper planning are discharging their effluents in the nearby natural drains. the farmers in the vicinity are using these effluents for growing vegetables and cereal crops due to shortage of water. 3.2 analysis of polluted water from main stream industrial effluents are the main source of surface and ground water pollution. to evaluate the pollution contents, eight samples from different sites of dingi as described in methodology were analyzed for various physical and chemical parameters such as temperature, ph, electrical conductivity (ec), turbidity and heavy metals. 3.2.1 ph in the present study, samples a1 and a2 are taken from main stream and their ph values are 6.4 and 6.3 respectively. while samples b1, b2, b3, c1, c2 and c3 are collected from different home wells and tube wells near the main stream and their values are 7.8, 7.8, 7.4, 6.2, 6.6 and 6.9 respectively. ph values of all samples fell between 6.2 to7.8 and within the permissible limit prescribed by national environmental quality standards (neqs,1997) and world health organization (who,1996) for drinking water. higher ph values (7.8) recorded near mainstream and tube well was due to higher effluent load and high fertilizer contents used. 3.2.2 temperature temperature of the water samples ranged from 4 to 6.5 oc as given in (table 2). the lowest temperature (4 °c) was recorded in samples b1, b2, b3 and c3 and the highest temperature was that of sample c1 that is from tube well near to main stream. all the values were within the permissible limits of usepa and who for drinking water standard (appendix b). the quality of underground water depends on the type of surface because every surface has its own temperature which impacts the water temperature. as the samples were collected in summer season and in summer the temperature of groundwater is always low. asghar, k. et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 13-20 18 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 3.2.3 turbidity turbidity expresses the optical property that causes light scattered and absorbed by water. turbidity in water caused by suspended material such as silt, clay soluble colour organic compounds, and micro organisms and other finely divided organic inorganic matter. turbidity is bad for water and unfit for human consumption. the process of coagulation and sedimentation can remove particles producing turbidity. the range of turbidity values found in the samples is from 6.5 ntu (nephlometric turbidity unit) to 5 ntu. the high value of turbidity is recorded in the sample a1 and the lower value is recorded in samples b1, b2, b3 and c3. the high value of turbidity is due to the industrial effluents and the other wastes disposed into the main stream excess amount of turbidity damage the soil fertility. 3.2.4 electric conductivity higher value of conductivity shows that the total dissolve solids are more in number. its impact on soil is very toxic. no ec values were recorded in analysis in the samples of water collected from research area. it might be due to some chemicals that are coming from the industries and lower the ec. 3.3 analysis of soil samples from study area samples of soil collected from the study site were analyzed in the laboratory and the physical parameters were studied. the results obtained after analysis are given below in the table no. 4 and also discussed. 3.3.1 soil ph every soil has its own buffering capacity. change in ph value affects the plant nutrients and the level of other elements that may be toxic to higher plants and microorganisms. the higher ph generally reduces the availability of materials of materials making soils nutrient deficient but protecting them from metal toxicity. the value of polluted soil ph is 10.11 and non-polluted is 8. it might be due to heavy metals from the industries and the fertilizers used in the agricultural lands. 3.3.2 soil electric conductivity the results depicted that the value of ec for polluted soil is 3.0 dsm-1 and for nonpolluted soil is 2.9 dsm-1.while soil conductivity values 0.6-0.9 are considered fit for cropping. higher conductivity value of soil is not suitable for cropping [13]. both the locality from where the soil samples were taken might be regarded as culturally waste. 3.4 soil heavy metals 3.4.1 zinc (zn) the highest concentration of zn in polluted soil is 3.23 ppm and in non-polluted is 2.5 ppm. zn is a component of auxin, a hormone regulating plant growth, so insufficient quantity in the plant can lead to stunted growth. hence the above amounts of zinc were problematic for soil and plants. the high concentration is due the heavy concentration of zn coming from the batteries and other electronics industries in their effluents. 3.4.2 cadmium (cd) the cd cannot be detected in both samples of soil. recent investigation proved that cadmium accumulation with high immobilization was greater in root than shoots to assess exotoxicity in cadmium amended soil [14]. asghar, k. et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 13-20 19 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 3.4.3 iron (fe) the value of iron in polluted soil is 1.5 ppm and for non-polluted soil is 2.3 ppm. these values of iron found in soil are under permissible limit which is 50.0ppm neqs set by epa. the high value of iron recorded is due to the industrial effluent from the steel industries and some other units producing fe, because there are many units operating in hie are producing high content of iron in their effluents. 3.4.4 arsenic (as) arsenic is a metal like substance found in small amounts in nature. drinking water containing high level of arsenic may cause health problem. the highest value of as found in polluted soil is 0.8 and for non-polluted soil is 0.5. the concentration of as found in polluted soil is exceeding the permissible layer and it is causing problems. 3.4.5 copper (cu) the amount of cu available to plants varies widely by soils. available cu can vary from 1 to 200 ppm (parts per million) in both mineral and organic soils as a function of soil ph and soil texture [15]. in the samples analyzed the concentration of cu detected in the polluted soil is 0.2 while in non-polluted soil is 0.5. it might be due the organic nature of soil. stunted growth and death of the terminal leaf buds can be associated with cu deficiency, since formation and chemical composition of cell walls can be affected. other symptoms sometimes observed are white leaf tips and narrowed, twisted leaves. from the survey, results have shown that most of the people of dingi village are badly affecting due to activities of different industries that are situated in hie. they usually do not consider the health and environment while taking their daily production decisions. human health and environment in and around the hie are at low priority because of ignorance, lack of check and balance system and lack of government's concern. health problems such as skin allergy, respiratory infections, general allergy, gastritis and ulcer were scanning among the villagers who visited hospital. it was medically accepted that the polluted water had significant influence on these diseases. it was assessed that one-fourth of the villagers has any one of the listed of diseases. most of the identified patients accepted that they were using either the stream water or well water or both for washing purpose, cleaning the cattle etc. after realizing the ill effects of the water they started avoiding the use of it. 4. conclusion from the above results it is concluded that the soil quality of dingi village was degraded due to the industrial pollution from hie and also from unsustainable agricultural activities. the concentration of heavy metals detected in the soil samples showed that there was a high concentration of heavy metals in soil. it was concluded that the harmful effluents were uncontrolled discharge from industries. the legal provisions of pepa for monitoring and treatment of discharge are not being followed by the management of industries in hie. references [1] l. k. abbott, mv. murphy. soil biological fertility: a key to sustainable land use in agriculture. kluwer academic 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[13] a, riaz, effect of effluents from hattar industrial area on soil and crop productivity. mphill thesis. department of biological sciences, university of quaid-i-azam, islamabad, (2004) 43-58. [14] a. younjoo, environmental pollution, 127 (2004) 21-26. [15] g. rehm and m, schmitt, copper for crop production. the university of minnesota, (2009). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://www.soilhealth.com/soils-are-alive/what-is-in-soil/p-01.htm http://www.soilhealth.com/soils-are-alive/what-is-in-soil/p-01.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/effluent http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 5 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 journal of mountain area research effects of land-use change on the properties of top soil of deciduous sal forest in bangladesh m. a. kashem1, a. ahmed1, s. hoque2 and m. z. hossain1* 1department of botany, university of dhaka, dhaka-1000, bangladesh 2department of soil, water and environment, university of dhaka, dhaka 1000, bangladesh abstract this study examined the effects of land use change on the physico-chemical properties of top soil in the deciduous sal forest of bangladesh. relatively less disturbed sal (shorea robusta roxb. ex gaertn.) forest stands and the nearby stands those were converted into acacia (acacia auriculiformis benth.) plantation and pineapple (ananus comosus (l.) merr.) cultivation were selected to examine the effects of land use change on soil properties. for each land use type, soil samples were collected from 4 locations, 50m distant from each other, as replicates. soil samples were collected at 0-5, 5-10, and 10-15 cm depths. soil moisture content, conductivity, ph organic c, total n and total p were determined as soil properties. leaf litter of sal, acacia and pineapple was incubation for 90 and 180 days in independent identical soil in order to examine the effects of plant species through leaf litter on the soil chemical nutrient (n and p) status. data showed that soil moisture content, conductivity and ph were significantly affected by land use but not by depth. however, soil organic c was affected by both land-use type (p< 0.02) and soil depth (p< 0.003), although no significant interactions appeared between these two factors. soil total n and p did not differ between land use types but by depth and, n and p contents decreased with the increase of depth. rates of nutrients (n and p) released from sal, acacia and pineapple did not differ significantly among them during incubation. results of the present study reveal that properties of the top soil of the madhupur sal forest are different in their responses to the varying land uses. the findings of this study are thus relevant for the sustainable management of the deciduous sal forest ecosystems. keywords: deciduous forests, land use change, nutrient release, topsoil *corresponding author: (email: zabed@du.ac.bd) 1. introduction forest disturbances and land conversions are regarded as one of the major drivers of soil degradation [1]. changes in land use are likely to affect soil properties through distribution and supply of soil nutrients [2]. study on the effect of land use change on the top soil is more relevant as it plays greater role in plants’ growth and development by providing nutrients [3]. moreover, understanding the properties of top soil is important as the depth of top soil has proved a significant parameter in determining soil quality and land productivity [4, 5, 6]. vol. 1, 2016 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article kashem et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 5-12 6 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 the sal forests dominated by sal (shorea robusta roxb. ex gaertn.) in the central plains and north-western regions of bangladesh are deciduous forests. the sal forests of bangladesh are severely impacted by many forms of human induced activities including deforestation, litter collection, plantation and cultivation with introduced plant species [7]. understanding the physical and chemical properties of forest soil is important because of their influence on productivity and nutrient cycling of the ecosystem [8]. moreover, adequate knowledge about the effects of landuse changes on soil properties is necessary before taking program like plantation or cultivation of crop in the sal forests. however, there is limited knowledge on the effects of land-use changes on the properties of soil of sal forest in bangladesh. the main objective of this study was to assess and compare the changes in the physicochemical properties of soils and nutrient release rates of litter and explore the relationships among soil properties of the different land use types. 2. materials and methods 2.1 site description the sal forest in the madhupur tract, also known as madhupur garh, is situated in the district of tangail (figure 1). the forest is moist deciduous in nature and located from 24.300 to 24.500 n and 900 to 90.100 e. the annual rainfall of the area is ca. 1800 mm, 90% of which occurs in the period of may through october [9]. the average temperature of the area ranges from 30.3 to 20.9ºc across the year [10]. three different land-use types namely natural sal forest, acacia plantation and pineapple cultivation were selected for the collection of soil samples. figure 1: map of the study area (black shaded) of the madhupur sal forest in bangladesh. 2.2 collection and analysis of soil samples soil samples were collected from the sites under the three kinds of land use types. for each land-use type, four locations, 50 m distant from each other, were selected to collect soil at 0-5, 5-10 and 10-15cm. thus, a total of 36 soil samples, each 12 from the three land-use types were selected. soil ph and electrical conductivity were determined in suspension with distilled water with the ratios 2:1 and 5:1 (v: w), respectively. soil moisture content was measured by weight loss after drying 10 g fresh soil at 80°c for 24h. soil total n was determined by following the kjeldahl method [11]. soil p content was extracted with hno3 and hclo4 and determined by color development using a spectrophotometer at 440 nm [12]. soil mym t g kashem et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 5-12 7 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 organic carbon was determined by walkley and black method [11]. 2.3 litter chemistry, decomposition and nutrient release rate three plant species sal (shorea robusta), acacia (acacia auriculiformis) and pineappple (ananus comosus) grown in the forests were selected to collect leaf litter for the analysis of leaf n and p, decomposition rate and n and p release rate from leaf litter after incubation. fresh leaves were collected from the field and then brought to the laboratory and then dried at 600c for 24 hours. soil used for incubation of the litter was collected from the botanical garden, department of botany, university of dhaka. soil used in the decomposition study was characterized for chemical properties (ph 7.0, electric conductivity 53.7 µs, moisture content 20.35%, total n 0.117% and total p (0.062%). part of the dried leaves of all species was cut into 2 cm × 2 cm long in size to make the leaves of similar size before incubation. then 1 g leaf litter of each of litter species was mixed with 450g soil already taken into the pot. the leaves were mixed well with soil using forceps. pots were then covered by sterilized polythene bag to avoid contamination. triplicate replications were used for each treatments including control (soil without litter). autoclaved water was added in such a way that all pot received similar moisture content throughout the period of the experiment. the pots were kept for incubation at room temperature. samples were collected destructively after 90 days and 180 days for the analysis of rates of mass loss and release of n and p into soil. on day after completion of 90 days and 180 days, the un-decomposed leaf litter was collected from the pot and rinsed thoroughly with distilled water to remove soil. litter was then oven-dried for 24 h at 600c. the mass remaining was then calculated for study of decomposition rate at 90 and 180 days. 3. results 3.1 soil physico-chemical properties two-way anova statistics on the effects on landuse type, depth and their interaction on the soil physico-chemical properties are shown in table 1. data showed that although soil moisture content, conductivity and ph were significantly affected only by landuse type, soil organic c content was affected by both landuse type (p< 0.02) and soil depth (p< 0.003), nevertheless no significant interactions appeared. soil total n and total p was affected by depth but not by land-use. table 1: overall two-way anova statistics (fratios) of the effects of land-use type, depth and their interaction on the properties of top soil in the madhupur sal forest area, bangladesh. source of variation land-use types (df=2) depth (df=2) land-use × depth (df=4) ph 24.30*** 0.18 0.15 conductivity (µs) 16.29*** 0.52 0.27 moisture (%) 17.84*** 2.88 1.05 organic c (%) 4.48* 7.40** 0.21 total n (%) 1.38 5.45* 1.16 total p (%) 1.50 3.72* 1.19 table 2: mean values with standard error mean of the physico-chemical properties of soil measured at different depths (0-5 cm, 5-10 cm and 10-15 cm) in sal kashem et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 5-12 8 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 forest, acacia plantation and pineapple cultivation in the madhupur sal forest, bangladesh parameter depth (cm) sal acacia pineapple ph 0-5 5.36±0.24 4.93±0.21 4.22±0.16 5-10 5.21±0.13 4.85±0.11 4.33±0.28 10-15 5.22±0.13 4.84±0.04 4.18±0.21 conductivit y (µs) 0-5 9.50±1.00 15.23±1.62 63.79±19.01 5-10 14.58±8.19 14.80±0.78 55.65±12.49 10-15 6.20±0.47 14.18±1.77 44.02±10.47 moisture (%) 0-5 14.78±0.28 10.50±1.13 15.78±0.66 5-10 14.60±0.04 12.48±0.72 16.00±0.77 10-15 15.05±0.27 13.90±1.39 16.88±1.04 organic carbon (%) 0-5 0.40±0.04 0.48±0.07 0.54±0.03 5-10 0.33±0.02 0.41±0.02 0.40±0.02 10-15 0.26±0.04 0.36±0.06 0.36±0.07 nitrogen (%) 0-5 0.09±0.01 0.18±0.05 0.13±0.03 5-10 0.08±0.00 0.10±0.02 0.10±0.01 10-15 0.08±0.02 0.07±0.01 0.07±0.01 phosphorus (%) 0-5 0.03±0.00 0.04±0.00 0.05±0.01 5-10 0.03±0.00 0.03±0.00 0.03±0.00 10-15 0.03±0.00 0.04±0.00 0.03±0.00 lowest ph value was found in the pineapple cultivation and the highest was found in the sal forest sites. highest conductivity value (63.79 µs) was reported in pineapple cultivation while the lowest of that was recorded in sal forest. the pineapple cultivation also showed the highest moisture content (16.88%) compared to that in the acacia plantation and sal forest sites. significantly higher value of soil organic c in the pineapple cultivation (0.540%) was recorded at 0-5 cm depth and that was lowest in the sal forest (0.255%) at 10-15 cm depth. soil total n and p did not show any significant difference among land-use types they showed significant difference among the different depth. soil total n and p gradually decreased from upper layer (0-5 cm) to the lower (10-15 cm) layer. 3.2 litter decomposition and nutrient release rate leaf litter of the three plants species used in the decomposition study showed significant difference (p = 0.0025) in total n content, although they did not differ significantly in total p contend (table 3). the highest mean value of total n content was recorded in acacia (2.857 %) and the lowest of that was recorded in pineapple (1.480 %). table 3: total n and p contents of the leaf litter of sal (shorea robusta), acacia (acacia auriculiformis) and pineapple (ananus comosus) collected from madhupur sal forest, bangladesh. nutrient sal acacia pineapple f ratio p value % n 1.95±0.03 a 2.86±0.19 b 1.48±0.20 a 19.22 0.0025 % p 0.04±0.01 a 0.05±0.02 a 0.05±0.01 a 0.0463 0.955 overall two-way anova statistics showed that soil total n (%) and p (%) after incubation with leaf litter were significantly affected only by litter species however mass remaining was by litter species, incubation time and interaction between species and time (table 4). mass remaining value was lowest for pineapple and highest for acacia at both 90 and 180 days after incubation indicating that pineapple was the most easily decomposable while acacia was the most hardly decomposable litter (table 5). although addition of leaf litter of sal, acacia and pineapple caused significant increase of total n and total p compared to control soil, there were no significant differences among the three litter species (table 6). kashem et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 5-12 9 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 4. discussion and conclusion soil moisture, conductivity and ph are found to respond differently to various human induced managements following conversion from natural deciduous forests. changes in physical properties due to landuse change have been reported by substantial number of studies. significant difference in soil ph among various landuses has been reported by other studies[13,14]. table 4: two-way anova statistics of the effects of litter species, incubation time and their interactions on the mass remaining (g) and soil total n (%) and p (%) contents of leaf litter of sal, acacia and pineapple. the lowest mean ph value in the pineapple cultivation might be associated with high organic c as found in the present study. organic c i.e. high organic matter might have been responsible for acidic condition through generation of humic acid in these sites compared to the other land-use types [13]. although the three landuse types differed significantly among them the overall soil ph was slightly acidic among the land-use types. this forest was previously reported to exhibit low ph value [15,16]. significant difference in the soil moisture content found in the present study might be related to the identity of the dominant tree species in the land types. the lowest soil moisture content found in acacia plantation might be due to the reason that this fast growing legume species might require more moisture for maintaining its fast growth compared to other species. further, it is also likely that high moisture content in the pineapple cultivation might be associated with watering by the farmers during the cultivation season of this crop. like many other studies[13,17,18], this study also reported that soil organic c significantly differed among the landuses. cultivation of pineapple and plantation of fast growing acacia might be related with the higher production of organic matter in these two land use types than that found in the sal forest which is a mature and stable forest ecosystem. soil organic c content declined with the increase of soil depth across landuse types. this could be due to higher accumulation of plant litter in the upper surface than the lower one. result of the present study is thus consistent with that of other studies [19]. table 5: mean values with sem of the mass (g) remaining of the litter species at different time during incubation. different letters indicate significance of difference. mass remaining gradually decreased from the starting time (initial) to 180 days through 90 days. acacia and pineapple leaf showed the highest and the lowest, respectively mass remaining at both 90 and 180 days during incubation. this result thus indicated that pineapple and acacia were most easily and hardly, respectively, decomposable litter used in the present study. parameter litter day litter*day mass remaining 55.30*** 465.18*** 14.94*** total n 3.80* 0.11 0.16 total p 13.58*** 0.26 0.31 incubation time (day) sal acacia pineapple initial 1.00±0.00 a 1.00±0.00 a 1.00±0.00 a 90 0.63±0.04a 0.69±0.01a 0.33±0.02 b 180 0.43±0.02a 0.49±0.04a 0.23±0.04 b kashem et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 5-12 10 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 on day 90, pineapple leaf litter showed the lowest mass remaining i.e. highest mass loss rate and the highest soil n and p release rates while acacia leaf litter showed the lowest mass loss rate and the lowest n and p release rates (table 5 and 6) indicating that mass loss rate and litter quality are positively correlated. other studies also reported similar results. highquality litter (n-rich) enhances decomposition rate at an early stage [20,21,22] because such litter provides readily available c for microbes; nutrients released from soil consequently promote microbial growth and activity. nitrogen content of plant tissues is important in controlling the rate of decomposition according to some studies[23,24]. however, on day 180, mass remaining did not correlate with the n and p release rates indicating that other factors phenolic compounds in the leaf litter tissues and microbial community composition might be related with the litter decomposition rate [15]. table 6: mean values with sem of the effects of litter species on soil total n (%) and total p (%) at 90 days and 180 days after incubation. different letters indicate significance of difference. day control sal acacia pineapple n 90 0.12±0.02 a 0.15±0.00 a 0.14±0.00 a 0.15±0.00 a 180 0.12±0.02 a 0.15±0.00 a 0.15±0.00 a 0.15±0.00 a p 90 0.06±0.00a 0.09±0.00b 0.08±0.00b 0.09±0.01b 180 0.06±0.00a 0.08±0.00ab 0.08±0.00b 0.09±0.01b the result that the three land-use types in madhupir sal forest did not differ in soil n and p content may be due to the reason that in spite of the difference in litter n content decomposition of the leaf litter is not determined by the leaf n content in the long run in the sal forest. land use change was also reported not to affect significantly soil total n and total p[24].the reason for low responses of the soil chemical properties including total n and p to different management activities has been ascribed to the nature of the parent material of the soil. andosols have been reported to show slow response to the different management activities [26]. soils with rich in pumice and allophanic are more resistant to degradation due different management systems[27]. the soils of the madhupur sal forest have been identified as red-brown terrace soils and as orthi-ferric acrisols by the fao-unesco system[28]. acidic nature of these soils might be related with the less availability of the n and p. however, higher content of soil total n and p in the uppermost (0-5 cm) soil layer might be due to the highest accumulation of litter in the upper layer. overall, result of the present study implies that properties of the top soil of the madhupur sal forest are different in their response to the varying managements. the findings of the present study are thus relevant for the sustainable management of the forests ecosystems through conversion into other landuse/cover. acknowledgements: the authors are thankful to the centre for advanced studies and research in biological sciences, university of dhaka, bangladesh for a partial financial support to conduct this study. the authors are also thankful to mr. md. mohsin akber, the then m.s. student of the department of botany, university of dhaka for help in collecting samples from the field. kashem et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 5-12 11 j. mt. area res., 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cropping on the soil structure of two soils in the waikato district, new zealand. new zealand j.agr. res. 22 (1979) 431-438 [28] k.r. islam, r.r. weil, land use effects on soil quality in a tropical forest ecosystem of bangladesh. agriculture, ecosystems and environment 79 (2000)9–16 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 1 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 journal of mountain area research damming hunza river by massive attabad landslide, story of a risk management initiative from hunza, pakistan d. karim1, *, i. karim1, s. daveel1, a. khan2 1 department of emergency management, aga khan agency for habitat, gilgit, pakistan 2 kunming university of sciences and technology, yunnan china abstract the mountainous region of northern pakistan is seismically active as indian plate is subducting beneath the eurasian plate. various geological phenomena are active due to the mountain building and landslides are one of the most destructive natural disasters in the karakoram range. the northern part of pakistan, gilgit-baltistan, falling in this region is no exception to that. attabad was a remote village situated on the right bank of hunza river at a ground distance of almost 125 km from gilgit city. the area falls into darkut-karakoram metamorphic complex composed of granites, granodiorite, and gneiss. a devastating landslide occurred on 4th january 2010, as mode of circular failure which blocked the hunza river forming a lake behind. the debris material hit the opposite rock cliff, due to narrow gorge the landslide mass travelled downstream 1.5km with huge debris surges, hitting 8 houses in lower attabad which came under rubble and 19 people died. aga khan agency for habitat previously focus pakistan developed an inventory of active landslides across the kkh in hunza in 2000-2001, however this landslide was not identified. later in 2002 after the astore earthquake initial cracks developed at the top of the slope. the 8th october kashmir earthquake destabilized and u-shaped demarcation appeared across the slope. anthropogenic activities like irrigation of lands, seepage of water from rain and snow melt water further destabilized the land. finally, an earthquake in november 2009 in hindukush region triggered the landslide and brittle failure occurred on 4th january 2010. keywords: darkut metamorphic complex, seismic events, early warning system, circular failure *corresponding author: (email: deedar.karim@akdn.org) 1. introduction 1.1 background attabad which is a remote village situated on the right bank of hunza river (downstream direction) at a ground distance of almost 2025km from tehsil headquarter aliabad in n_e direction. the village constitutes round about 100 settlements, two middle schools (one akes and one is government middle school) one dispensary where only first aid treatment was available. the area was settled on slope profile a landslide prone area, which is activated several times in past and the locals were evacuated from the area. the process of landslide started during the long lasting rains in early 1993-94 as a result of which rock falls events were noticed at the lower and eastern ends of the slope. in 2002 the particular area became active local council informed focus pakistan to assess the situation, as a response foucs geologist visited the area and full length article vol. 5, 2020 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar mailto:deedar.karim@akdn.org karim et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 1-9 2 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 assessed the situation. at that time the upper scarp was visible and down ward movement was 5-13 feet while the aperture was 1-4 feet. the remaining stable rock segments were visible at places supporting the unconsolidated material. the surface boulders were sunk into the slope and some were detached from their position. the findings of this assessment was that there were 23 houses on the moving slope, a potential threat exists there, human lives, settlements and cultivated lands were vulnerable. if this slope movement occurs, it will block the hunza river causing the submergence of kkh and the nearby village (ayeenabad), similarly a flash flood will occur which will sweep the lands along the bank of river towards downstream. the assessment report was shared with the local council and government. figure 1: geologic map of region. 1.2 geologic and tectonic setting the problematic area is a slope varying from 250 to 750. an overburden of maximum 15 meter thickness is underlain by granite rock from head to the toe of the slope. overburden is of colluvial nature comprising of boulders, cobbles and gravels with some sand and silt. boulders and cobbles are sub angular to sub rounded with sandy and silty matrix. the rock exposed at the toe and head of the slope is highly foliated, jointed and moderately weathered. the foliation is striking eastwest and dipping into the slope. one set of joints is dipping towards slope at steeper angle while another joint set is found to be almost vertical and striking at right angle to the slope face. in addition to major joints sets other joints are also found [1]. attabad area falls into darkut-karakoram metamorphic complex according to the geological map of pakistan. they are dominantly granodiorite composition. high grade metamorphism of the rocks up to gneiss grade has been reported. bed rocks are massive in nature with maximum strength. two main faults in north pakistan i.e., main karakoram thrust (mkt) and karakoram fault are passing near by the attabad one on sw side and other on ne, respectively. these two faults are the source of seismicity in gilgit-baltistan. there are also some minor and active faults in the region; upper hunza fault, raikot-sassi fault, sassi fault, stak fault, and shamran fault are known active source of seismicity [2] . 2. seismic and anthropogenic activities and its impacts on atabad landslide 1.1 seismic activities earthquake events have great impact on the activation of the landslides worldwide in addition to other factors like rain and anthropogenic activities. the attabad landslide is one of the examples which have been activated by the earthquake event in 2002.according to the notable and local population, there was a heavy rainfall (long lasting) and cause intensive rock fall along the slope (now problematic), affecting the land property without any loss of life. just after the long lasting rains locals have observed some karim et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 1-9 3 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 displacement adjacent to the contact between rock slope and slope material, but these were remained at same position without any further changes for long time [3]. it is likely that this cracking was caused by a damaging earthquake, which has occurred at the junction of astore valley and indus valley on the 16th november 2002 [4]. the initial crack at the top of the slope has developed after the astore earthquake as noticed by the local community and focus geologist visit the landslide after that event. monitoring points were installed and the cracks were monitored by cert (community emergency response team) volunteer. lateral movement and downward movement data of that visit is mentioned here; downward movement of the slope (dwm) dwm at p 1= 5-10ft, dwm at p3=4ft dwm at p4=3.5ft, dwm at p6=13ft lateral movement or aperture of the cracks (lm) lm at p1=3ft, lm at p2=1-1.5ft lm at p3=4ft, lm at p4=2ft after the earthquake event of astore 2002 cracks became widened and from 2002-04 the landslide remained dormant. no changes were recorded during this time period. the devastating earthquake of kashmir occurred on 8th october 2005 having a magnitude of 7.6. there was no apparent increase in the ground cracking problem noted following the 2005 major kashmir earthquake [4]. however new tensional cracks were observed on the nw side of the slope and cracks also appeared in 3 houses due to dynamic loading of the unstable slope after the kashmir earthquake as reported by the locals. the monitoring data on the specific points is not available as at that time the data was maintained in hard form, therefore it is difficult to show the exact change in the cracks dimension, however according to the locals changes were occurred after the landslide which were also reported in newspaper. further tensional cracks systems were inspected by focus in 2007, and their location, size and form indicative of a buildup and release of the stresses. these stresses may have been related to the 2005 earthquake as it was distinctly felt by many people in hunza [4]. three events have been recorded according to the usgs database 1st on 11th february 2007, 2nd date time lat lon dep mag mt 11/6/2007 15:46.7 38.155 73.264 131.3 5.5 mwc 10/26/2007 50:06.7 35.304 76.753 10 5.2 mwc 2/11/2007 39:18.4 36.728 72.971 53.8 5.1 mwc figure 2: map showing the seismic event occurred from 2002-2009 in the surrounding of attabad. the earthquake events which have impacted the landslide are highlighted karim et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 1-9 4 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 on 26th october 2007 and 3rd on 6th november 2007. 1.2 seismic activities the first settlement at attabad started in early 1825, at the time there were only 15 families who came from altit village. for the purpose of cultivation irrigation channels were constructed to irrigate the land. the people were residing at the old clutter area local name “khun” (cluster of houses). with the passage of time and increase in the population the people started construct new irrigation channel to settle on the eastern slope gradually where the current landslide event has occurred on 4th january 2010. the eastern slope gradually cultivated and developed and almost 23 houses settled before the activation of landslide in 2002. in 2003 a tajik seismologist [5] visited the area and suggested to leave the areas and use the unstable slope for the purpose of cultivation of trees and gardening through the drip irrigation. control irrigation system and if possible repairing of the water channels. however local people ignored his suggestions and continued to live there and grown the crops. after the 2005 earthquake new cracks were developed on the eastern side of the slope, tensional cracks were also observed in 3 houses (according to the locals). demarcation (development of the crack) of the whole slope occurred in 2007 and new tensional cracks develop throughout the slope and in almost 10 houses out of 23. even after the development of the tension cracks in the field and in structures people didn’t stop the irrigation of water to the fields. water from the channels, irrigation water and sewerage water was continuously infiltrating in to the slope which further destabilized the landslide due to the increased saturation. 3. seismic and anthropogenic activities and its impacts on atabad landslide 3.1 seismic activities the devastating landslide incident occurred on the 4th of january, 2010 at 11:30 am, landslide (rock fall) events started 2 days back from the same area. the people were already evacuated from attabad (bala) due to the movement of the landslide. the whole slope mass including hard rock and unconsolidated material has detached suddenly from the hard rock slope. the debris material has hit the opposite side rock ridge and landslide mass diverted with air pressure due to narrow gorge towards upstream and downstream direction in form of debris surges. as a result of debris surges downstream 8 houses came under the rubble in which 19 people reported to be killed. figure 3: a ne aerial view of the attabad landslide source: focus pakistan, it triggered from the left side and blocked the narrow gorge of hunza river and kkh. the debris material traveled 800m upstream and 1200m downstream while the length of the actual blockage was almost 950m.totally the spread of the landslide debris was approximately 3km. the downstream surges damaged 8 houses in which 19 deaths occurred. lacustrine deposits clay and silt karim et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 1-9 5 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 material spread at the upper surface of the landslide mass and it was squeezed out from the riverbed. rock fall events started two days earlier of the landslide disaster and it continued till the event. according to one of the eye witnessed who was at attabad village, said that a crack started from eastern end and moved towards nw side and crack started to open from western side and connected with the eastern crack fumes came out with the opening of the crack. at the same time multiple cracks developed in the whole landslide mass. the slopes slipped down 100ft cracking sounds were heard and the rock mass stopped for a while and then moved down at once and hit the river terrace. the river terrace material composed of cobbles, pebbles, clay and silt were squeezed and the whole river terrace material spread at over the whole debris material which was unique thing. figure 4: an aerial view of attabad landslide, source: focus pakistan, according to the interpretation of the features developed after the landslide, the landslide event occurred in 3 stages. first the central eastern portion came down as result the left portion came down due to dragging force and at the third stage; upper rock ridge came as observed at the top of the clay deposits above the debris mass. minor time difference anticipated between the 1st and 2nd portion which the 3rd phase came after the settlement of the whole debris mass. 3.2 attabad landslide attabad landslide created a dam along the hunza river. kkh the strategic road between china and pakistan was also blocked after this event and almost 25000 people trapped in gojal valley. the people of the valley depend on for their income resources on trade, agriculture as potatoes are the cash crop of the valley. but they couldn’t grow potatoes as they cannot transport fertilizer and potatoes to sell in the marked. so the people of the valley faced problems in terms of transportation, trade, agriculture, financial crises physiological and educational hindrance. there was no any trigger for the landslide. the weather conditions were cold and dry, but not exceptionally so, but there were no recorded seismic events of sufficient magnitude to trigger the landslide. thus, it appears that this is a time dependent failure [6]. 3.3 attabad lake monitoring instantly after the formation of the dam, storage of water started at the back and lake formation initiated. focus pakistan geologist along with the cert volunteers started the monitoring of the lake both upstream and downstream at the spillway and recorded the changes in the water level in the lake. for the 1st week the rate of water level rise in the lake was higher and after that the water level rise gradually decreased with the increasing in the area of lake. the fig.4 below show the trend of water level changes in the lake from 1st february to 1st july 2010. in the initial days the rate of water level rise was higher i.e. 24ft/day as the area of the lake was less, but with the increase in the lake dimensions the rate of water rise gradually fell down. karim et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 1-9 6 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 seepage of water at the toe of the barrier started in the 1st week of march that also decreased the water level rise in the lake. however, in the month of april and may again the rate of water level increased gradually due to the increase in the discharge of water from the different glacier sources and streams. the discharge rates in the winter and early spring remained low in gojal tehsil 825cusecs to 1100 cusec till mid-april. after that the discharge rate gradually increased from the mid of april. the peak discharge in the valley remains from mid of june-august mid. on 21st may 2010, the excavation of the spillway was almost 51ft i.e. 15.54m and the excavation of the saddle was stopped for the safety purpose by the fwo (frontier works organization). the total height of was spillway before the exaction was 414ft from the river bed, if we subtract 51ft (excavated portion) from total height, the remaining was 364ft. considering 363ft height, freeboard at that time, rate of water change the possible overtopping date was anticipated and shared with the local government and ndma. at the time of overtopping the lake had reached a length of 21km, and an estimated volume of about 450x10, 000000 m³ of water [7]. the newly developed lake inundated four villages i.e. ayeenabad, shishkat, gulmit and hussaini in which 171 houses were also submerged. it also destroyed almost 23km of kkh (karakorum highway) including five bridges on road both rrc and wooden. people of the gojal faced severe problems in transportation as they have to travel through boats across the lake.with increase in the lake length and volume of water in the reservoir, the pressure built on the attabad lake. initial sounds/blasts were heard in the month of april 2010 at shishkat village. the local people became anxious about the development of sounds and intensity of the sounds increased at nigh time. second time sounds were also heard on 28th may one day before the overtopping. on the request of the local government foucus pakistan conducted the assessment of the sounds, may be these develop due to the figure 5: showing the trend of water rise in the lake from 13th jan to 13th may 2010. data from 5th to 12th jan is not reflected in this graph as rate of change in the lakes level was higher in the 1st week of january, due to which remaining data was not clearly visible and rate of change for the remaining days was not that much higher and difference was comparatively less. therefore, to indicate the data clearly on the graph 1st few days’ data not reflected. figure 6: the graph reflects the rate of change of seepage at the toe of the attabad landslide from 5th march to 6th may. due to the safety and security reason the data collection on the seepage stopped as over topping from the spillway was near. karim et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 1-9 7 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 collapsing of the banks or possible settlements along the river terraces. but this was not the case. if we study the geological map of pakistan six offshoots are running parallel to mkt (main karakorum thrust) from chalt to attabad as shown in fig.1 above. the sounds were coming possibly from the settlement of the local faults due to the reservoir pressure built up as a result in increase in the water volume in the attabad lake. 4 early warning system and its mechanism 4.1 early warning system after the formation of the lake and increasing level of water at the back of the landslide, the threat was also increasing with the passage of time. villages at the upstream were submerging with increasing level of water while downstream the threat of dam outburst floods. according to the [7] four scenarios were stated, considering the worst -case scenario and possible impact on the downstream low-lying areas, an early warning system was crucial. foccus pakistan felt then need of the ews, installed the early warning system with the close coordination of local government. focus pakistan provided the technical assistance/services including the established of the camp and installment of the early warning system from attabad to gilgit. figure 7: the above sketch shows the structure of the early warning system. technical persons from both government and focus pakistan were at the attabad monitoring camp. in case of any unforeseen situation at the barrier, the technical person will inform the dc and regional councils. on the behalf of the government dc will declare the activation of ews. then through the orders government school teachers, police/levis and contact persons to respond to the emergency situation. on the other hand the councils will inform the cert and contact person to be ready to response to the emergency situation. the final benefit will be for the communities at risk of the dam outburst flood. 4.2 lake monitoring mechanism focus hvra team in close collaboration with the government agencies pwd & police jointly developed a monitoring mechanism and the lake was monitored, and situation reports were shared with the local government and focus management for planning and implantation. cctv cameras were installed above the lake barrier are being used by focus pakistan staff to monitor the lake round the clock. 4.3 early warning mechanism the early warning systems were installed at 12 vulnerable locations starting from salmanabad to danyore. ews was based on cellular telenor sim, sms will be sending to the sim and all the systems will be triggered at once giving alarm singles. in case of any emergency situation at the attabad dc hunza would be informed and he was the final authority to give orders for the trigger of the ews. figure 8: cctv cameras installed at the monitoring camp for the monitoring of the technical persons monitor point regional council/l local council dc/ac hunza nagar cert / contact persons school teachers police / levis contact persons / community leaders community karim et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 1-9 8 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 4.4 demarcation of vulnerable areas downstream considering the worst-case scenario in case of attabad dam outburst and possible impact on the downstream, vulnerable villages and hotpots were highlighted and risk population was shared with the government and relevant stakeholders. in this context an exercise for the demarcation of vulnerable locations was done with the help of local government of district gilgit and hunza-nagar, for this expertise of akcsp were used. safer areas were considered above 60m from the current river flow and populations leaving below were highlighted under the threat of lake outburst flood. potential landslides activation like salmanabad, phaker, miacher, khanabad, mayoon and hussainabad were also highlighted and shared with the local government and accordingly risky communities were educated and prepared to face the potential risk in case of lake outburst. conclusion attabad landslide disaster was one of the huge disasters in history of pakistan as it blocked the hunza river, kkh and upstream villages were submerged and remain cutoff for the rest of the country. in the first part the impact of the seismic events on the attabad landslide is done, however due to the unavailability of the sufficient data on ground monitoring of the landslide and exact changes in the cracks after the earthquake events, linking of the exact changes was difficult, instead general changes are linked. the second part shows the analysis of the lake monitoring data including water level rise, seepage, and flow data. moreover, lake monitoring mechanism and early warning systems installed for monitoring and early warning to vulnerable communities settled on the low laying areas along the hunza river till gilgit is also discussed in this paper. overall, it was well coordinated efforts by government, akdn, army and other stakeholders to reduce the impact of growing lake and in case outburst preparations were in placed considering the worst-case scenario. vulnerable communities were trained, and prepared, early warning system activated, safer areas identified, evacuation drills conducted to timely evacuated through the pre-identified routs to safer locations. references [1] farooq, saeed, reconnaissance of attabad village landslide, hunza valley northern pakistan, (2007). [2] zanchi, a., & gritti, d, multistage structural evolution of northern karakoram (hunza region, pakistan). tectanophysics, (1996), 260(1-3)145165 [3] d.d. petley & n.j rosser, non-seismic landslide hazards along the himalayan arc, (2010). [4] hughes, r, attabad landslide-hunza valley, northern areas pakistan, eefit report, (2003). [5] bakhtavlyatov r. d, survey of landslide in attabad village, report, (2003). figure 9: map showing the locations of the early warning system installed from attabad to gilgit. karim et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 1-9 9 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 [6] hughes, r, short mission report on attabad landslide, (2010). [7] karim, ejaz, preliminary field assessment of active landslide at sarat (attabad), (2002). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 07 january 2020. revised/accepted: 11 february 2020. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 14 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 journal of mountain area research microfacies studies of the jurassic takatu formation, western sulaiman fold-thrust belt, pakistan abdul saboor kakar1, *, razzaq abdul manan1, aimal khan kasi1, muhammad ahmed farooqui 2 1. centre of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan, quetta, pakistan 2. comsat institute of information technology, defense road off rawalpindi road, lahore abstract takatu formation is well exposed in the western sulaiman foldthrust belt, pakistan. it has an unconformable upper contact with sembar formation which is marked by oxidized surface and lower contact with triassic wulgai formation. the takatu formation contains a wide variety of limestones, which are fine to coarse grained, palatal, lumpy, skeletal, micritic, nodular, oolitic, and intraclastic. the takatu formation is mainly carbonate-litho package with minor siliciclastic content interbedded as shale and marls. the petrography of limestone allowed the differentiation and demonstrated of four major and sub microfacies types. these includes, mudstone, wackestone, packstone and grainstone microfacies, which are further sub-divided into five microfacies such as, bioclastic wackstone, calcispheric packstone, peloidal packstone, ooidal grainstone, and lithoclastic grainstone. these microfacies were compared with standard microfacies and standard zones for their possible depositional environments. on the bases of our studies, it is interpreted that takatu formation was deposited in diverse environment ranging from the marginal shallow shelf, upper slope and in deeper parts of the shelf. keywords: takatu formation; petrography; microfacies; kirthar sulaiman fold-thrust belt; indian shield *corresponding author: (email: saboor.kakar100@gmail.com) 1. introduction the study area mostly contains sedimentary succession of triassic-pleistocene age, however some partly volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks are also exposed (table 1). takatu limestone was named [1], for the jurassic formation in the takatu range near quetta city. stratigraphic committee [2,3], named the takatu formation after the [1], and the mazar drik member in upper part. initially it was mentioned as chiltan limestone of hunting survey corporation [4], and the name was adapted [5] and [1]. the chiltan limestone is still in practice in central balochistan [5] and massive limestone [6]. this limestone is considered as biohermal and reefal [3, 4]. the takatu formation contains a wide variety of limestones, fine to coarse grained, palatal, lumpy, skeletal, micritic-, nodular-, oolitic-, arenaceous-, chert nodules and intraclastic-limestones have been found in the takatu range and vicinity of morghi nala. limestone is darkto very light-grey and brown to brownish grey. shale is also present in minor proportion. takatu formation might be better described as a reef complex [4]. the takatu formation type section (dara manda), is located south of bostan, pishin district, quetta (figure 1). this paper focuses on the petrographic descriptions, interpretations, and depositional environments of the carbonate microfacies studies of a jurassic succession of the sulaiman fold-thrust belt, that had been vol. 7, 2022 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.112 full length article mailto:saboor.kakar100@gmail.com kakar et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 14-22 15 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 deposited on the northwestern margin of the indian plate. table 1: stratigraphic successions of the sulaiman fold-thrust belt, pakistan (after 4, 7, 26) figure 1. geological map of the sulaiman foldthrust belt showing location of the measured sections (modified after,10). 2. geological setting of the area the study area lies in quetta syntaxes, which is an arcuate structure on the boundary of kirthar and sulaiman fold-thrust belt (ksftb) [8,9] near the north-western boundary of the indian plate[10,11,12]. the sulaiman fold-thrust belt (sftb) is bounded in the north and northwest by the eurasian plate and in the south and southeast by the indian plate (figure 2). figure 2. geological map of the kirthar-sulaiman foldthrust belt showing location of the study area (modified after, 10]. broadly the sulaiman fold-thrust belt is bounded to the west and north by the left lateral strike-slip chaman fault. the active sulaiman lobe to the south and east of foredeep is formed mainly as a result of tectonic compression between the indian plate and the afghan block. the major eastwest trending structural elements (arcuate folds and faults) in the sftb are rotate rapidly to a north-south direction along the active fold belt margins. at the surface imbricated faults kakar et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 14-22 16 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 are present, whereas the frontal part of the fold belt gradually disappear northward in the subsurface [12,13]. the initial collision event took place between late cretaceous-early eocene times, which is demonstrated by the obduction of the muslim bagh ophiolites [14]. 3. materials and methods the present work involves field data and laboratory examination of forty-two (42) samples, which were collected from three stratigraphic sections (dara manda, mughai, gol masjid) of late jurassic takatu formation of sulaiman fold-thrust belt, pakistan (figures 3a, 3b). thin section was prepared and examined under the polarizing microscope to determine the (skeletal, non-skeletal) grains, cement types and other features the total percentage of allochemical and orthochemical constituents have been calculated by visual estimation [15,16], and [17]. [18] have been used to classify the carbonate rocks further modified by [19]. microfacies have been prepared by comparing with the standard microfacies (smf) [37] and standard zones [15, 16]. figure 3a. legend showing various geological features observed and shown in the following figure figure 3b. columnar profile of takatu formation showing lithofacies of dara manda type section near south of bostan, pishin district. 4. petrography of takatu carbonates microfacies of carbonate rocks have been defined [18] and [19]. the word microfacies described petrographic and paleontological criteria studied in thin sections [20, 21]. microfacies analysis is most important technique in interpreting the depositional environments of carbonate rocks, [22, 23]. classification model of [18] has been used, which was further classified [15, 16, 19], the microfacies analysis of late jurassic takatu formation. these microfacies of the measured sections of takatu formation have been compared with the standard microfacies (smfs) and standard zones (sz) [23]. and [15, 16].details of various microfacies found are given below: 4.1. mudstone microfacies work is based on the forty-two samples, which were carefully studied under an optical (leica dm 500) binocular polarized microscope. the petrographic study of the limestones of takatu formation allowed the differentiation and demonstration of four major microfacies types; 1) mudstone 2) wackestone 3) packstone and 4) grainstone microfacies, which are further sub-divided into five (5) microfacies such as, bioclastic wackstone, kakar et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 14-22 17 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 calcispheric packstone, peloidal packstone, ooidal grainstone, and lithoclastic grainstone. the following microfacies description are as follows: 4.1.1 mudstone this mudstone microfacies of the studied thin sections have no allochemical constituents. the dominant orthochemical constituents is microcrystalline calcite cement. it displays micro hair line fracture (figure 4a), which have been filled with calcite. this mudstone is comparable to the smf-23 [23] and [15, 16] i.e. non-laminated uniform, non-fossiliferous lime mudstone, representing deposition of fine-grained (carbonate mud) sediment under low-energy and calm conditions. this microfacies was deposited in deeper parts of the shelf below the fair-weather wave base [15, 16]. 4.2 wackestone microfacies having more than 10% carbonate grains set in micrite is termed as wackestone [18]. the following microfacies of wackestone was identified. 4.2.1 bioclastic wackestone the bioclastic wackestone microfacies contains high percentage (30-40%) of bioclast (figure 4b). bioclast are mainly bivalve and gastropods, which ranges from 1-100 μm. these bioclasts are partly or fully replaced by sparry calcite cement. 100-1000 μm (figure 4b). the bioclastic wackestone microfacies is similar to smf-9 [23] and [15, 16] , which shows faunal diversity. the abundant mud matrix indicate deposition within calm and low-energy conditions. however, presence of bioclast (bivalve, gastropods) is interpreted in open shallow marine environment. 4.3. grainstone the carbonate dominated rock having no lime or less than 1% mud as grain supported classified grainstone [18]. following two types of grainstone are identified. figure 4. photomicrographs of studied thin sections of the limestone displaying various microfacies: (a) mudstone with micro hair line fracture, ppl; dara manda section, bostan; (b) fossil fragments in bioclastic wackestone, ppl; dara manda section, bostan; (c) grain to grain contacts are suture, ppl; gol masjid section, bostan; (d) echinoids partly replaced by sparry calcite cement in ooidal grainstone, ppl; gol masjid section, bostan; (e) ooidal grainstone containing brachiopod, ppl; gol masjid section, bostan; (f) a small amplitude stylolite (arrow), in lithoclastic grainstone, ppl; dara manda and gol masjid sections, bostan; (g) allochems composed of micrite in peloidal packstone, ppl; gol masjid section, kakar et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 14-22 18 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 bostan; (h) rounded and oval shape calcispheres in calcispheric packstone, ppl; gol masjid section, bostan. 4.3. grainstone the carbonate dominated rock having no lime or less than 1% mud as grain supported classified grainstone [18]. following two types of grainstone are identified. 4.3.1 ooidal grainstone the microfacies is largely constitutes of ooides, which are set in sparry calcite cement. microcrystalline cement is also present but less than 1%. majority of ooides size ranges from 0.50 – 1mm, however some are over 1mm. ooides are mostly sub-rounded to rounded having a concave and sutured contact (figure 4c), which makes up to 98%. the growth of ooids is mostly concentric and rarely radial. allochems are mainly micritic, which indicates intense micritization. the allochems displays chemical compaction, which has reduced the porosity. calcite veins are present which has cut the ooides and partly replaced. some of the nuclei of ooids are fossil fragments. fossils are mainly echinodes, (figure 4d) corals, algae, sponges, brachiopod, gastropod (figure 4e) and some broken shell fragments. cortoids have been observed and its size is 3mm. this microfacies is similar to standard microfacies smf-15 and sub-microfacies smf-15c, which are deposited in shallow-marine (highto lowenergy) conditions, water depths of few meters to tens of meters in regularly agitated environments. the ooidal grainstone is present at the gol masjid section. 4.3.2. lithoclastic grainstone this microfacies major constituents are lithoclasts with some oolites, bioclasts and peloids. lithoclasts are represented by micritized grains irregular, elongated, poorly sorted (figure 4f) set in a sparry calcite cement. the size of the lithoclasts range in size from 1mm to 4mm. bioclasts are also present which makes <2 %. this microfacies show moderate compaction which is indicated by stylolites (figure 4f). this microfacies is similar to the smf-4 [23] and [15, 16]. this type of lithoclast from in shoal water environments, where grains are weakly cemented to marine and intertidal crust or sea floor, where it is broken into aggregate fragments transported to deeper marine environment by storms. it is proposed that this microfacies of dara manda and gol masjid sections were deposited in the outer shelf to upper slope environments by slides, slumps or turbidity currents. 4.4 packstone microfacies the carbonate microfacies containing lime mud and grain supported defined as packstone [18]. the following two types of peloidal packstone microfacies has been identified. 4.4.1 peloidal packstone the allochemical constituent of this microfacies shows abundant of peloids and bioclasts. peloids size range from 0.06 to 0.10 mm. these peloids are allochems composed of micrite (figure 4g). peloids are mostly elliptical, rod-like, sub-rounded to rounded in shape, which are set in micrite matrix. patches of irregularly dispersed calcite cement are also observed. micro veins are present which has introduced secondary sparry calcite cement, that cuts through peloids and bioclasts (fig. 4g). this microfacies is comparable with the submicrofacies none-laminated, fine grained peloid packstone of smf-16 of [23] and [16], which is common in shallow marine shelves with moderate water circulation [15, 23, 24]. based on above-mentioned features, it is interpreted that this microfacies was deposited in the marginal to shallow shelf (agitated) and shelfinterior environments. kakar et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 14-22 19 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 4.4.2 calcispheric packstone calcispheres are spherical to ellipsoidal, single chambered, calcite hallow bodies. the diameter of these micro calcareous fossils ranges from 30 to 400 μm (figure 4h). this microfacies corresponds to sub-microfacies smf-3-calp (calpionellid packstone of [23] and [15, 16]. the presence of pelagics, such as calpionellids, and radiolarians, it is interpreted to deposit in distal part of the deep marine, lower slope-basin plain environments. calcisphere microfacies is present in the gol musjid section. 5. discussion though in triassic period, breakup of the supercontinent pangea was initiated but still the continents were very close together at the beginning of jurassic time [25]. about 180 million years ago, the supercontinent of gondwana began to break. jurassic was the time of very important global change in continental configurations, biological systems and oceanographic patterns. in jurassic time, supercontinent pangea split apart allowing for the final development of mountain-building events, and attachment of islands onto continents. many continents were covered by shallow seaways, and marine sediments were deposited, preserving a wide range of fossils and thriving reef ecosystems [25]. this break-up of gondwana was manifested in the development of extensive carbonate platform sedimentation, where jurassic formations of sulaiman fold-thrust belt (chiltan, loralai and takatu limestones) were deposited as massive, thick and medium shallow to deep water carbonates [26, 27]. the takatu formation was deposited as significant carbonate litho-package comprised of palatal, lumpy, skeletal, micritic-, nodular-, oolitic-,arenaceous-,chert nodules and intraclastic-limestones with minor shale/marl. reefs of dara manda section indicates reefal limestone, which is very well exposed containing algae, corals, and sponges. the presence of reefs in late takatu formation is very important feature for targeting as potential reservoir, however it has not been tested yet by anyone. this conformation can be achieved by petrological, laboratory analysis (toc) and with good geophysical data. this is a first attempt to describe in detail the microfacies of the takatu formation. so far there is no published literature available on takatu formation. the equivalent carbonate formation of comparable age in the sulaiman fold thrust belt are chiltan and loralai formations. we have compared our work with chiltan and loralai formations [26, 27], which shows some lithological, depositional and microfacies resemblances. our work indicates four major and five sub microfacies, which is comparable, however calcisiltite (graded-, parallel laminated-, cross laminated-calcisiltite) and lithoclastic rudstone microfacies in loralai formation were not observed in takatu formation. since these microfacies are related slope to deep marine turbidites, the takatu formation does not show any turbidite characters. the loralai formation is distinct from the takatu and chiltan formations in terms of depositional environment and microfacies as it represents carbonate turbidites and there is no evidence of reefal growth [26, 27]. microfacies studies of takatu formation in dara manda, gol masjid, and mughai section suggests low to high energy shelf facies, whereas the presence of oolites and reefs (ooidal grainstone, peloidal packstone) are indicative of high energy environment of shelf edge. bioclastic wackestone and ooidal grainstone shows diverse faunal assemblage that include gastropod, bivalves, brachiopods, kakar et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 14-22 20 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 echinoderm, which are indicative of diverse shallow marine fauna. based on the presence of pelagics, such as calpionellids, and radiolarians (calcisphere microfacies, mudstone) in the gol musjid section, it is interpreted to deposit in lower slope to basin plain environments. lithological logs of the measured sections clearly indicate several small to large scale shallowing and thickening upward sequences indicative of the sea level changes. the formation experienced several episodes of fracturing during its geologic history, in which fractures of different nature and size were produced, which were later filled by secondary calcite. these phenomena are also confirmed in thin sections on a small scale as hair like veins/fractures which were filled with calcite. westward progradation of these reefal facies is also considered possible fluctuation in sea level across the shelf in the sulaiman fold thrust belt. the prograding sequence of the reef might have resulted in the development of multiple reefs parallel to each other along the shelf edge and plate margin. reef production usually can keep pace with sea level rise, except when the changes in the sea level is very rapid or where the environment of carbonate production deteriorates due to changes in light penetration, salinity, oxygenation, nutrient level, and siliciclastic input [28, 29, 30]. conclusions the succeeding conclusions have been drawn from the thin section studies of the carbonate rocks of late jurassic takatu formation as follows: 1) the carbonate samples of takatu formation show diversity, which include mudsupported and grain-supported microfacies. 2) study of various grains and microfossils (grainstone) show that components are mostly derived within the basin. 3) different faunal assemblage was recognized, which indicates diverse fauna shallow (gastropod, bivalves, brachiopods, echinoderm) to deep (pelagic, radiolaria, calcisphere) marine environment. 4) mudstone and wackestone microfacies reflect deposition in shallow water (inner shelf) with open circulation close to wave base. 5) packstone and grainstone microfacies indicate shallow marine, high-energy settings on oolitic shoals and tidal bars, while some areas of the of the successions were deposited below the wave base. 6) it is proposed that lithoclastic grainstone microfacies of the study area was deposited in the outer shelf to upper slope environments by slides, slumps or turbidity currents. 7) the fieldand microscope-studies revealed fractured and stylolitized indicating compression/over burden after deposition. declarations the present research work is a part of m.phil. thesis of mr. abdul saboor kakar. the authors are thankful to the director cem, for his cooperation and providing financial support for field work and accesses to the petrography laboratory. the manuscript has been approved by all authors and has not been published or under the conside-ration for publication elsewhere. the authors cont-ribution in this research paper have been explicitly indicated below; razzaq abdul manan & aimal khan kasi: supervision, conceptualization, methodology, writingoriginal draft preparation. saboor kakar: data collection, laboratory work, initial draft kakar et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 14-22 21 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 preparation. muhammad ahmad farooqui: reviewing and editing. references [1] williams, m. d. stratigraphy of the lower indus basin, west pakistan. 5th world petroleum congress. world petroleum congress, new york, (1959). 19, 337-391. 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[17] baccelle, l., and bosellini, a. charts for visual estimation of the percentage composition in sedimentary rocks. kakar et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 14-22 22 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 geological society of paleontology, (1965). 1, 59-62. [18] dunham, r.j. classification of carbonate rocks according to depositional textures. american association of petroleum geologist, (1962). memoire, 1, 108-121. [19] embry, a.f., and klovan j. e. a late devonian reef tract on northeastern banks island nordwest territories. bulletin of canada petroleum geologist, (1971). 19, 730-781. [20] wright, v. p. a revised classification of limestones. sedimentary geology, (1992). 76. 177-185. [21] alling, h.l. use of microlithologies as illustrated by some new york sedimentary rocks. geological society of america bulletin, (1945). 56.7. 737-756. [22] tucker, m. e. “geological background to carbonate sedimentation”. in: tucker, m. e., and wright,v.p., (eds.), carbonate sedimentology, (1990). blackwell scientific publications, oxford. 28-69. [23] wilson, j. l. the lower carboniferous waulsortian facies. carbonate facies in geologic history. springer, new york, (1975). 148-168. [24] wanless, h. r., burton, e. a. and dravis, j., hydrodynamics of carbonate fecal pellets. journal of sedimentary petrology, (1981).51, 27-36. [25] ali, j. r. and aitchison, j. c. gondwana to asia: plate tectonics, paleogeography and the biological connectivity of the indian sub-continent from the middle jurassic through latest eocene (166–35 ma). earth science review, (2008). 88, 145-166. [26] manan, r. a. sedimentology and petrology of the triassic-jurassic succession, western sulaiman fold-thrust belt, pakistan. unpublished ph.d. thesis, centre of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan, quetta, pakistan, (2014). [27] kassi, a. m. and khan, a. s. the loralai limestone facies around qila saifullah and rud malazai areas, northeast balochistan. geological bulletin, university of punjab, 28 (1993) 81-91. [28] schmid, du, leinfelder, r.r and nose, m. growth dynamics and ecology of upper jurassic mounds, with comparisons to midpalaeozoic mounds. sedimentary geology, (2001). 145, 3-4, 343-376. [29] leinfelder, r.r., nose, m., schmid, d.u. and werner, w. microbial crusts of the late jurassic: composition, palaeoecological significance and importance in reef construction. facies, (1993b). special volume “microbial carbonates” erlangen 29, 195-230. [30] van soest, r.w.m. shallow-water reef sponges of eastern indonesia. in: rutzler (ed.): new perspective in sponge biology. proceedings. 3rd international conference biology, (1990). sponges, woods hole, 302308, washington (smithsonian). received: 27 aug. 2021. revised/accepted: 14 dec. 2021. 77 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 journal of mountain area research fracture analysis and reservoir potential of exposed eocene successions along kohat-orakzai transact khyber pakhtunkhwa, nw pakistan muhammad yaseen1,3 *, shahid ali shah1, junaid khan2, adnan samiullah1, adil jan1, muhammad sheeraz khan1, saad sair1 1. department of geology, abdul wali khan university mardan, khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan 2. department of earth science, university of haripur, khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan 3. department of earth sciences, quaid-i-azam university, islamabad abstract the present research work is primarily focusing on fracture analysis of exposed eocene limestone to estimate the reservoir potential by monte carlo techniques. the methodology implemented is the scanline method which were used for fracture data collections during field work. three stations were selected for fracture data which consists of 30 scanlines for comprehensive petrophysical properties i.e., fracture density, porosity, and permeability. the computer software was used for interpretation of fracture orientation data. the interpretation demonstrates two prevailing fracture sets existing in the study area which have average ne and nw strike. however, the correlation between their properties is documented based on charts. the consequence specifies that the correlation between density and porosity is variable although the density and permeability is linear. the qualitative classification was based on nfr system analyzed for the reservoir potential which shows very defective correlation whereas fractures provide flexible assistance and does not offer significant additional porosity and permeability. thus, it occurs from type 4 to type 3 nfr system of classification. keywords: reservoir characterization, eocene rocks, kohat-orakzai, kp, pakistan *corresponding author: (email: yaseengeo@awkum.edu.pk, phone: +92-336-963233-6). 1. introduction the study area lies between geodetic coordinates of station (01) is 33 40 11.15 n 71 12 07.42 e, station (02) is 33 40 10.9n 71 12 04.5e and station (03) is 33 34 09.3n 71 23 32.2e. the study area comprises of limestone which is part of kohat foreland basin located in northwestern pakistan (fig. 1). the kohat foreland basin itself is the western most portion of the east west trending foreland basin that is connected with the himalayan orogenic belt. in the north, the kohat basin surrounded by main boundary thrust (mbt). the mesozoic to cenozoic sediments of margalla, kalachitta, and kohat-kotal ranges carried by mbt to the surface, tectonically overlying sediments that are deposited in the adjacent foreland basin including potwar and kohat [1]. the kurram fault in the west which considered as the north south trending transgressional zone mark. the tectonic boundary of the kurram fault is associated with the kurram-waziristan ranges. the bannu depression lies in the southern vol. 6, 2021 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar. v6i0.121 full length article mailto:yaseengeo@awkum.edu.pk yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 78 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 portion of the kohat foreland basin. the sedimentary rocks sequence is exposed in the kohat basin which is consists of paleoceneeocene i.e., limestone, shale, evaporites, sandstone and conglomerates which are succeeded by an unconformity overlain by miocene. fig. 1: show the tectonic map of northern pakistan showing the structural boundaries (modified after [30]. conventionally the kohat plateau name is used in the existing literature, but it does not correctly fulfill the definition of a plateau. the kohat plateau geographic borders is marked by kohat range in the northeast, river indus in the east, in the southeast surghar range, bannu basin in the south and samana range in the northwest [2]. the kohat foreland early studies was focused on establishing its stratigraphic framework, referred to as by many geoscientists from geological survey of india mainly by [3], [4], [5], [6]. the stratigraphic relationship between salt range and kohat salt deposited is offered by [7], this relationship was just a regional overview of the area. an innovative report on gypsum deposits of the kohat area was published by [8] from geological survey of pakistan (gsp). [9] established the lithostratigraphic units of kohat region. [10] carried out the detailed investigation of the kohat foreland basin including a comprehensive geological map at scale of 1:250,000. detailed sedimentological studies of the region owe to [11] who performed an extensive work on the depositional environment of the cenozoic rocks. the first systematic approach to the structural understanding of the kohat foreland basin attributed to [12]. in this approach they organized a well-adjusted cross section through eastern kohat foreland basin and surghar range which describing the fold and thrust propagation underneath the kohat basin. structural model for kohat foreland basin was delineated by exploiting the low angle, north-dipping imbricate thrusts fault under a passive roof thrust [13]. the structural explanation of the kohat basin exhibits that it a complex, hybrid terrain comprising of wrench and compression related to structural sorts [14]. the latest structural account of the kohat foreland basin is attributed to [2] highlighting structural mismatch between the surface and subsurface structures. moreover, the tectonic evolution of the study area was presented along the akhurwal-kohat area showing the major stresses along the mbt yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 79 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 producing deformations parallels to the major structures [15]. 2. geology and stratigraphy of the study area 2.1. regional geologic setting the earth has been contracted periodically since its formation, and a consequence of its contraction new oceans and continents are formed and interchange their position throughout geologic time. in late paleozoic, the continents joined to produce a single landmass called pangea and the ocean around it is called panthalassa [16]. later, the tectonic forces drive the pangea to divides into two supercontinents called laurasia in the north and gondwanaland towards south [17]. the north american and eurasia plate was part of laurasia while the gondwanaland was comprising of south america, antarctica, india, africa, and australia. the indo-pakistan plate lies in the gondwanaland [18]. due to the splits of gondwanaland the india becomes isolated continent. about 120 million years ago the india started breaking and drifting gently at a rate 5cm per year towards the north. the indian plate then started moving towards eurasian plate [19]. approximately 50 million years ago the indian and eurasian plate strikes which results into the uplifting and formation himalayas [20]. the current research area is situated in the lesser himalayas and karakorum orogenic belt which is established due the collision of indian and eurasian plates [21]. this part of himalayan foreland basin is mostly deformed which is covering approximately 10,000 square meter area of anticlinal hills and the tectonic history of these belt recorded from precambrian to the recent rock unit in the region. the himalayan thrust belt in pakistan from north to south is comprise of main karakorum thrust (mkt), main mantle thrust (mmt), main boundary thrust (mbt) and salt range thrust (srt) [22]. the study area represents kohat foreland basin which is surrounded in the north by main boundary thrust (mbt) (fig. 1), to the south by surghar, khisor, marwat ranges separated by strike slip kalabagh fault from salt range thrust (srt). in the east kohat is separated from potwar basin marked by the indus river and the nne-ssw oriented kurram fault restricted to the west. fig. 2: show the stratigraphic column of the study area. 2.2. stratigraphy the stratigraphic sequence of the research area is from paleocene to plio-pleistocene (fig. yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 80 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 2). kohat formation have been selected for research work. the lithology of kohat formation is composed of dominantly brownish limestone with the interbedded shale at the base. 2.3. kohat formation kohat formation was named as kohat shales by [23]. the lithology of kohat formation is comprises of predominantly dense highly jointed massive thin bedded foraminiferal limestone and yellow green shale at the base which is interbedded with the greenish grey or various colored shale [2]. kohat formation have three members which includes (1) habib rahi limestone: which consist of tan to lightgrey, pink, fine to medium-crystalline and thick bedded limestone. (2) sadkal member: it comprises of green, greenish-grey shale. this unit is recognized only in the northeast part of the region. (3) kaladhand member: the lithology of this member is composed of grey, fine to medium-crystalline thin-bedded limestone with interbedded shale (meissner et al., 1974). the kohat formation have highly fossiliferous limestone (fig. 3), with having conformable lower contact with the underlying mami khel clay and upper unconformable contact with overlain miocene series [2]. fig. 3: fossiliferous appearance in kohat formation. 2.4. murree formation murree formation exposed in the kohat area consist of a higher percentage of brown, greenish grey sandstone with medium to coarse grained sandstone and shale with white marl at places. (fig. 4). the fossil record of the formation is extremely poor (poorly fossiliferous). fig. 4: murree sandstone with medium to coarse grained and shale. yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 81 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 3. material and methods detailed geological field work was conducted to study area to collect the surface stratigraphy and the fracture orientations data. the strike and dip have been measured for each fracture and the data was gathered with the help of burton compass. scanline method was presumed for fracture analysis. in this method, particular rectangle was marked in the study area which have different fracture orientations. a line of one-meter was drawn on the face of the selected outcrop and the length and the orientation of each fracture which cut across the 1m line was collected with the help of burton compass and field-move clino application. subsequently, the data correlation, interpretation, and illustration has been succeeded with several application, which contain google earth used for observing and interpretation of field data, global mapper was used for generating the coordinate projection and collect the digital elevation model (dem) (fig. 5). the application corel draw suit was utilized for sketching and mapping of model. (fig. 6), the utilization of corel draw suit was to mark various fracture on images that were acquired throughout the geological field (fig. 7 a-h). the orientation and projection of the fractures on stereonet was illustrated through geo rose application (fig.8a). 3.1. fracture density fracture density is the cumulative length of all the fractures divided by area of that rectangle [24]. fracture abundance of a rock is described by fracture density [25]. the fracture density has direct relation with fracture connectivity thus, the fracture connectivity increases with increase of fracture density presenting a trendline (fig. 9) [26]. the fracture density can be calculated by particular equation [25]: fracture density: fd =σl /a fd = σl / l x w 3.2. fracture porosity the monte carlo equation finds out the fracture porosity which depends upon the length of the fracture, width of the fracture and area of the fracture. thus, fracture porosity and density are dependent on each other showing in a trendline (fig. 10). the following equation used to determine the fracture porosity [24]. fracture porosity= (1/a) ∑ i=1 n (li × wi) x 100 yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 82 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 1 fig. 5: show the digital elevation model (dem) of the study area. 2 3 fig. 6: presenting a geological map of study area showing the box indicating the formations encountered for fractured data collection. yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 83 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 fig. 7: (a-h) show a field image of the scanline method for fracture analysis. fig. 8: (a) show the cumulative fracture orientation along 30 stations and (b) shows the projection of fracture data on stereonet diagram along 30 stations. fig. 9: show the relationship between fracture density and permeability fig. 10: show the relationship between fracture density and porosity. 3.3. fracture permeability the competency of a rock or rock fracture to transmit fluid through it. permeability is one of the significant petrophysical property which impact the quality and behavior of reservoir [27]. the fracture permeability is obtained by the following equation [28]: fracture permeability (k) = (3.5 ×108) (1/a) σi=1 n (li×wi³) 3.4. results the method adopted for the fracture analysis is scanline method for the particular research area. in this method, the fracture analysis has been used for the orientation and spacing of the fractures. the characterization of reservoir properties has been resulted by the estimation of fracture porosity and permeability. yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 84 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 3.5. fracture orientation analysis the georose (yong technology inc.) application had been used for the interpretation of fracture orientation data. the oriented data interpreted on georose application which analyzed the stresses directions. there are three types of stresses directions, (1) maximum stress (δ1) which is compressional stresses, (2) minimum stress (δ3) which is extensional stresses (fig. 8a). 4. scanline method for evaluating fracture density, porosity and permeability 4.1. kohat formation the fracture data was gathered along 30 stations of the kohat eocene formation. the dominant lithology of this formation is consisted of foraminiferal limestone with interbedded green shale at the base. the observation of fracture data has been made on georose application which shows the fracture presents in the study area are frequently compressional in nature because the plotted data on rose diagram shows maximum stresses direction on north-east direction (fig. 8a) (table 1). table 1: the calculated parameters of kohat formation along 30 stations in the study area. 1 substation no. formation name total no. of fractures calculated stress direction fracture density in cm-1 fracture porosity in % fracture permeability in md 1 kohat formation 6 n 10o e 0.0571 10.44 1.4216 2 kohat formation 5 n 50o e 0.0499 6.4961 0.4578 3 kohat formation 5 n 60o e 0.0431 3.0676 0.0614 4 kohat formation 9 n 55o e 0.0471 3.8712 0.1135 5 kohat formation 5 n 30o e 0.0357 3.568 0.1632 6 kohat formation 7 n 30o e 0.0339 3.523 0.317 7 kohat formation 9 n 85o w 0.0386 3.4816 0.1179 8 kohat formation 9 n 75o e 0.0225 2.1919 0.1378 9 kohat formation 5 n 75o e 0.0136 0.8551 0.0158 10 kohat formation 5 n 40o e 0.0202 1.396 0.0247 yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 85 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 11 kohat formation 7 n 75o e 0.0392 3.7811 0.2766 12 kohat formation 5 n 75o e 0.0173 1.408 0.0383 13 kohat formation 9 n 70o e 0.0251 3.5437 0.4746 14 kohat formation 9 n 15o w 0.0404 8.031 2.1957 15 kohat formation 4 n 75o e 0.0299 1.4887 0.0152 16 kohat formation 8 n 15o w 0.0571 10.44 1.4216 17 kohat formation 6 n 30o e 0.0431 3.0676 0.0614 18 kohat formation 6 n 60o w 0.0357 3.568 0.1632 19 kohat formation 7 n 75o e 0.0386 3.4816 0.1179 20 kohat formation 4 n 75o w 0.0136 0.8551 0.0158 21 kohat formation 10 n 45o w 0.0392 3.7811 0.2766 22 kohat formation 6 n 70o w 0.0251 3.5437 0.4746 23 kohat formation 5 n 60o e 0.0299 1.4887 0.0152 24 kohat formation 6 n 60o w 0.0499 6.4961 0.4578 25 kohat formation 7 n 30o e 0.0471 3.8712 0.1135 26 kohat formation 6 n 45o e 0.0339 3.523 0.317 27 kohat formation 6 n 4 o e 0.0225 2.1919 0.1378 28 kohat formation 12 n 10o w 0.0202 1.396 0.0247 29 kohat formation 4 n 15o w 0.0173 1.408 0.0383 30 kohat formation 7 n 10o w 0.0404 8.031 2.1957 2 the permeability range of the total 30 station is 0.0158 1.4216 md in which only three station shows the maximum permeability (table 1). these three stations represent in the research area maximum fluid flow through its fracture because of extremely opened and predominantly interconnected. yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 86 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 4.2. reservoir potential kohat eocene formation have been arbitrated for reservoir potential by examine the surface fracture data and mathematically calculations of different parameters. according to the method of [29], kohat formation were classified quantitatively. according to this arrangement, the permeability value of <1 md (108) were placed in type 4 class and 1-99 md were placed in type 3 class (table 2). table 2: the naturally fracture reservoir (nfr) values of fracture density, porosity, and permeability 4.3. stress analysis from the results of fracture data plotted on rose diagram, the fractures are showing the northeast-southwest orientations. the stress analysis is used to calculate the stress direction which have a genomic association with the formation of folds. for the maximum stress’s direction, the documented fracture data from the field have been plotted on the rose diagram and interrelated with the geological map (fig. 11), showing the formation and geological features. the maximum compressional stresses are sketched and allocated to the geological map (fig. 12). the extreme compressional stresses are categorized into two classes in the study area. according to (table no 1) the northeastsouthwest stresses orientation is calculated in 20/30 rectangles. the stresses direction of these stresses is collaborated with the station no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 23, 25, 26, 27 and 28. these station stresses are the maximum stresses on the study area (kohat formation). furthermore, in the (table no. 1) northwest-southeast orientation of stresses is associated in 10/30 rectangles. the direction of these stresses is on station 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 29 and 30. fracture density in cm-1 fracture porosity in % fracture permeability (108) in md nfr type maximum stress direction 0.0136 0.571 0.8551 10.44 0.0158 1.4216 type-4 to type-3 type-2) fracture provide essential permeability only types 3) fractures provide a permeability assistance ne & nw yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 87 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 fig. 11: show the fractures data plotted in the study area (red box). fig. 12: show a calculated stress of each station on study area map based on the surface fractures data. yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 88 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 5. discussion and conclusion during this research work the analysis was carry out on 30 distinctive stations to find the fracture orientations data and its parameters. these parameters includes density, fractures length and width on every single station. the mathematical computation on the obtained field data evaluated the fracture density, porosity, and permeability of each station. the field data from the study area plotted on stereonet diagram that demonstrated the stresses orientation i.e., compressional, and extensional. the end result of the research concluded the density, porosity, and permeability, which illustrated comparatively weak to strong association. in typical case the permeability and density have direct relation, but some stations are having less density and high permeability because of dissolution and vuggy porosity due to which it indicates weak relationship. the connection between porosity and permeability is notable that specifies independent relation on each other. relationships was prepared density ranging from 0.0136-0.571 cm-1, porosity ranging from 0.8551-10.44 % and permeability ranging from 0.0158-1.4216x108 md by fracture analysis with nfr (naturally fracture reservoir). for reservoir potential the qualitative classification was estimated which determines very defective correlation whereas fractures provide flexible succor and does not offer significant additional porosity and permeability. thus, it occurs from type 4 to type 3 nfr system of classification. acknowledgment the authors are grateful to the chairman, dean and particularly the administration staff of department of geology, awkum for facilitating the field work to the study area. we are obliged to professor dr sajjad ahmad (dg, gsp) for their conceptualization in the field data interpretation. declarations funding: the authors are thankful to department of geology, awkum for providing financial assistance in field work. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/competing interests. data availability: not applicable. code availability: not applicable. credit authors’ contributions: muhammad yaseen: conceptualization, methodology and software. shahid ali shah: data interpretation, writingoriginal draft preparation, junaid khan: visualization, investigation. adnan sami & muhammad sheraz: field data supervision adil jan & saad siar: software, validation, writingreviewing and editing. references [1] khan m, ahmed r, raza ha, kemal a., geology of petroleum in kohat-potwar depression, pakistan. aapg bull, (1986), 70(4):396–414 yaseen et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 77-90 89 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 [2] ahmad, s., a comparative study of structural styles in the kohat plateau, nw himalayas, nwfp, 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"fault analysis and paleostress evolution in large strain regions: methodological and geological discussion of the southeastern himalayan foldand-thrust belt in pakistan." journal of asian earth sciences 24, no. 4 (2005): 445-467 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 04 sep. 2021. revised/accepted: 13 dec. 2021. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 70 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 journal of mountain area research investigation of geothermal energy potential using electrical resistivity survey and chemical geothermometers: a study of the manghopir hot spring karachi, sindh pakistan muhammad afzal jamali1, *, muhammad hassan agheem1, rafique ahmed lashari1, akhtar hussain markhand1, asfandyar wali arain1, hasib ahmed1, wahid bux alias zain1 1 centre for pure and applied geology university of sindh, jamshoro abstract electrical resistivity survey and chemical geothermometers methods were used to find the geothermal gradient energy potential of the manghopir hot spring which is located in karachi, sindh. schlumberger electrode configurations were used to demarcate the two shallow potential subsurface aquifers. at various depths, three lithological units were encountered: alluvium, sandstone, and shale. the first thermal water aquifer lies below at the average depth of 10m and average thickness of 9 m lies in sandstone lithology of nari formation of oligocene age. the second thermal water aquifer encountered at the average depth of 68 m and the average thickness of aquifer was 40.5m in sandstone lithology of nari formation. the surface water temperature was calculated with digital thermometer which shows the range in between 48 °c to 50 °c and subsurface temperature was calculated with the help of chemical geothermometers. the na–k geothermometers indicate the subsurface equilibrium reservoir temperature in the range of 135.52 °c,125.54 °c, 172.964 °c and 184.08°c and the na-k-ca chemical geothermometers indicate the subsurface reservoir temperature 148.493°c. the na-k-ca geothermometers show a high temperature, but the reservoir temperature appears to be lower due to the mixing of sea water with the chemical composition of hot spring water within the subsurface aquifers. keywords: hot springs, apparent resistivity, geothermometers, manghopir, karachi, sindh *corresponding author: (email: muhammad.afzal@usindh.edu.pk) 1. introduction the increased consumption of fossil fuels as an energy resource is leading to their rapid depletion as they are non-renewable. fossil fuel usage has increased due to economic growth in the modern world. fossil fuels are limited resources that are quickly diminishing and also contribute to environmental deterioration and heavy pollution (1,2). consequently, we require a clean source of energy (3). geothermal energy is a sustainable energy source that is receiving more and more attention on a global scale.(4). the geothermal resources are more superior than traditional fossil fuel resources, because they are environment friendly and possess large reserves (5,6,7). geothermal energy is relatively greener and more sustainable form of energy as compared to energy from traditional energy sources vol. 7, 2022 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.162 full length article jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 71 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 including hydrocarbons, which can be used for range of purposes including power generation. it is a cleaner source of energy and have average capacity factor of 74.5 that can be increased up to 90% in the ideal conditions (8). by offering sustainable energy and heat sources that are friendly to the environment, geothermal energy may play a significant role. [9] many countries in the world such as china, iran, turkey and usa have put efforts in geothermal assisted plants in an attempt to advance their energy capacities. international energy agency estimates 30% increase in consumption of electricity by the year 2040 (10). it is the time now that like the other countries leading in geothermal energy pakistan also explore new means of energy providing higher sustainability and lower environmental impacts. pakistan also faces energy shortfall off 5500 mega watt (mw) with the total requirement of 19000mw with generation capacity of only 13500mw, with the increase in demand of 9% per annum (11). at the same time, although pakistan is rich in both non-renewable and renewable resources. despite huge energy resources, pakistan falls under energy deficient countries due to increased population and energy management crisis. geothermal energy is yet unexplored resource for power generation. pakistan can counter energy shortage by harnessing non-conventional energy resources, i.e., geothermal energy. pakistan has many mud volcanoes and hot springs along seismic belt. pakistan has a practical geothermal energy manifestation southern part of pakistan (sindh) shows a large number of hot springs with high subsurface temperature due to active faults (12,13). some of the hot springs of southern pakistan (sindh province).  manghopir hot spring  laki shah saddar hot spring  lal bagh hot spring  kai hot spring  naing hot spring  ghaji shah hot spring the surface temperature of manghopir is 48°c50°c (14).a proper study of the area for identification and exploration of these hidden energy resources, which can help to benefit country in social and economic development. present research is carried on the hot springs of manghopir area which is famous for the hot water springs from many decades (15). the hot water from manghopir hot springs seeps out as transparent, colorless and order less. the manghopir spring may be classified euthermal spring (16). a leper asylum is present at manghopir hot spring, and people come here form different areas of country for skin cure. researchers found that the skin curative in water is because of the arsenic concentration in it (17). the western margin of the indian plate has clear signs of its presence in pakistan. as we observe from the arabian sea, we will find the first important geothermal region in the karachi which is surrounded by coast and the upper belt has the indus delta. the karachi is surround by 3 faults and hosts two hot-water springs with low to medium enthalpy brines. the manghopir spring and the drig road karsaz spring (18). an integrated approach of electrical resistivity sounding and chemical geothermometers was used which helped in the exploration of subsurface aquifer properties and geometry of thermal aquifer.prospecting for geothermal resources typically instead relies on indirect investigation through geological jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 72 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 and geophysical examinations, which give a generalised perspective of the subsurface conditions. direct investigation and exploitation of geothermal resources involve potentially enormous costs due to the expense of drilling [19] by applying different techniques, the subsurface mapping was made by distinguishing subsurface geology, host rock lithology, depth, tectonic feature and reservoir extension of potential reservoir. with the help of chemical geothermometers an estimate of the subsurface reservoir temperature was carried. 1.1 study area the hot spring in study area is located at the base of hallar mountainous range (13km north west of karachi). this region is present in the survey of pakistan toposheet no 35 p/11, the latitude 24° 59’ 16.5” and longitude 67° 02’ 34.4” and elevation above sea level is 60 feet. (fig.1), which is present in the southern kirthar fold belt (20) (fig. 2). at the north of manghopir, all structures are oriented north to south. they swing to the sw because it is located at the southern end of the karachi arc. figure 1. satellite image map showing location of ves in study area. 2. geology of study area the exposed rocks units in the study area are the nari formation (oligocene age) and the gaj formation (miocene age), which are deposited in the karachi trough. karachi trough is triangular depositional basin opening southwards towards arabian sea. during the himalayan orogeny this basin was formed by the uplifting of the southern kirthar fold belt (21). presence of fault bend folds is indicated by the structural geometries and the absence of the exhumed and emergent thrust which suggests that blind thrust is present in subsurface. the hanging wall climbed upon the frontal ramp (present in subsurface parallel to the ne/sw structural trend) and partially climbed on oblique ramp oriented at a high angle, as the result the manghopir domal structure has formed. the formed structures indicate the east-southeast tectonic transport of covered rocks. this region was active till miocene, which is observed by the miocene rock deformation. figure 2. geological map of study area (modified and reproduced after hsc,1960 (22) 3. methodology 3.1 electrical resistivity survey in geophysical techniques the vertical electrical sounding (ves) resistivity method is a jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 73 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 technique, which is used for the exploration of geothermal energy (21). to estimate the geothermal reservoir prior to exploitation, this survey is generally known to be the most important geophysical survey. as the temperature increases the electrical conductivity of electrolytes also increases. in the comparison of meteoric fluid, the more saline fluids are more conductive. in the association with geothermal fluids, hydrothermally altered rocks have lower resistivity. the values of water-dominated geothermal energy reservoir are usually below than 5 ohm meters (22). lithological knowledge can be acquired from the apparent resistivity distribution by the geological structural changes in the subsurface (23). in manghopir hot spring sas4000 abem terrameter was used to calculate the subsurface potential of thermal aquifer and for the compiling of resistivity data of subsurface geology in the form of geoelectric section, which helped in the investigation of geothermal energy reservoir in study area. the calculation of electrical potential difference of subsurface materials is calculated by the measurement of potential difference and by the function of the electric current to the material. equations ρa=k (v/i) (1) ρa=2πa×v/i (2) k is a geometric factor, and depends on the configuration of electrode rods. resistance value given by terrameter have to be changed to apparent resistivity value (24). (ρa=k*r) (3) schlumberger electrode configuration was used for the collection of data in manghopir hot spring for geothermal exploration. in schlumberger electrode configuration the current induce in the earth through the current (outer) electrodes and the potential difference is measured by the potential (inner) electrodes. the distance between outer electrodes is gradually increased after taking individual reading, and the inner electrodes are kept closely to the center, and all electrodes were aligned in straight line (25). the collected data of ves was processed on ipi2win software to interpret the depth, relevant resistivity and the thickness of each layer. 3.2 geochemistry of hot spring water samples were collected from manghopir hot spring for analyzing the physiochemical characters of hot spring and estimation of subsurface temperature of geothermal reservoir by using chemical geothermometers. the representative sample of hot spring w collected from manghopir hot spring in a new unused cleaned plastic container, which was rinsed more than 3 times with the sampling water (26). alcohol thermometer was used to measure the air temperature 1m above the surface of hot spring water, and the temperature of hot spring water was measured by mercury thermometer. the physical parameters of water were measured by specific devices in the field (orion 115 conductivity meter was used to measure the conductivity, salinity and tds of water). the ph of water was measured by orion 420a ph meter in laboratory. after collection the samples rapidly, they were sealed and stored in cool box, then transported to laboratory and was filtered by 45m membrane and by following the standard methods, analyzed immediately (27). some portion (50ml) of sample was preserved by adding 2ml of 10% hcl and analysis of na, k, ca and mg was carried out within 30 days jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 74 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 with the help aas (atomic absorption spectrometer) at 589, 766.5 422.7 and 285.2 nm respectively, the conditions was according to the recommendations of manufacturer (varian spectr aa-20, australia). with the integration time 3s and the delay time 3s the analysis was carried out in triplicate (n=3). the standard salts and earlier of this standardized with primary salts the calibration curve was establish by using five different concentrations of elemental solution. the collection of valid data all the standard methods (titrimetric, aas and spectrophotometric) were applied and standardized. with the titration of ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid disodium salt the total hardness was determined (using eriochrome black t as indicator at ph 10. total alkalinity was determining with the titration of hcl (methyl orange as endpoint indicator). and for chloride analysis agno3 (silver nitrate) titration was used with potassium chromate (k2cro4) as an indicator. at acidic ph the sulphate was determined spectrophotometrically using barium sulphateturbiditimetric method. 5. results integrated results of geophysical and geochemical are given below. 5.1 geo-electrical sections total 100m depth was investigated through the ves. the data of total 100m was processed and the geo-electrical section developed through the ipi2win software which helped to identify subsurface lithology with thickness of each layer. each geo-electrical section has same lithological properties which consist of sandstone, shale and alluvium. each section of ves curve is produced and generated by ipi2win software. the sections are piled up along lithological sections (based on the resistivity contrast of aquifer in different lithology (fig 3)) and the thickness of the subsurface lithology by the resistivity of each layer. figure 3. stacked lithological logs of subsurface resistivity sections of manghopir area. 5.2 geochemical results the geochemical studies pertaining to interpret the temperature of the hot spring using geochemical thermometers were carried. the analysis primarily of the determination of physiochemical properties of hot spring water conducted through techniques satisfied earlier. the results of the physiochemical diagnosis are given in table 02. jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 75 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 table 1. computed resistivity, thickness and depth of ves data from manghopir area. site ves number identified lithology apparent resistivity(ωm) thickness (m) depth (m) manghopir ves-01 alluvium 64.7 1.5 1.5 aquifer in sandstone 33.5 4.78 6.28 shale 4.41 16.2 22.5 aquifer in sandstone 35.1 53.6 76.1 shale 6.05 23.9 100 ves-02 alluvium 77.18 1.8 1.8 aquifer in sandstone 34.5 7.0 8.8 shale 3.86 15.4 24.2 aquifer in sandstone 31.8 44.4 68.6 shale 4.78 31.4 100 ves-03 alluvium 15.7 1.7 1.7 shale 6.28 5.91 7.61 aquifer in sandstone 26.7 9.29 16.9 shale 5.34 45.9 62.8 aquifer in sandstone 23.4 37.2 100 ves-04 alluvium 6.81 1.9 1.9 aquifer in sandstone 32.8 14.1 16 shale 6.52 19.9 35.9 aquifer in sandstone 31.2 23.8 59.7 shale 5.46 40.3 100 jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 76 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 table 2. showing the physio chemical properties of manghopir hot spring water. 6. discussion 6.1. interpretation of ves data theves-01 demarcated a total of five layers up to the depth of 100 m and data interpreted as first layer showing the apparent resistivity of 64.7 ωm with layer thickness of 1.5 m is the topmost alluvium lithology. second layer showing the apparent resistivity of 33.5 ωm with layer thickness of 4.78m at the depth of 6.28m interpreted as a thermal water aquifer in sandstone lithology of nari formation. third layer showing apparent resistivity of 4.41 ωm with layer thickness of 16.2 m at the depth of 22.5m interpreted as shale lithology of nari formation. fourth layer showing apparent resistivity of 35.1 ωm with layer thickness of 53.6 at the depth of 76.1m interpreted as an aquifer in the sandstone lithology of nari formation of oligocene age. fifth layer showing apparent resistivity of 6.05 ωm with layer thickness of 23.9m at the depth of 100 m interpreted as shale lithology of nari formation (table 1, fig.3). the ves-02 demarcated five lithological layers and data interpreted as first layer showing the apparent resistivity of 77.18 ωm with layer thickness of 1.8 m is the as a topmost alluvium lithology. second layer showing the apparent resistivity of 34.5 ωm with layer thickness of 7.0m at the depth of 8.8m interpreted as a thermal water aquifer in the sandstone lithology of nari formation. third layer showing the apparent resistivity of 3.86 ωm with layer thickness of 15.4 m at the depth of 24.2m interpreted as shale lithology of nari formation. fourth layer showing apparent resistivity of 31.8 ωm with layer thickness of 44.4 m at the depth of 68.8m interpreted as an aquifer in the sandstone lithology of nari formation of oligocene age. fifth layer showing apparent resistivity of 4.78 ωm with layer thickness of 31.4 m at the depth of 100 m interpreted as shale lithology of nari formation (table 1, fig.3). the ves-03 demarcated total five lithological layers and data interpreted as first layer s.no water quality parameters units permissible limits (who) results 01 electrical conductivity us/cm 1000 2710 02 ph ….. 6.5 to 8.5 7.45 03 tds ppm 750 2021 04 calcium ppm 75 92 05 sodium ppm 200 410 06 potassium ppm 12 21 07 magnesium ppm …… 48 08 chloride ppm 250 426 09 sulphate ppm 250 278 10 bicarbonate ppm 165 jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 77 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 showing the apparent resistivity of 15.7 ωm with layer thickness of 1.7 m is the topmost alluvium lithology. second layer showing the apparent resistivity of 6.28 ωm with layer thickness of 5. 6.2. pseudo section and resistivity section in manghopir profile ves 1 to 4, resistivity data were processed for producing the pseudosection. the total length of profile is 150 m and the distance between each ves is 50m. in general low, moderate, high resistivity zones were delineated on the basis of lithological variation. two major lithology were interpreted as shale and sandstone there is a major discontinuity in lithology in ves-03 indicates presence of faulting and giving path to hot water plumes. two major aquifer zones were demarcated in sandstone lithology of nari formation of oligocene age. first shallow water aquifer zone presents at the average depth of 8m and second aquifer zone present at the average depth of 40m. due to structural contrast in ves -3 to ves -4 aquifer depth varies in ves-4 and also vary in subsurface (fig. 4). the resistivity section of manghopir profile is described by topmost high resistivity zone value lies in the range of (50 to 63 ωm) up to a depth of 2 m which indicates the alluvium lithology below the alluvium layer resistivity values are falling at the range of (25 to 35 ωm) in the (ves1,2 and 4) up to depth of 16m indicating the thermal aquifer present in sandstone lithology of nari formation but in ves-3 abrupt change in lithology showing low resistivity values in profile and interpreted and sandwich like intrusion of shale lithology may be presence of fault which could have given path to hot water plumes in study area (fig.05). the third low zone showing resistivity of (4 to 8 ωm) interpreted shale lithology of nari formation of oligocene age. figure 4. pseudo section of resistivity profile at manghopir area. figure 5. resistivity cross section of profile at manghopir area. 6.3. interpretation of geothermometers the surface temperature of hot spring was calculated with the help of digital thermometer and showing the maximum temperature is 50 °c respectively. the ph values of hot spring are 7.45 and electrical conductivity of thermal water showing ec 2710 us/cm. the total dissolved salts tds of thermal water analyzed is 2021 ppm). different chemical geothermometers were used to calculate the subsurface reservoir temperature of hot spring such as (30,31,32,33,34) the na–k geothermometers indicate the subsurface equilibrium reservoir temperature in the range of 135.52 °c,125.54 °c, 172.964 °c and 184.08°c (table 3). the na-k subsurface reservoir temperature laying in the range of standards recommended by different scientists(fig.6) the na-k-ca chemical geothermometers indicate the subsurface jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 78 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 reservoir temperature 148.493°c respectively. the na–k–ca geothermometers shows higher temperature but the geothermal energy reservoir temperature is low because of the influence of the sea water intrusion with the chemical composition of the aquifer. the hot spring water have high percentage % of na and cl because of the mixing of the arabian sea water with source of the hot spring. figure 6. subsurface temperature of geothermometers. table 3. shows the subsurface temperature calculation of manghopir hot spring through chemical geothermometers. geothermometers equations range (°c) source calculated temperature of manghopir hot spring na-k 933 0.933+log(2343 316)⁄ -273.15 25-250 arnórsson et al. (1983b) 263.05 °c na-k 856 0.857 + log(2343 316)⁄ − 273.15 100-275 truesdell (1976) 260.26°c na-k 1217 1.438 + log(2343 316)⁄ − 273.15 >150 °c fournier (1979) 272.58 °c na-k 1390 1.750 + log(2343 316)⁄ − 273.15 250350 °c giggenbach (1988) 283 °c na-k-ca 1647 log( 𝑁𝑎 𝐾 ) + 𝛽[log √𝐶𝑎 𝑁𝑎⁄ ] + 2.06 + 2.47 − 273.15 250350 °c fournier andtruesdell (1973) 154.23°c jamali et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 70-81 79 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 conclusion it is concluded on the basis of electrical resistivity data that, 1) two thermal water subsurface aquifers are present in the manghopir hot spring area up to the depth of 100 m. 2) in resistivity profile lithological contrast in ves3 to ves-4 indicate the hot spring laying on fault which gives paths to hot water plumes in pseudo section and resistivity section. 3) the first thermal water aquifer lies below at the average depth of 10 m and average thickness of 9 m present in sandstone lithology of nari formation of oligocene age. 4) the second thermal water aquifer encountered at the average depth of 68 m and the average thickness of aquifer was 40.5m in sandstone lithology of nari formation. 5) the na–k geothermometers indicate the subsurface equilibrium reservoir temperature in the range of 135.52 °c,125.54 °c, 172.964 °c and 184.08°c and the na-k-ca chemical geothermometers indicate the subsurface reservoir temperature of 148.493°c. 6)the na–k–ca geothermometers shows higher temperature but the geothermal energy reservoir temperature is lower because of the influence of the sea water intrusion with the chemical composition of the aquifer. declarations conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/competing interests. authors’ contributions: muhammad afzal jamali: data acquisition, sampling, data processing, muhammad hassan agheem: map drawing and draft writing. rafique ahmed lashari: hands with software and curves generation akhtar hussain markhand: conceptualization, revision and editing. asfandyar wali arain: geochemical analysis of water samples, draft writing, hasibahmed: laboratory analysis, draft writing, raw data acquisition and data processing. wahidbux alias zain: field investigation and sampling, draft writing. references [1] dincer, i., acar, c. a review on clean energy solutions for better sustainability. int j. energy res. 39 (2015) 585–606. 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[33] giggenbach, w.f. geothermal solute equilibrium, derivation of na-k-mg-ca geo indicators geochim. cosmochim. acta, 52(1988)274 received: 06 june 2022. revised/accepted: 30 august 2022. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 60 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 journal of mountain area research correlation of uniaxial compressive strength with brazilian tensile strength and index properties for soft sedimentary rocks shafi muhammad pathan1, muhammad burhan memon1, zuhaib ahmed shaikh1, and saleem raza chalgri1, * 1. department of mining engineering, mehran university of engineering and technology, jamshoro, pakistan abstract sedimentary rocks composing the thar lignite basin pakistan are of clastic origin. these rocks have comparatively low uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) values, and hence recognized as ‘soft sedimentary rocks’ in this study. ucs is a fundamental property of rocks, used by mine design engineers in designing the surface and underground excavations. the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between ucs with brazilian tensile strength (bts), and index properties of soft sedimentary rock formations at thar lignite basin. various correlations between mechanical and physical properties of rocks have been developed previously. however, no significant correlation has been developed on ucs with bts and index properties for soft sedimentary rocks. numerous rock samples from two complete geotechnical drillholes at block-ix thar coalfield were selected. standard test procedures were implemented to determine the ucs, indirect tensile and index properties such as point load strength, and shore scleroscope hardness. the correlations between rock properties were established using simple and multiple regression techniques, and empirical equations were obtained. these equations can be used to predict the ucs and tensile strength of soft sedimentary rocks by performing simple index tests; which are quick, economical, and easier to be performed on the site. keywords: soft sedimentary rocks; thar coalfield pakistan; uniaxial compressive strength; index properties; shore scleroscope hardness. *corresponding author: (email: saleem.raza@faculty.muet.edu.pk, phone: 0092-305-3035338). 1. introduction as the rocks found near earth’s surface are anisotropic in nature, their investigation is mainly required in the fields of mining, civil, petroleum and geo-environmental engineering in order to acquire their physical and mechanical properties [1, 2]. there are enormous discontinuities for instance fissures, joints, and weak surfaces that are present in rock mass because to their geological movement therefore significantly affect the mechanical behaviour of rock mass [3]. geotechnical investigation plays a vital role in the execution of any rock engineering project by applying the rock mechanics principles for investigation of strata conditions and variation in rock types, assess their strength, intrinsic and chemical behaviour, analyse the stability of slopes, identify the potential hazards and their associated risks related to site conditions [4]. the mine design engineers asses the behaviour of the rockmass to set the design full length article vol. 8, 2023 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v8i0.153 mailto:saleem.raza@faculty.muet.edu.pk pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 61 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 criteria for excavations and structures in mines [5]. the uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) and tensile strength of rock material are the fundamental input design parameters [6, 7]. these strength properties are required for the design of underground mine structures, stability analysis of open-pit slopes, rock drilling and blasting in quarrying operations, and many civil engineering works [8, 9]. testing of the rocks under uniaxial compression or tension is a simple mechanism yet expensive and time consuming. in order to perform a standard laboratory uniaxial test, rock core or cubical specimen are required which involve costly exploratory drilling and specialized cutting process. additionally, the preparation of specimen as per standard shape and size is a problem. the specimen preparation becomes even more difficult if the rock is soft, weak or having joints. therefore, the use of index testing methods, such as point load index, and shore scleroscope hardness tests are often a suitable alternate for the estimation of ucs and tensile strength. these index testing procedures are performed by using portable equipment and require simple specimen preparation process which can be readily carried out on the site [10]. this study is performed on the rock samples acquired using borehole sampling from two geotechnical drillholes at block-ix, thar coalfield pakistan. thar coalfield is located in south eastern region of the sindh, pakistan with the estimated coal reserves of 175 billion tons extended to the 9100 sq. km area [11]. the lignite rank coal seams are deposited at depths between 130 meters and 250 meters [12]. figure 1 presents the location of thar coalfield and distribution of coalfield into 13 blocks, features the location of the studied area, i.e., block-ix thar coalfield, pakistan [13]. figure 1. location of thar coalfield and block-wise distribution of coalfield. in the thar coalfield, the granitic basement is unconformity overlain by sediments of palaeocene to eocene tertiary age bara formation. the coal seams are developed in this formation. these coal seams are bounded by top and bottom sand layer aquifers of the subrecent and bara formations respectively. the sub-recent formation rest unconformity on the sediments of the bara formation. the stratigraphic column is topped by recent formation dune sands. some portion of the dune sand is recovered from the core drill run as intact core due to natural consolidation and silt/clay bonding, therefore considered as rock. the rock layers deposited above and inbetween the coal sems are loosely consolidated and having a low compressive strength [11]. due to the low compressive strength, the rocks overlying, and underlying coal formation are considered as “soft sedimentary formations” in this study. 2. previous studies intact rock sample when tested in the laboratory always contain some of the intrinsic properties of its parent rockmass hence the failure mode of that intact rock sample may be pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 62 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 tensile failure, shear failure or combination. every rock contains inherent micro-fractures and cracks and when they are subjected to load those tiny micro-fractures tend to extend; this phenomenon is known as crack propagation. if the load is not relieved, the crack propagation stage will enter into second phase, known as crack initiation in which a fracture plane has been physically developed within the rock and rock is said to have failed [14]. thus, the determination of the rock properties is one of the most crucial aspects of rock engineering. different types of tests are suggested as per standards such as for uniaxial compressive strength, tensile strength and point load index strength which are useful in predicting the behaviour of rock and rock mass and a comparison can also be made with different rock types tested under same conditions. the uniaxial compressive strength and brazilian index tests are the common tests [15]. various research studies have been done to determine the rockmass properties and predict the rock strength properties by using indirect methods [16-18]. the point load index was proposed as an indirect measure of the ucs and tensile strength of rocks by many researchers [19-21]. chau and wong, 1996 utilized results and proposed a simple analytical formula to calculate the uniaxial compressive strength based on the point load strength [22]. another study was carried out to find the relationship between ucs and point load strength for pyroclastic rocks with values less than 50 mpa. the study found significant relationship with strong exponential trends and the comparative analysis were made [23]. yin et. al, 2017 carried out research on the reliability of the correlations between ucs and point load strength index of irregular lumps from point load test. distinct tests on cylinder cores was performed by applying diametric and axial loading conditions in order to obtain point load strength index [24]. the study found that the estimation of ucs from point load strength index acquired from point load test on irregular lumps is reliable. elhakim, 2015 proposed correlations to estimate the ucs from point load tests for calcareous sandstone samples [25]. kahraman, 2001 concluded the uniaxial compressive strength test as a primary method of evaluating the rock strength. the study found that the compressive strength of any rock can be easily estimated by the index testing because these utilize the portable equipments. these index testing equipment are easy to handle, use and can test the specimen with a little or no preparation [26]. kolapo investigated the relationship between point load strength index, ucs and brazilian tensile strength of sandstone [27]. the results revealed significant correlations of point load strength index with ucs. the inconsistent results were also found for the correlation of ucs with indirect tensile strength because of the heterogeneity of the sandstone samples. table 1 presents the studies carried out to correlate the uniaxial compressive strength and other rock strength properties. table 1. equations correlating the ucs with other strength properties. pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 63 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 regression analyses have been established and used as valid methods for developing the relationships between mechanical and physical properties of rocks. it has been reported by many researchers that rock properties are influenced by rock type, degree of consolidation porosity, texture, water content, etc. however, no significant correlation has been developed on ucs regarding bts and index properties for soft sedimentary rocks. this study aims to develop empirical relationships between: a) uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) and brazilian tensile strength (bts), b) uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) and point load strength index (pls), c) uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) and shore scleroscope hardness index (ssh), d) brazilian tensile strength (bts) and point load strength index (pls), e) brazilian tensile strength (bts) and shore scleroscope hardness index (ssh). 3. materials and methods this study involves 8 lithological units including sand, soft sedimentary rocks and coal. the samples were selected to analyse various strength properties and develop the correlations between these properties to understand the overall strata behaviour. the experimental work involves various stages such as acquisition of geotechnical samples from thar coalfield, selection of core samples, specimen (size and surface) preparation as per isrm standards, marking and sealing of prepared specimen separately, for each type of test. rock core samples were collected from two geotechnical drillholes, gt-01 and gt-02 from block-ix, thar coalfield, pakistan. overall, 45 rock and coal samples were tested in this study following the standard testing procedures suggested by the international society for rock mechanics (isrm) [28]. the core sample diameters were ranging between 60 to 64 mm. figure 2-a shows the selected rock core samples which comprised of twenty samples (two of which were coal samples) from gt-01, and twenty-five samples (one of which was coal) from gt-02. figure 2-b shows a claystone sample prepared for ucs testing, before and after the failure under uniaxial compression. figure 2-a. rock core samples selected for this study (drillholes gt-01 and gt-02). pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 64 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 figure 2-b. a claystone rock sample tested prepared and tested for ucs determination. 3.1 the uniaxial (unconfined) compression strength determination the ucs tests were performed after the standard specimen preparation of the rock core samples (fig: 2b) keeping the l/d ratio of 2.5. the diameters of the prepared specimen were measured by taking measurements at the right angles to the top, mid, and bottom of the specimen to an accuracy of 0.1 mm. the average diameter will be used for the determination of ucs using equation 1: 𝜎𝑐 = 𝑃 0.25𝜋𝐷2 , (1) where, “σc” is the uniaxial compressive strength, “p” is the peak compressive load at which specimen failure initiated, and “d” is the average specimen diameter. the uniaxial compressive and brazilian tensile strength tests were performed using computer control electro-hydraulic servo universal testing machine (model: waw-1000c) following the isrm suggested methods for rock testing [28]. 3.2 the brazilian tensile strength (bts) determination the brazilian test is most commonly performed in rock engineering to determine the indirect tensile strength of rocks. the core samples selected for this study were cut into disc shape having thickness to diameter ratio of 0.5. the diameter and thickness of the disc specimen were measured using calliper technique, and the tensile strength was calculated using equation 2: 𝜎𝑡 = 2𝑃 𝜋𝐷𝑇 (2) where, “σt” is the tensile strength, “p” is the maximum compressive load applied on the disc vertically across its diameter and at which the specimen failed, “d” is the average diameter, and “t” is the average thickness of the prepared core sample. figure 3 shows a prepared disc sample of coal before and after the failure under indirect tension. figure 3. a coal disc sample for tensile strength, before and after the failure under tension. 3.3 the point-load strength (pls) index testing the point-load strength procedure followed in this study is strictly compliant as suggested by isrm [21]. the point-load strength index was determined using digital point-load equipment (tecnotest, s-n:864010). the peak load at failure was recorded for each sample and the pointload strength index was calculated using equation 3. 𝐼𝑠 = 𝑃 𝐷2 (3) pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 65 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 where, “is” is the un-corrected point-load strength index, “p” is the peak failure load at which specimen failed, and “d” is the average diameter of the specimen. since the standard core diameter for point-load is 50 mm, and the core samples used in this study were greater than 50 mm diameter (i.e. 64 mm). therefore, the corrected point-load strength was then obtained using brook’s size correction approach [29] as presented in equations 4 and 5. 𝐼𝑠(50) = 𝐹 × 𝐼𝑠 (4) 𝐹 = ( 𝐷𝑒 50 ) 0.45 (5) where, “is(50)” is the corrected point-load index, “f” is the core correction factor, and “de” is the equivalent core diameter (i.e. 64 mm for this study). 3.4 the shore scleroscope hardness (ssh) index determination the shore hardness testing was performed using shore scleroscope tester (type sh-d). the samples were tested with a minimum of 5 mm between indentations to prevent interference between rebound sites [30]. for each sample, 10 indentations were performed and hardness values were recorded. the average ssh value was determined as the mean value of the 10 observations for same rock sample. one of the commonly applied techniques to acquire estimation equations for rock properties is through regression analysis. the regression analysis used in this study involves both regression techniques, i.e., simple and multiple analyses. ms excel v. 365 and spss v. 26 were used for the regression and statistical analysis. 4. results, statistical analysis and discussion extensive laboratory testing carried out for this study indicated that there is a significant variation in the strength and hardness values of the soft sedimentary formations. this lithological variation is due to different mineralogy, geological age of formation, degree of consolidation, and weathering effect. the subrecent formation of thar coalfield is the thickest formation having different rock types, thus the results vary largely due to inconsistency of rock types. it can be observed that the recent formation has lowest ucs value due to the presence of dune sand which is a loosely consolidated stratum. subrecent formation has higher ucs value due to the presence of fine grained consolidated rocks (i.e. siltstones and claystones). this study revealed that all the rock samples are having low strength and hardness values. table 2 presents the statistics of rock properties tested in this study. overall ucs vary between 0.165 – 3.55 mpa with an average value of 1.335 mpa. the tensile strength was ranging between 0.172 – 0.487 mpa having an average value of 0.302 mpa. point load strength was comparatively lesser ranging between 0.01 – 0.1 mpa at a mean value of 0.05 mpa. shore hardness numbers range between 3 – 7.4 at an average hardness value of 4.84. table 2. statistical results of the strength and harness properties of soft sedimentary rocks. pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 66 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 to analyse the rock behaviour individually, total rock samples are categorized into eight lithological units as presented in table 3. four specimen of dune sand of the recent formation were tested and it was found to have most least values of strength parameters viz. ucs, bts and pls. however, the dune sand is slightly harder than the subrecent formation sandstone. the subrecent formation includes three rock types, the strongest of these is found to be siltstone with an average ucs of 1.688 mpa and bts equal to 0.33 mpa. the coal bearing formation is bara formation for which three type of rocks and coal samples were tested. siltstone rock of the bara formation shown high strength and hardness values (table 3). the average ucs and bts of the coal samples were found to be 1.581 mpa and 0.334 mpa respectively with an average hardness of 4.9. table 3. average values of rock properties for various rock types. initially, simple regression analyses were performed using different curve fitting approximations and five correlations were developed i.e., ucs-bts, ucs-pls, ucs-ssh, btspls, and bts-ssh. the least-squares method was used to perform simple regression analysis. the equations for uniaxial compressive and brazilian tensile strengths obtained from the regression analyses are summarized in table 4 along with the descriptive statistics. figures 4 (a-e) shows the plots for all five correlations. the confidence level of 95% (α=0.05) was used to obtain the empirical equations for uniaxial compressive strength and brazilian tensile strength. it can be observed that all the simple regression models yield a very significant relationship as indicated by the pearson correlation coefficient values. amongst all five simple regression models, the strongest correlation was observed between ucs and bts (r2 = 0.9497), whereas the weakest correlation was found between bts and pls (r2 = 0.7126). student’s t and f tests were performed to analyse the significant difference between each of the correlated data sets (table 4). it was observed that the calculated t and f values are greater than the tabulated critical values. it was also seen that all the p-values which indicates the significance of corresponding t and f values were less than 0.05 value. the developed correlation equations were found to be reliable with t and f tests. therefore, these equations can be used for analytical purposes reliably. rock property n min max average standard deviation variance standard error ucs 45 0.165 3.55 1.335 0.804 0.646 0.120 bts 45 0.172 0.487 0.302 0.082 0.007 0.012 pls 45 0.01 0.1 0.050 0.0222 0.0005 0.003 ssh 45 3 7.4 4.835 1.118 1.251 0.167 pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 67 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 table 4. simple regression models for ucs and bts. (at α = 0.05, df = n-1, and t-critical = 2.015, f-critical = 1.651). figure 4 (a–e). correlations between ucs, bts and index properties. finally, multiple regression analyses were performed to develop the equations using two and three independent variables for ucs and bts being dependent variables respectively. the multiple regressions equations acquired for the estimation of ucs and bts are presented in table 5. t and f tests were performed which revealed that the multiple regression correlations are valid. furthermore, stronger validation was shown by examining the variance inflation factor (vif) for multicollinearity in multiple regression data sets. it is observed that vif is less than 10 in all cases except one (eq. 10). out of eight multiple regression models, two models with the maximum number of independent variables were analysed by plotting the measured versus predicted values. the scatter plots thus obtained are presented in figure 5 (a-b). it was observed from the cross-correlation of measured and predicted values (fig. 5) that the predictability of these multiple equations is acceptable. pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 68 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 table 5. multiple regression models for estimation of rock properties. figure 5 (a-b). cross-correlation between measured and predicted values for multiple regression models. all the simple and multiple regression mod els were analysed and found reliable for a conf idence interval of 95%. however, the multiple re gression models were found more reliable for th e prediction of rock properties. all models are v alidated through detailed a reliability analysis; t herefore, these equations can be used as empi rical equations for the estimation of soft sedime ntary rock properties. conclusions the rock strata at thar coalfield pakistan are of sedimentary origin. these rocks are comparatively soft sand have low ucs values. a detailed experimental work and statistical analyses have been carried out in this study for the estimation of rock properties of soft sedimentary rocks of thar coalfield. in addition to the commonly correlated rock properties such as ucs, bts and pls, this study aimed to focus on rock hardness property (shore scleroscope hardness) as well. both, simple and multiple regression analyses were used to analyse the correlations between the rock properties. from the simple regression analysis, the weakest relationship was found between the brazilian tensile strength (bts) and point load strength (pls). from the simple regression studies the strongest correlation was seen between uniaxial compressive strength (ucs) and bts. the equations acquired from multiple regression models have higher coefficients of determination and analytical validation as compared to the simple regression equations. simple equations are practically reliable when single independent variable (rock property) is used. however, if more than one rock properties are involved for the estimation purposes, multiple regression equations can be more accurate. eight multiple regression equations were presented with high correlation coefficients which can be reliable to estimate the rock properties. it was concluded that the equations with three independent variables are more reliable as compared to rest of the multiple regression models. pathan et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 60-71 69 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 declarations funding: none. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/ competing interests. data availability: not applicable. code availability: not applicable. authors’ contributions: “shafi muhammad pathan” conceptualized the study, developed the regression models using software tools mentioned in the manuscript. “zuhaib ahmed shaikh” performed the extensive laboratory testing (experimental work) for acquiring the rock properties used in this research work. “muhammad burhan memon” assisted in writing the initial draft for the manuscript. “saleem raza chalgri” reviewed and edited the final manuscript as per this journal template. references [1] e. broch, "estimation of strength anisotropy using the point-load test," in international journal of rock mechanics and mining sciences & geomechanics abstracts, 1983, vol. 20, no. 4: elsevier, pp. 181-187. 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[30] r. atkinson et al., "internationalsociety-for-rock-mechanicscommission-on-standardization-oflaboratory-and-field-testssuggested methods for determining hardness and abrasiveness of rocks," vol. 15, ed: pergamon-elsevier science ltd the boulevard, langford lane, kidlington …, 1978, pp. 89-97. received: 01 march 2022. revised/accepted: 23 feb. 2023. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2013.12.009 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2013.12.009 https://doi.org/10.1016/0148-9062(95)00056-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/0148-9062(95)00056-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2017.09.011 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 49 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 journal of mountain area research mhd stagnation point flow with thermal radiation and slip effect over a linear stretching sheet ubaidullah yashkun1,2, *, khairy zaimi1, liaquat ali lund3 1. faculty of applied human and sciences, boundary layer research group, institute of engineering mathematics, universiti malaysia perlis, arau, malaysia 2. department of mathematics and social sciences, sukkur iba university, sukkur, pakistan 3. school of quantitative sciences, universiti utara malaysia, 06010 sintok, kedah, malaysia abstract this research investigates the flow of stagnation point magnetohydrodynamic (mhd) and heat transfer along the stretched sheet in the existence of radiation and slip effects. with the help of similarity variables, the governing partial differential equations (pdes) are transformed into ordinary differential equations (odes). the bvp4c technique in matlab function has been used to simplify the governing odes. the numerical outcomes for temperature and velocity profiles, coefficient of skin friction and nusselt number have been achieved and matched with the findings in literature. the findings are compared to previously reported results. in addition, the impacts of numerous related parameters on the profiles of velocity and temperature are shown, and the results of every related parameter are presented using graphs. the velocity profile decreases as the magnetic force, suction, and permeability parameters rise. keywords: thermal radiation; slip effect; magnetohydrodynamic (mhd); suction; prandtl number *corresponding author: (ubaidullah@iba-suk.edu.pk) 1. introduction in scientific literature, an extensive body of research has been done using stagnation points over the stretching sheet. it is widely used in a variety of engineering and manufacturing area, including insulating materials, polymer sheet production, glass drawing, production, displacement, and continuous casting, it is well-known in the researchers. with the use of comparable variables, hiemenz [1] claimed that equations of navier–stokes may be translated into 3rd order odes, which became known as two-dimensional stagnation point flow. sakiadis [2] gave mathematical solutions for boundary layer flow on the stretched surface in his paper. the exponentially stretched surface and the linearly stretched surface were further developed by crane [3] in 1970. chiam [4] investigated the flow of a stagnation point towards a bending plate. several researchers, including ishak et al. [5], have studied the mhd flow of stagnation point approaching a vertical stretched surface. sadeghy et al. [6] examined flow of stagnation point of maxwell fluid in a twodimensional. attia [7] studied the viscous full length article vol. 8, 2023 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v8i0.175 mailto:ubaidullah@iba-suk.edu.pk ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 50 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 fluid flow affecting on a porous stretched sheet for heat absorption in three dimensions using hydromagnetic flow of laminar and stagnation point. recently, ghasemi and hatami [8] explored the stagnation point of nanofluid flow in conjunction with the effects of solar radiation for mhd nanofluid flow. as a result of recent advances in research, magnetohydrodynamics (mhd) may be thought of the mix of mechanics of fluids and electromagnetism, specifically the action of magnetic on an electrically conducting fluid, or both. many studies have recently concentrated on the study of mhd flow because of its importance in a wide range in the field of plasma physics and engineering applications, including oil refinery, mhd power generators, the reactor of nuclear power, chemical reactions, magnetic mixers, and boundary layer control in aerodynamics [9-12]. here, we will discuss several recent research that has concentrated on the mhd influence on heat transfer and flow concerns. these studies also focused on the flow and heat transfer of a viscous and incompressible fluid passing through a stretching surface along with magnetic field, among other fluids that are used in the industrial setting. according to darzi et al. [13], for instance, they looked at the impact of heat transfer via the porous medium on the profile of velocity and temperature due to a thin liquid film flowing through a stretching sheet. nandeppanavar et al. [14] used a porous stretched sheet and thermal radiation to investigate the mhd flow of stagnation point 2d via a porous medium. abel and nandeppanavar [15] investigated the impacts of non-uniform temperature sources and thermal radiation on mhd viscoelastic fluid movement and heat transmission past a stretched surface. mustafa and khan [16] explored the 2d steady next to the boundary, the mass transfer of casson nano fluid, and the heat transmission of this liquid in existence of an exponential stretched surface. khalili et al. [17] quantitatively examined heat transfer of mhd flow of three distinct nanofluids induced through the shrunk plane inside porosity medium. ghasemi et al. [18] simulated the mhd blood flow through porous vessels using both analytical and numerical methods. they classified blood like a 3rd grade fluid comprising nanoparticles, according to their classification. asadi et al. [19] study the natural cuo-tio2/water hybrid nanofluid at two infinite parallel vertical plates that are infinitely parallel to one another. they discovered that as volume percentage of nanoscale particles improves, width of momentum boundary increases while width of thermal layer decreases. several practical applications relating to the boundary flow immerse in media of porous, including heat exchangers, geothermal engineering, oil industries, nuclear waste destruction, system of the grain storage, and others have drawn ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 51 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 great interest to the research of boundary layer flow embedded in porous medium. nield and bejan [20] have highlighted the advantages of heat transfer flow across porous material and how it might be used. several researchers, including mohanty et al. [21], have studied approximate solutions for the transport of heat and mass of a micropolar fluid passing through porous media. working on the mhd convective flow with reaction of chemical and radiation on porous medium [22]. prasad et al. [23] explored the oscillatory reaction on viscoelastic fluid passing in porous media caused by a stretched sheet in a porous media. a study by shamshuddin et al [24] investigated flow of mhd of the micropolar liquid using permeable medium over a moving surface that was incline. many of the authors have recently completed simulations of porous medium interactions under a variety of flow conditions, which are detailed in the references [25-30]. this study expands the prior model of agbaje et al. [31] to include the impact of mhd slip and radiation on heat transfer owing to flow of stagnation of nano-liquid across the stretching surface, which was previously neglected. because of the linear similarity conversions, the conservation equalities are reduced to a dimensionless state. in order to simulate the nanofluid, an interfacial boundary condition is introduced, and an effective and reliable numerical approach, the bvp4c technique in matlab function, according to the authors. detailed research is conducted to determine how important parameters affect flow rate and energy output. the findings have been supported by results from prior investigations, which have been tabulated and found to have an excellent connection with the findings of the current study. 2. problem formulation in this study considered steady, mhd fluid flow in a porous form of boundary layer towards the stagnation point with effect of slip and thermal radiation long a stretched surface. the free stream velocity 𝑈∞(𝑥) = 𝑏𝑥 and the stretching velocity 𝑈𝑤 (𝑥) = 𝑎𝑥 are along the flow direction. the constants 𝑎 and 𝑏 areas 𝑎 > 0 and 𝑏 ≥ 0. the ambient temperature is 𝑇∞ and the mass flux velocity is 𝑉𝑤 (𝑥). the flux velocity 𝑉𝑤 (𝑥) = −(𝑎𝜈) 1/2𝑆. the surface temperature of the stretching sheet is 𝑇𝑤 (𝑥) = 𝑇∞ + 𝑐𝑥 𝑛, where 𝑐 and 𝑛 are constant as 𝑐 > 0 at the heated surface. the proposed model is demonstrated using the following set of pdes [31]. the physical model is presented in figure 1. ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 52 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 figure 1. geometry of fluid flow model. 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑥 + 𝜕𝑣 𝜕𝑦 = 0, (1) 𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑥 + 𝑣 𝜕𝑣 𝜕𝑦 = 𝑈∞ 𝑑𝑈∞ 𝑑𝑥 + 𝜈 𝜕2𝑢 𝜕𝑦2 + 𝜎 𝐵0 2 𝜌 (𝑈∞ − 𝑢) + 𝜈 𝐾 (𝑈∞ − 𝑢), (2) 𝑢 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑥 + 𝑣 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑦 = 𝛼 𝜕2𝑇 𝜕𝑦2 + 𝑄 𝜌𝑐𝑝 (𝑇 − 𝑇∞) − 𝛼 𝐾 𝜕𝑞𝑟 𝜕𝑦 , (3) with the boundary conditions 𝑢 = 𝑈𝑤 (𝑥) + 𝐿 ( 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑦 ) , 𝑣 = 𝑉𝑤 (𝑥), 𝑇 = 𝑇𝑤 (𝑥),when 𝑦 = 0 𝑢 → 𝑈∞(𝑥), 𝑇 → 𝑇∞as𝑦 → ∞ (4) in the system of equations (1)-(4) 𝑢, 𝑣 are the velocity components along the axis of 𝑥, 𝑦 respectively. the parameters are 𝜌, 𝜈, 𝐾, 𝛼, 𝑐𝑝, 𝑄, 𝐿, 𝜎 and 𝑞𝑟 the fluid density, kinematic viscosity, porous medium permeability, thermal diffusivity, specific heat capacity, heat source/sink (𝑄 > 0, 𝑄 < 0), slip effect, electrical conductivity, and heat flux. pdes (2-3) are transformed into odes using similarity transformation. 𝑓(𝜂) = 𝜓 (𝑎𝜈) 1 2𝑥 , 𝜃(𝜂) = 𝑇 − 𝑇∞ 𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞ , 𝜂 = ( 𝑎 𝜈 ) 1 2𝑦, (5) 𝜓 is the stream function and its definition is as follows: 𝑢 = 𝜕𝜓 𝜕𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑣 = − 𝜕𝜓 𝜕𝑥 (6) the velocity components 𝑢 and 𝑣 became. 𝑢 = 𝑎𝑥𝑓′(𝜂), 𝑣 = −(𝑎𝜈) 1 2𝑓(𝜂) (7) where (′) represents differentiation w.r.t. 𝜂, 𝛾 is the suction/injection parameter where 𝛾 > 0 shows suction effect and 𝛾 < 0 indicates the injection effect. the transformed odes are as 𝑓‴ + 𝑓𝑓″ − 𝑓′2 + 𝐵2 + 𝑀(𝐵 − 𝑓′) − (𝛤 − 𝐵)𝑓′, (8) 1 𝑃𝑟 (1 + 4 3 𝑅) 𝜃″ + 𝐴𝜃 + 𝑓𝜃′ − 𝑛𝜃𝑓′ (9) the boundary conditions are as 𝑓(0) = 𝛾, 𝑓′ (0) = 1 + 𝛿𝑓″ (0), 𝜃(0) = 1, 𝑓′(∞) = 𝐵, 𝜃(∞) = 0 (10) where 𝐵 = 𝑏 𝑎 is velocity ratio, 𝑀 = 𝜎𝐵0 2 𝑎𝜌 is magnetic, 𝛤 = 𝜈 𝑎𝐾 is the permeability stagnation point porous media ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 53 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 parameter, 𝐴 = 𝑄 𝑎𝜌𝑐𝑝 is the dimensionless heat generation/absorption coefficient, 𝑅 = 4𝜎∗𝑇∞ 3 𝐾𝐾𝑠 is the thermal radiation and 𝛿 = ( 𝑏 𝜈 )1/2𝐿 is the slip parameter. the “substantial physical quantities of interest are the skin friction 𝐶𝑓 and nusselt number 𝑁𝑢𝑥 are as 𝐶𝑓 = 𝜏𝑤 𝜌𝑓 𝑈∞ 2 , 𝑁𝑢𝑥 = 𝑥𝑞𝑤 𝐾𝑓 (𝑇𝑤 − 𝑇∞) , (11) where 𝜏𝑤 is the shear stress along the plate's surface and 𝑞𝑤 is the heat flow from the plate, the equations are as follows: 𝜏𝑤 = 𝜇( 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑦 )𝑦=0, 𝑞𝑤 = −𝐾( 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑦 )𝑦=0 + (𝑞𝑟 )𝑦=0, (12) putting equation (5) into equation (11) with (10), one can get 𝐶𝑓 𝑅𝑒𝑥 1 2 = 𝑓″ (0), 𝑁𝑢𝑥 𝑅𝑒𝑥 1 2 = − (1 + 4 3 𝑅) 𝜃′(0), (13) where 𝑅𝑒𝑥 = 𝑈𝑤(𝑥)𝑥 𝜈 is the reynolds number. 3. numerical procedure and validation we used the three stage labatto three a scheme in conjunction with the bvp4c technique to numerically solve the transformed odes (08-10) in order to find the solution. to make the problem simpler, all of the modified equations are expressed in the form of an initial value problem (ivp). in this case the initial values of 𝑓′′(0) and 𝜃′(0) are not known. the bvp4c is used to determine the of 𝑓′′(0) and 𝜃′(0) by picking a specific value of 𝜂 → ∞ and a few starting guesses. the procedure of forecasting initial guesses is repeated until the desired value of the iteration is achieved. to turn equations (08-10) into the first order odes, we must take into account the following variables: 𝑓 = 𝑦1, 𝑓 ′ = 𝑦2, 𝑓 ′′ = 𝑦3, 𝜃 = 𝑦4, 𝜃 ′ = 𝑦5 (14) 𝑓′′′ = 𝑦2 ∗ 𝑦2 − 𝑦1 ∗ 𝑦3 − 𝐵 2 − 𝑀 ∗ (𝐵 − 𝑦2) + 𝛤𝑦2 (15) 𝜃′′ = ( 3 ∗ 𝑃𝑟 3 + 4 ∗ 𝑅 ) {𝑛 ∗ 𝑦4 ∗ 𝑦2 − 𝐴 ∗ 𝑦4 − 𝑦1 ∗ 𝑦5} (16) subject to boundary conditions 𝑦1(0) = 𝛾, 𝑦2(0) = 1 + 𝛿 ∗ 𝛼1, 𝑦3(0) = 𝛼1 𝑦4(0) = 1, 𝑦5(0) = 𝛼2 (17) where 𝛼1 and 𝛼2 are assumed initial guesses which need to be determined. when 𝑀 = 𝛾 = 𝐴 = 𝑅 = 𝛿 = 0 and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7, comparisons of coefficient of skin friction for various rates of 𝐵 with earlier published findings [31-33] are stated in table 1 to assess the validity of the current numerical results. also found is that an excellent link between the two variables has been established. moreover, it is noted that a high degree of correlation is obtained. table 1. values of 𝑓′′(0) for some values of 𝐵 at 𝑀 = 𝛾 = 𝐴 = 𝑅 = 𝛿 = 0 and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. b [31] [32] [33] present results 0.01 -0.9980 -0.9980 -0.99802 -0.998065 0.02 -0.9958 -0.99578 -0.995811 0.05 -0.9876 -0.98757 -0.987588 0.10 -0.9694 -0.9694 -0.96938 -0.969387 0.20 -0.9181 -0.9181 -0.91810 -0.918107 0.50 -0.6673 -0.6673 -0.66732 -0.667263 1.00 0.00000 0 2.00 2.0175 2.01750 2.0175027 3.00 4.7292 4.72928 4.729282 4.00 8.000429 ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 54 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 4. results and discussions this section illustrates and discusses the effects of various relevant parameters such as velocity ratio parameter 𝐵, magnetic parameter 𝑀, permeability parameter 𝛤, heat generation/absorption coefficient 𝐴, thermal radiation 𝑅, prandtl number 𝑃𝑟, and slip effect 𝛿 graphically on velocity and temperature profiles. in figures 2–11, extensive numerical solutions are presented. the default values of the parameters considered as under, unless otherwise mentioned: 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝛿 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1, and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. in tables 2 and 3, coefficient of skin friction and heat transfer rate for different thermal radiation and velocity slip parameter values are listed. the effects of radiation 𝑅 parameter on the temperature and velocity profiles are illustrated in figures 2-3, respectively. a rise in the radiation parameter results cause to rise in the temperature of the fluid being heated. essentially, the radiative energy enhances the impact of temperature and conduction at respective place on the surface, as a result, a vast amount of radiation energy is created, which raises the temperature of the fluid. on the other hand, there is no noticeable change in the profile of velocity as a horizontal surface has been considered. table 2. results of 𝑓′′(0) and −𝜃′(0) for different values of 𝑅 with 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝛿 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1 and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. r 𝒇′′(𝟎) −𝜽′(𝟎) 0 -1.338191965 0.945955902 0.3 -1.338191965 0.705378882 0.6 -1.338191965 0.574614931 table 3. results of 𝑓′′(0) and −𝜃′(0) for different values of δ when = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1 and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. δ 𝒇′′(𝟎) −𝜽′(𝟎) 0 -1.616258037 0.729409419 0.1 -1.338191965 0.705378882 0.3 -1.006890697 0.673515832 figure 2. temperature profile at different values of r with 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝛿 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1 figure 3. velocity profile at different values of r with 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝛿 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1 and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. figures 4-5 illustrate the influence of the velocity slip parameter δ on the profiles of temperature and velocity in the presence of the other parameters. when slip effects grow, it has been observed that the ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 55 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 temperature increases. however, by gradually increasing the values of the velocity slip parameter, it is possible to achieve a steady reduction in the velocity profiles. the effect of the “prandtl number pr on the temperature profile is depicted and seen in the figure 6. the prandtl number is defined as the ratio of the momentum diffusivity to the thermal diffusivity of a given system. the increase in the values of pr leads in a decrease in the temperature profile, which in turn results in a decrease in the thickness of the thermal boundary layer. definitely, a lesser thermal diffusivity causes a rise in the prandtl number, which in turn aids in the reduction of the thickness of the thermal boundary layer. because of this increase in the 𝑃𝑟, the flow at the boundary is pulled down, resulting in a change in the thickness of the thermal boundary layer. figure 4. temperature profile at different values of 𝛿 with 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝑅 = 0.3, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1 and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. figure 5. velocity profile at different values of 𝛿 with 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝑅 = 0.3, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1 and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. figure 6. temperature profile at different 𝑃𝑟 with 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 0.1, 𝑅 = 0.3, 𝐵 = 0.1 and 𝑀 = 0.1. the effects of the suction parameter 𝛾 on the fluid velocity and temperature profiles are illuminated in figures 7-8, respectively. from this point on, we can see that the profile reduces with an increase in the value of 𝛾. the corresponding boundary layer thickness is also reduced, owing to the fact that the suction produces a reduction in the flow of the stream in a vertically descended manner. also shown in figure 8 is the relationship between the temperature and the suction/injection ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 56 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 parameter 𝛾. it is obvious that increasing 𝛾 decreases the temperature field. because applying suction causes the number of fluid particles to be drawn into the wall, the temperature boundary layer drops. figure 7. velocity profile at different values of 𝛾 with 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝑅 = 0.3, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. figure 8. temperature profile at different values of 𝛾 with 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝑅 = 0.3, 𝐴 = 𝐵 = 𝑀 = 0.1and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7. the values of −𝜃′(0) in the solution for the variation of 𝑃𝑟 are shown in figure 9, and it come to be positive for greater prandtl number, indicating that heat moves from the heated surface to the ambient temperature of fluid. this fact also lends support to the previous findings of the current study, which show that temperature falls as the prandtl number rises in significance. furthermore, when the radiation parameter is expanded, the rate of heat transfer reduces; this fact demonstrates that heat flows from the ambient temperature in the direction of the heated surface. slip effects, notwithstanding this, have the influence of slowing down the rate of heat transmission, as seen in figure 10. the results of figure 11 similarly corroborate those of figure 10, where the heat transfer rate decreases as the thermal radiation parameter is raised to greater levels. figure 9. temperature variation at different values of 𝑃𝑟 with 𝑅 at 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 0.1, 𝐵 = 0.1 and 𝑀 = 0.1. ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 57 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 figure 10. temperature variation at different values of 𝛿 with 𝑅 at 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 0.1, 𝐵 = 0.1, 𝑀 = 0.1 and pr=0.7. figure 11.temperature variation at different values of r with 𝛿 at 𝛾 = 1, 𝛤 = 0.1, 𝑛 = 0.2, 𝐴 = 0.1, 𝐵 = 0.1, 𝑀 = 0.1and 𝑃𝑟 = 0.7 declarations funding: no funding was received for this study. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/competing interests. data availability: not applicable code availability: not applicable authors’ contributions: onceptualization, ubaidullah yashkun & khairy zaimi; methodology, ubaidullah yashkun & liaquat ali lund; software, ubaidullah yashkun; formal analysis, ubaidullah yashkun, khairy zaimi, liaquat ali lund; writing—original draft, ubaidullah yashkun & liaquat ali lund; supervision, khairy zaimi. all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. conclusion the aim of the current study was to offer a three stage labatto three a formula for addressing boundary value problems that included physical effects of various parameters. the equations of the electrically conducting incompressible fluid flow moving towards stagnation point through the stretched surface are approximated numerically in this study, and the results are presented in this paper. flow modelling in porous media considers the impacts of heat source and sink, thermal radiation, velocity slip, magnetic field, and suction/injection parameters. nonlinear odes are obtained from pdes by the simulations of appropriate similarity transformations. using the three stage labatto three a formula, the approximate solutions generated for the parameters: nusselt number, skin friction coefficient, temperature profile, and velocity profile. the accuracy of the used method is validated by comparing current results to previously published literature. the following are the effects of relevant parameters: a. when the suction parameter was set to greater levels, the conductivity of the skin friction increased. b. the increasing value of the radiation parameter has ensured that the temperature profile along with the thickness of the thermal boundary layer have both raised. c. the amount of suction 𝑆 introduced into a steady fluid flow reduces the fluid flow velocity and temperature. d. the increasing prandtl number has guaranteed that profile of temperature and the thickness of the thermal layer have both decreased. e. because of a rise in the permeability parameter, the thickness of the boundary layer is increased. ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 49-59 58 j. mt. 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[34] s. haq, & m. sohaib, an enhanced wavelet based method for numerical solution of high order boundary value problems, j. mt. area res., 6 (2021), 63-76. received: 05 jan. 2023. revised/accepted: 26 feb. 2023. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 1 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 journal of mountain area research geological and petrographical characteristics of sorap massif gabbros, ras-koh ophiolite, balochistan, western pakistan ali muhammad, abdul ghaffar*, inayat ullah, m. ishaq kakar, fida murad centre of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan, quetta, pakistan abstract this study discussed the sorap massif which is the ophiolitic fragment composed of the upper mantle and lower crustal section of an ophiolitic sequence. an ophiolitic sequence in sorap massif consists of harzburgite, dunite, large distant units of serpentinized wehrlite intrusion and outcrop of confined layered gabbro covered by the quaternary sand dunes. the basal part of gabbroic intrusion is in contact with mantle rocks and the upper part is juxtaposed with the kuchakki volcanic group. on outcrop-level and in hand specimen, the gabbros exhibit needle-like ferromagnesian minerals including hornblende associated with plagioclase and pyroxene. petrographically the gabbros are classified into norite, gabbro norite and gabbro. the mineral constituents of norite are plagioclase, orthopyroxene and amphibole, gabbro norite is consists of equal constituents of orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene, plagioclase and amphibole and the gabbro is composed of clinopyroxene, plagioclase and amphibole. the high constituents of minerals such as pyroxene, amphibole and low constituents of olivine in the sorap gabbros indicates that these gabbros are formed by the immature part of the oceanic plate with dehydration of the oceanic plate subduction. keywords: sorap massif, ras-koh ophiolites, kuchakki volcanic, gabbro, ocean plate subduction *corresponding author: (email: ghaffar.chagai@gmail.com) 1. introduction an ophiolite is a distinctive rock unit of ultramafic-mafic rocks sequence from bottom to the top including serpentinized ultramafic rocks at the base, gabbroic rocks periodically indicated the cumulate texture, complex of mafic sheeted dikes and mafic volcanic rock associated with distinctive bodies of chromite, sodic constituents of felsic types of igneous rock overlying with pelagic sedimentary rocks (1). in 1813 the french mineralogist alexander brongniart has first introduced the ophiolite regarding serpentine in the mélanges, according to his subsequently redefined the definition of an ophiolite to include a suite of ultramafic to mafic types of magmatic rocks that occurred in the apennines (2). gustav steinmann (1927) elevated the term ophiolite to a modern concept, he said that the ophiolite is spatially associated with kindred rocks that are originated in the suite of intrusion in the axial part of geosynclines. the genetic model and definition of ophiolite have been varied. still, it is full length article vol. 6, 2021 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar ali muhammad et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 1-11 2 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 mainly accepted that the ophiolite indicates that the oceanic crust has been emplaced onto the continents (3). an ophiolite expresses the fragments of the upper mantle and oceanic-crust (4, 5, 6), that were integrated on the margins of continental crust arc-continent and continent-continent collision (7), ridgetrench interaction (8, 9) and subduction accretion (10). an ophiolite has widely occurred along the suture zone in both accretionary and collisional types in the orogenic belt, which demarks the tectonic boundaries between two plates or accreted terranes (11). specific analysis of well-exposed ophiolite last two decades indicated that the main ophiolite formed in the supra-subduction tectonic setting in the upper part of the convergent plate and not occurred in the mid-oceanic ridge spreading centers (12, 13, 14). an ophiolite is a distinctive rocks unit of ultramafic – mafic rocks sequence from bottom to the top including a serpentinized ultramafic rock, gabbroic rocks periodically indicated the cumulate texture, complex of mafic sheeted dikes and mafic volcanic rock associated with distinctive bodies of chromite, sodic constituents of felsic types of igneous rock overlying with sedimentary rock units such as chert, shale and minor bed of limestone (5). gabbros are formed by the basaltic magma, which is raised from the underlying mantle and as well as formed by the slow cooling in the magma chamber (15). gabbros are essentials parts of the crustal section of an ophiolitic suite from bottom to the top including a layered gabbro in the basal part of the crustal section and isotropic to foliated gabbros at the top of the crustal section. in the worldwide well-exposed gabbroic section is widely exposed in the semail ophiolite in oman and bay of island ophiolite in newfoundland canada (6, 16). geological features of the crustal part of ras-koh ophiolite have been early recorded by (17, 18). until there is no detailed geological study of the gabbroic section of sorap massif in the ras-koh ophiolite. in this paper, we are going to discuss the geological and petrological features of the gabbroic rock units from sorap massif in the raskoh ophiolite by using their field features and petrography results. 2. geological setting of ras-koh arc ras-koh arc is the southern part of chagai-raskoh double chain arc system (19), trending ne to sw direction and about 250 km long in e-w direction and 40 km wide in n-s direction (20, 21). the northern margin of the ras-koh range is border by the dalbandin trough, from the east it is terminated by the noshki-chaman fault, from the west it is ended by hari rud fault while it is covered by the quaternary alluvial and sand dune of the kharan desert in the south (fig.1) (22). the ne to sw trending direction of the raskoh volcanic arc is disputed to the e to w trending direction of the chagai-magmatic arc which is considered the frontal arc of the chagai-ras-koh arc system (23, 24). the southern part of ras-koh range is bounded by the fore arc basin to makran coast area mainly comprised up flysch types of sediments called makran accretionary wedge. makran accretionary wedge deformed thick zone ali muhammad et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 1-11 3 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 developed by the prolonged northward deposition of marine sediments during the eocene to miocene periods. combine the accretionary prism and fore arc basin is one of the widest trench arc gaps on the earth (25, 21). the ras-koh ophiolite is located in the western part of the ras-koh range, it can be distinguished by the two main localities in this range, i.e., bunap intrusion and sorap massif. these ophiolites are intensely serpentinized harzburgite outcrops in the bunap area and moderately weathered in the sorap massif at the western margin in the ras-koh range (fig.1). mainly the outcrops are faulted and thrusted occurred along the parallel fault in the main trend of the range. the red conglomerate mainly consists of basaltic fragments and cherty pebbles associated with serpentines at different localities that indicate the late cretaceous weathering and sub-areal exposure of the ophiolites, it may be formed before the deposition of the late cretaceous to paleocene rakhshani formation (17). figure.1. simplified tectonic and geological map of ras-koh arc, showing the distribution of lithological units and ras-koh ophiolite in the region (20). stratigraphic sequence of the ras-koh range comprised of early to late jurassic ras-koh to subrecent-recent alluvial deposits. early to late jurassic accretionary complex mainly consists of bunap sedimentary complex, charkohan radiolarian chert and ras-koh ophiolitic mélanges. late cretaceous kuchakki volcanic group mainly composed of basaltic to the andesitic lava flow and volcanic clast including agglomerate, tuff, lapilli tuff, breccia and volcanic conglomerate associated with sandstone, limestone, mudstone siltstone and radiolarian chert (20, 18). paleocene rakhshani formation is composed of volcanic flysch subordinated with sandstone intercalation of shale, mudstone and limestone indicating a turbidities sequence (26, 20, 18). eocene kharan limestone comprised of medium to thick-bedded of fossiliferous to argillaceous limestone, eocene to oligocene nauroze formation dominantly shale interbedded with sandstone and minor thin-bedded of limestone and conglomerate and miocene to pliocene dalbandin formation composed of shale subordinate with sandstone, shale and conglomerate capped by the sub recent to recent gravel, sand, silt and clay (fig.2) (20, 18, 22). ali muhammad et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 1-11 4 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure.2. generalized stratigraphic column of ras-koh arc (18). 3. geology of sorap massif and gabbros ophiolitic outcrops in sorap massif at the western part of ras-koh range covered by the transition from the upper mantle to the lower crustal section of an ophiolitic sequence. ophiolite sequence is mainly composed of harzburgite, dunite, large distinct units of serpentinized wehrlite intrusion and an outcrop of confined layered gabbro covered by the sand dune in the sorap massif (fig.3). the crustmantle transition zone (moho) is somewhere exposed in the study area. low grade disseminated to nodular chromite ore is currently mined at three localities in the sorap massif (fig.3) (17). since neither a metamorphic sole nor the upper part of a classic ophiolite series has been discovered (1), we can only conclude that the outcrops of the sorap region are tectonically less affected equivalents of the bunap ophiolite based on their similar tectonic location above the kuchakki volcanic group. outcrop of gabbroic intrusion of sorap massif is located in the southwest, approximately 40 to 60 km from dalbandin. figure.3. the geological map illustrates the study area in the sorap massif in ras-koh ophiolite (17). in fieldwork, the geological mapping and lithological characteristics have defined the rock composition and length of gabbroic intrusion of sorap massif. the field features of sorap massif mainly composed up basic types of gabbroic rock units. the gabbro intrusion is trending from the north-east to south-east direction from eastern to the western part of sorap massif area. in the eastern part of the study area in sorap kaur (nala) intrusion of gabbroic rock units’ basal part of gabbroic intrusion mainly composed of mantle rock units harzburgite, mylonitic peridotite, dunite with close jointing of gabbro, contact with the cretaceous kuchakki volcanic group and covered by the quaternary sand dune (fig.4ab). in the central part of the study area, the outcrop of gabbroic rock units mainly ali muhammad et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 1-11 5 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 composed of needle-like dark ferromagnesian minerals i.e., hornblende associated with light minerals plagioclase (fig.4c). this part of the gabbro mainly consists of a foliated-like structure because of the intense condition of pressure due to elastic deformation during emplacement. in the western part of the study area, the intrusion of gabbroic rock units is associated with dunite in the gar-koh area. in this area the gabbroic outcrop covers 1-1.5 km2, the rock units in this area are associated with concordant to dis-concordant layered of harzburgite, dunite and pegmatite vein within the gabbroic intrusion in the wehrlite rock units (fig.4d-f). figure 4 a-f. field features of the sorap massif; mantle rock units contact with kuchakki volcanic group and gabbroic rock units covered with sand dune (a and b). gabbroic units consist of needle-like ferromagnesian minerals with light coarse grains of plagioclase (c). ophiolitic rock (dunite) is mined for chromite (d). wehrlite is covered by the quaternary alluvial, sand dune and interlayered with gabbro (e and f). 4. materials and methods detailed geological fieldwork of two weeks was conducted in the sorap massif in the ras-koh ophiolitic belt. during the fieldwork, the area was geologically mapped, described all-field features of the ophiolite, identified the lithological units and collected the twenty least altered samples for laboratory analysis. after that, the thin sections of eighteen least altered samples were prepared for petrographic study. the study of the petrographic thin section was carried out on leica dm 750 digital polarized microscope in the centre of excellence mineralogy, university of balochistan (cemuob). 5. results 5.1.1. norite norite is mainly composed of plagioclase, orthopyroxene, amphibole, secondary minerals are sericite, chlorite and minor constituents of serpentine and accessory minerals are including epidote, apatite and opaque minerals. the texture is interlocking and subophitic, medium to coarse-grain of plagioclase, orthopyroxene, fine to medium grain amphibole with fine grain sericite and chlorite. crystal shapes of medium to coarse grains have subhedral to euhedral crystal shape and fine grains have anhedral to partially subhedral crystal shape (fig.5a-b). plagioclase has medium to coarse grain texture, euhedral elongated laths crystal shape with ali muhammad et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 1-11 6 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 albite twining, 1st order interference color in cross-polarized light. in plane-polarized light, the plagioclase has colorless to white interference color with low to moderate relief. orthopyroxenes have coarse grain texture, euhedral crystal shape with prismatic crystal structure and sample and lamellar twinning, highly pleochroism with 2nd to 3rd order interference color and right-angle welldeveloped cleavage with parallel extension in cross-polarized light and plane-polarized light orthopyroxene have colorless to greenish interference color with moderate to high relief. amphibole has fine to coarse texture, subhedral to euhedral crystal shape, 2nd order interference color and has a double set 56◦ to 126◦ angle of cleavages in cross-polarized light and planepolarized light the amphibole has high greenish to brownish pleochroic with moderate relief. model constituents of norite is; plagioclase (44 – 69.28%), orthopyroxene (18.3 – 28%) and amphibole (5 – 10%). 5.1.2. gabbro norite gabbro norite mainly consists of plagioclase, equal constituents of orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene, amphibole with secondary minerals are sericite, chlorite and accessory minerals are epidote, apatite and opaque minerals. gabbro norite has ophitic to subophitic and granular textures. pyroxene grains are enclosed by plagioclase grains. in gabbro norite, the plagioclase grains are partially altered into sericite and pyroxene grains are intense to partially altered into the chlorite (fig.5.c-d). plagioclase has medium to coarse grain texture, subhedral elongated crystal shape with regular polysynthetic twinning and partially altered into sericite. pyroxene grains are enclosed by the plagioclase have a double set of cleavage with an irregular fracture with anhedral to subhedral crystal shape with 2nd to 3rd order interference color and highly pleochroic with moderate to high relief. pyroxene is intensely altered into chlorite. model constituents of gabbro norite is; plagioclase (58.57 – 62.82%), orthopyroxene (11.66 – 25.71%), clinopyroxene (12.85 – 23.21) and amphibole (6.66 – 12.14%). 5.1.3. gabbro gabbro is mineralogically composed of high constituents of the primary minerals plagioclase, clinopyroxene and amphibole, secondary minerals are high constituents of sericite and chlorite with accessory minerals are including epidote, apatite and opaque minerals. gabbro has sub-ophitic to interlocking texture between plagioclase and clinopyroxene grains. in a few thin sections, mediums to coarse grains laths of plagioclase and clinopyroxene are bounded by the fine grain chlorite and sericite in the groundmass. the main texture types identified are poikilitic and granular. in poikilitic texture, the coarse grain clinopyroxene is enclosed by the fine to medium grains laths of plagioclase (fig.5e-f). in gabbro, the plagioclase has medium to coarse grain texture, subhedral to euhedral crystal shape with pericline to albite twining, 1st ali muhammad et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 1-11 7 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 order interference in cross-polarized light and plane-polarized light. it has a colorless to white interference color with low to moderate relief. in a few thin sections, the plagioclase is intensely altered into secondary minerals sericite. clinopyroxene has medium to coarse grain texture, subhedral to euhedral crystal shape with sample and a lamellar twin along the composition plane, 2nd to 3rd order interference color has pale green, pale brown, brown and pink color, perfect cleavage and irregular fracture with incline extinction along the cleavage angle in cross-polar light. plane polarized light clinopyroxene has highly greenish pleochroic with moderate to high relief. aegirine and augite are common members of clinopyroxene mainly occurred in this section. model constituents of gabbro is; plagioclase (49.2 – 68.5%), clinopyroxene (15 – 30%) and amphibole (5 – 10%). figure 5.a-f. petrographic features of the gabbroic rocks of sorap massif; norite is mainly composed of plagioclase, orthopyroxene, amphibole and secondary minerals are sericites with interlocking and subophitic, medium to coarse grain texture (a and b). gabbro norite mainly consists of plagioclase, equal constituents of orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene, amphibole and secondary minerals are sericite and chlorite with ophitic to sub-ophitic and granular texture (c and d). gabbro is composed of high constituents of plagioclase, clinopyroxene and amphibole, secondary minerals sericite and chlorite with ophitic to the interlocking texture (e and f). 5.2. comparison of sorap massif ras-koh gabbros with khanozai muslim bagh ophiolites gabbroic rock units in sorap massif in the raskoh ophiolitic belt are basal parts of the crustal section of ophiolite and that are formed in the magma chamber by the processes of crustal fractionation. the sorap massif is a western segment of ras-koh ophiolite and sorap massif has an immature sequence of intrusion of gabbroic rocks in its crustal section mainly composed of ultramafic to mafic cumulates including a harzburgite, mylonitic peridotite and dunite covered by the basaltic-andesitic volcanic rock units and quaternary alluvial sediments and sequence of pelagic sediments are absence in the ras-koh ophiolitic belt. these characteristics of an immature sequence of intrusion of gabbroic rock units in the crustal section are also recorded in a major ophiolitic belt around the world, i.e. ophiolitic belt in the tethyan oceanic region including a troodos cyprus, kizildag and pozanti karsanti turkey, pindos greece, semail oman, bela and muslim bagh pakistan, xigaze tibet (5, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 15, 33). ali muhammad et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 1-11 8 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 the intrusion of gabbroic rock units in the crustal part of sorap massif in the ras-koh ophiolite consists of a cyclic succession of ultra-mafic to mafic cumulates from bottom to top including a harzburgite, mylonitic peridotite, dunite, wehrlite and gabbro. gabbroic rock units are classified into norite, gabbro norite and gabbro. repeated series of each cyclic succession has different rock composition, structure and thickness because of the various phase of crystallization of minerals constituents due to differential supplied of magma in the magma chamber (34). the minerals constituents of gabbroic rock units of sorap massif in the raskoh ophiolite enriched pyroxene and amphibole, that is crystallized in the intrusion of gabbroic rock units indicating an immature part of oceanic plate and dehydration part of subduction plate. these features are indicated the model of gabbroic intrusion of sorap massif in the ras-koh ophiolite is originated in the large magma chamber by the magmatic processes linked with subduction. according to popal the intrusion in the crustal part of khanozai ophiolite mainly consist of cyclic series of ultra-mafic to mafic cumulates including dunite, pyroxenite, wehrlite and gabbro. the gabbroic rock units are classified into olivine gabbro, gabbronorite, olivine gabbronorite, norite and gabbro (35). the particular cycle of the reciprocated series has various rocks sequence, structures and thickness, that is indicating the numerous phases of crystallization of minerals constituents due to distinctive supplies of magma in the magma chamber (34). the mineral composition of gabbro is enriched in olivine, which is crystallized in the sequence of gabbroic rock units that are indicated the genesis of minerals constituents of gabbros. mineral constituents of gabbro were formed by the numerous pluses of magma during the stable time of crustal growth (35). these features indicate that the khanozai gabbroic may have originated from different intervals of time due to different episodes of magmatism. these characteristics of intrusion of the crustal section are also reported from the muslim bagh ophiolite (14, 36). the features of muslim bagh and khanozai gabbros indicating that they are not originated from the large magma chamber (37) and they may be formed by the magmatic processes such as the glacier model or sheeted sill model suggested for the ophiolitic gabbro’s (26, 38). conclusion 1. the sorap massif of ras-koh ophiolite is composed of mantle peridotites, ultramafic cumulates and mafic cumulates. 2. petrographically, the crustal sequence of sorap massif is classified as norite, gabbronorite and gabbro. 3. major constituents of gabbroic rock units are composed of orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, amphibole and plagioclase associated with secondary minerals and minor constituents of accessory minerals. 4. high constituents of ferromagnesian minerals including pyroxene and amphibole and low constituents of olivine in the gabbroic intrusion these are indicating the tectonic and petrogenesis of gabbroic ali muhammad et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 1-11 9 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 intrusion. the intrusion of gabbroic rock units is formed by the immature part of the oceanic plate and the dehydration part of oceanic plate subduction. acknowledgments this research was financially supported by the higher education commission, pakistan under its national research program for universities (nrpu) project # 3593 to, m. ishaq kakar. 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(1998). ser., edited by r. w. buck et al., 106, 267-289. agu, washington, d. c. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 04 june 2021. revised/accepted: 29 june 2021. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 28 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 journal of mountain area research river ecological study: building the knowledge base for variety of assessments such as climate change in nepal b.r. jha1*, s. gurung1, k. khatri2, b. gurung3, a. thapa1 and s. acharya4 1. department of environmental science and engineering, kathmandu university, dhulikhel, nepal 2. mahendra ratna campus, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal 3. 277/15 krishna dhar marg, maharajgunj 3, kathmandu, nepal. 4. balkot 1, bhaktapur, nepal. abstract climate change is now universally acknowledged to be taking place across the globe. it is generally presumed that the impacts of climate change would be more severe in the country like nepal due to its location, physiography, poverty and lack of preparedness to cope with the changes. the last reason is mainly associated with knowledge, information and ability to use technologies based on science. the main objective of this research is to analyze and evaluate the effects of climate change by taking fish as an indicator. however, an even more important outcome is to prepare a solid foundation of fish-based information, which could be used in the future as a reference for a variety of purposes including the study of climate change. two sets of examples, one in the tributaries of a glacial river and another in the tributary of a rain -fed river are compared in terms of fish ecological attributes to test for effects of climate change. in addition to fish-based information, this research also studies physico-chemical parameters and benthic fauna so as to build up an ecological profile of the rivers. keywords: river ecology, electrofishing, fish assemblage, bioindicators, climate change *corresponding author: (email: bibhuti@ku.edu.np) 1. introduction climate change is now universally acknowledged by scientists, international organizations and policy makers to be a global phenomenon [1]. nepal is no exception in experiencing the warm temperatures. between 1977 to 1994, the country has experienced an annual temperature increase of 0.06ºc [2]. it is generally presumed that the impacts of climate change would be more severe in a country like nepal due to its location, physiography, poverty and lack of preparedness to cope with the changes. the last reason is mainly associated with knowledge, information and ability to use scientific technologies. climate change study is a long term study and requires scientific information in space and time. in many sectors, nepal either lacks primary information or is messed up with unscientific documentation of available information. in general, nepal has scant information on its aquatic biodiversity considering the number and volume of its water bodies, with rivers alone exceeding well past 45,000 km mark covering 3, 95,000 ha of surface [3]. vol. 1, 2016 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 29 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 though there are a number of studies describing the extent of fish diversity [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10], the information is still scant and largely descriptive considering the size of the water resource of the country and complicated locations and physiography. new studies show that the number of fish species present in the country is increasing as it should be, to more than 200 species but the last taxonomic revision of the fish fauna lists 182 species [11]. more explorations and studies have tremendous potential to increase fish species in nepal. however, except the work of jha [12] most of the fish-based studies in the past do not include the effects of disturbances including those of climate change. there is even less information regarding other groups of organisms than fish in nepal’s water regime together with other vital physical and chemical accounts of water. although, headwaters and their tributaries are recognized as important ecosystems as freshwater resources [13, 14], biodiversity repositories [15]) and are sensitive to disturbances and are deteriorating, yet they have received very little attention [16, 17]. climate change may have severe impacts on the climatically sensitive biota of mountain streams thereby, threatening the biodiversity and integrity of these ecosystems [16, 18]. moreover, headwater dynamics in glacial-fed and rain-fed rivers may vary in terms of source of origin [3], climate, biogeography [15], geology [19] and physicochemical parameters [20]. considering the ecological importance and their role as environmental indicators including those of climate change, it is necessary to analyze and evaluate the biota of headwater systems. therefore, this research – a part of an ongoing long-term study of the nepalese rivers – attempts to describe two important biotic components: fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages in glacial fed (tamor) and rain fed (kamala) tributaries. the comparison of biotic components is supplemented by the information of on-site selected physico-chemical parameters of the water. the main objective of this research is to analyze and evaluate the effects of climate change by taking fish as an indicator. however, an even more important outcome is to prepare a solid foundation of fish/river-based information, which can be used in the future as a reference to variety of purposes including the study of climate change. the specific objectives of this work are as follows: 1. to compare the fish assemblages in tributaries of glacial-fed tamor river and tributaries of spring/rain-fed kamala river. 2. to study the distribution of benthic fauna in above mentioned sections of the rivers. 3. to study selected physico-chemical parameters of water. 2. methodology 2.1 study area the study was conducted in some of the tributaries of two major rivers (tamor and kamala) in eastern nepal. three tributaries of the tamor river were selected: mewa khola and maiwa khola in taplejung district and hewa khola in panchthar district. two tributaries of the kamala river were tawa khola and lalleri in udaipur district. the sampling was conducted from march 1721, 2015. a total of eight sites were chosen for sampling (table 1). table 1: coordinates and elevation of sampling sites jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 30 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 2.2 field method selected water quality parameters such as temperature, ph, do and conductivity were measured on site by using wagtech probes. three replicates were taken for further statistical analysis. the method of fish sampling applied in the study was a standard electrofishing by wading method [12, 21], which is a scientific method accepted all over the world. this required one or more electrofishing gear and other simple accessories such as rubber boots, nets, buckets, and measuring devices. the fish sampling was done by electrofishing gear in two runs of approximately 20 minutes and the captured fish was studied for variety of fish-based characteristics such as species, abundance, length, weight and sex. the abundance of fish was measured in temporal unit called catch per unit effort (cpue), which is expressed as number of fish per10 minutes of electrofishing. the fishes were only shocked for a few seconds, just enough to gather in the net for the readings. they were returned to their natural habitat once the necessary information was collected. fishes were identified to the species level using the widely used keys of the region [5, 7, 22, 23]. a few specimens of each species were preserved in 70% ethanol, tagged, and kept at kathmandu university, environmental science laboratory for a record as type specimen. qualitative sampling of macroinvertebrates [24] was carried out for assessment of macroinvertebrate assemblages at each site. a one hundred meter river stretch was sampled using a hand net of mesh size 250 µm. macroinvertebrates were collected from different substrates by kicking them and placing the net in front of the substrates so that macroinvertebrates drifted towards the net. macroinvertebrates were also collected by handpicking from underneath the stones, wood and other detritus. they were placed onto a white tray, washed and carefully placed into sampling bottles containing 70% ethanol and brought to the laboratory for further investigation. 2.3 laboratory method in the laboratory, macroinvertebrates were identified up to family level following relevant keys [25, 26, 27]. one way anova was applied to see significant variation in physico-chemical parameters between the rain-fed and glacialfed streams. a pearson chi-square test was also applied to see significant variation in fish assemblages between 2009 and 2015. 3. results and discussion the physico-chemical parameters for the investigated sites are summarized in table 2. one way anova revealed that ph (p<0.05), conductivity and temperature (p<0.01) showed significant variation between glacialfed and rain/spring-fed tributaries. ph was significantly higher in glacial-fed streams (p<0.05) whereas conductivity and site name river site code geographical coordinates elevation maiwa tamor m1 n 27˚22.064’ e 087˚37.098’ 664 mewa tamor m2 n 27˚22.675’ e 087˚37.617’ 666 hewa tamor h1 n 27˚10.061’ e 087˚47.321’ 629 hewa tamor h2 n 27˚09.802’ e 087˚45.560’ 550 tawa kamala t1 n 26˚59.211’ e 086˚ 27.743’ 330 lalleri tawa l1 n 26˚59.347’ e 086˚27.430’ 327 tawa kamala t2 n 26˚57.512’ e 086˚23.361’ 258 tawa kamala t3 n 26˚56.925’ e 086˚17.291’ 167 jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 31 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 temperature were significantly higher in rain/spring-fed streams (p<0.01). one way anova also revealed that all four parameters; temperature, ph, do and conductivity showed significant variation between different sites (p<0.01). altogether 1,927 fishes were captured during the sampling period from all eight sites. they represented 4 orders, 8 families, 19 genera and 22 species. cypriniformes had the highest number of families (4) followed by siluriformes (2) and, perciformes and synbranchiformes (1 each). cyprinidae was represented by 11 species; nemacheilidae 3 species; cobitidae and sisoridae 2 species each, and psilorhynchidae, amblycipitidae, channidae and mastacembelidae 1 species each. cyprinidae is the largest family of freshwater fishes and may account for more than 40% of the species in a watershed (28). a total of 9 and 15 fish species were recorded from glacial-fed and rain-fed streams respectively (table 3). table 4 recapitulates the total and average abundance (cpue) of different species. overall, the fish abundance was higher for rain/spring-fed streams compared to glacial-fed streams, with highest abundance recorded at site t2 (115) followed by t3 (107), t1 (97), l1 (92.32), h1 (52), m1 (37.4), h2 (24.75) and m2 (19.07). in terms of species diversity, site l1 accounted for highest number of fish species (12 species) followed by t3 (11 species), t2 (10 species), t1 (9 species), h1 (8 species), m1 (7 species), h2 (6 species) and m2 (4 species) (table 4). the total average abundance for all species was found to be 68.05, among which the abundance of s. beavani, l. guntea, b. vagra and s. rupecola was found to be fairly good whereas b. lohachata, c. latius, l. rohita, m. blythii, n. hexagonolepis, and p. sulcata were found to have low abundance. s. plagiostomus and p. sulcata were not recorded in the previous study [29] but were observed and found to have fair abundance in this study whereas s. labiatus and s. progastus were not observed in this study (table 4). difference in the sampling period could be the reason for this. species like a. mangois, c. punctata and l. guntea have adaptive features which make them capable of breathing air, and can survive even in low dissolved oxygen and hypoxic conditions [30, 31]. this could be the reason for high abundance of l. guntea (42.75/10 minutes) at site t2. also, it has been observed that relatively higher diversity and abundance of fish are observed at agricultural sites because of nutrient input in water [12, 32]. g. gotyla gotyla was observed in almost all sites except at m2. this species is widely distributed in nepal, and has been reported up to 1560 masl [12]. altogether, 11 vulnerable species, 4 endangered species and 2 rare species were observed in this study according to threat category defined by jha [11]. in addition, the comparison of fish assemblage of the selected streams at present and 6 years back [28] clearly shows the differences, which could be taken as the signs of climate change (table 6). a pearson chi-square test showed the p value of 0.018 regarding the variation of fish family composition of 2015 and 2009 assemblage, which means the variation is statistically significant. moreover, the bar diagram (figure 1) also showed the significant variation between the fish family assemblages, when the family cyprinidae and others were compared. fish assemblage in 2009 in the selected streams were just represented by two jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 32 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 families namely cyprinidae and psilorhynchidae but 2015 assemblage in the same sites showed two more families namely nemacheilidae and sisoridae, clearly suggesting that conditions have changed in those 6 years’ time and potentially could be attributed to climate change [1, 2]. similarly, 37 families of macroinvertebrates belonging to 3 phyla and 9 orders were observed in the investigated sites (figure 2). a total of 26 and 25 macroinvertebrate families were recorded from glacial-fed and rain/springfed streams respectively. however, this does not imply that same families were observed in both types of streams. trichoptera, ephemeroptera and diptera represented the highest number of macroinvertebrate families (6 families each) followed by hemiptera (4 families), gastropoda (3 families each), coleoptera, decapoda and oligochaeta (2 families each) and finally plecoptera, odonata and megaloptera (1 family each) (table 7). nine families were observed only in the glacial-fed streams with trichoptera being the dominant taxa (3 families) followed by oligochaeta (2 families each) and, ephemeroptera, diptera, coleoptera and hemiptera (1 family each). molluscs and crustaceans were observed exclusively in rain/spring-fed streams in this study. these taxa have been reported to be widely distributed in the lowland rivers and streams of nepal [34]. one interesting finding was that tabanidae, corydalidae and gomphidae were all found dead at site t2, however, hydropsychidae was still alive. a key informant survey revealed that just 3 days before our arrival, fishermen upstream had released endosulfine into the river. a laboratory study carried out on hydropsychidae had found that when the concentration of endosulfine increased hydropsychidae spun a protective net around it, possibly for protection [35]. this could be the reason why only hydropsychidae was found alive at the site, but the finding is yet to be confirmed. table 2: selected physico-chemical parameters for sampling sites sites river temperature (˚c) (±sd) ph (±sd) do (mgl-1) (±sd) conductivity (µscm1) (±sd) m1 tamor 18.80 ± 0.10 7.50 ± 0.30 7.76 ± 0.25 57.10 ± 1.34 m2 tamor 13.40 7.90 ± 0.35 10.05 ± 0.05 55.87 ± 0.06 h1 tamor 17.77 ± 0.25 7.23 ± 0.12 8.42 ± 0.07 65.90 ± 1.01 h2 tamor 15.13 ± 0.12 7.87 ± 0.21 9.13 ± 0.06 71.00 ± 0.53 t1 kamala 25.63 ± 0.06 7.17 ± 0.06 8.27 ± 0.29 314.00 ± 1.73 l1 kamala 25.53 ± 0.35 7.23 ± 0.15 8.67 ± 1.01 300.67 ± 0.58 t2 kamala 25.73 ±0.15 7.37 ± 0.06 9.85 ± 0.13 315.67 ± 1.53 t3 kamala 22.00 7.60 8.78 ± 0.85 402.67 ± 0.58 table 3: comparison of fish species in glacial-fed and rain/spring-fed streams note: bold letters mean common species found in glacial and rain fed streams jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 33 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 s.n. fish species (glacial-fed streams) fish species (rain-fed streams) 1. barilius bendelisis acanthocobitis botia 2. garra gotyla gotyla amblyceps mangois 3. myersglanis blythi barilius bendelisis 4. neolissochilus hexagonolepis barilius vagra 5. pseudecheneis sulcata botia lohachata 6. psilorhynchus pseudecheneis channa punctatus 7. schistura rupecola crossocheilus latius 8. schizothorax plagiostomus danio rerio 9. schizothorax richardsonii garra gotyla gotyla 10. labeo rohita 11. lephidocephalichthys guntea 12. mastacembelus armatus 13. pethia conchonius 14. puntius sophore 15. schistura beavani table 4: abundance of fish species in different sampling sites (catch/10 minutes of sampling) fish species m1 m2 h1 h2 t1 l1 t2 t3 average acanthocobitis botia 0.75 7.5 1.03 amblyceps mangois 8.33 2.00 7.00 5.75 2.88 barilius bendelisis 6.75 3.67 0.25 1.33 barilius vagra 11.33 33.00 9.25 17.25 8.85 botia lohachata 0.25 0.03 crossocheilus latius 0.33 0.04 channa punctata 1.00 1.67 2.00 0.58 danio rerio 12.33 4.33 2.08 garra gotyla gotyla 0.28 5.75 2.00 1.33 7.33 5.50 2.00 3.02 labeo rohita 0.67 0.50 0.15 lephidocephalichthys guntea 10.67 7.33 42.75 19.50 10.03 mastacembelus armatus 0.33 10.00 1.0 1.42 myersglanis blythii 0.26 1.70 0.24 neolissochilus hexagonolepis 1.25 0.16 pethia conchonius 2.00 1.75 1.00 0.59 psilorhynchus pseudecheneis 10.06 6.82 7.00 2.00 3.24 pseudecheneis sulcata 0.28 1.25 0.50 0.25 puntius sophore 10.00 7.00 1.00 2.25 schistura beavani 38.34 26.33 35.50 51.50 18.96 schistura rupecula 5.38 23.75 7.00 4.52 schizothorax plagiostomus 5.32 4.64 6.00 12.25 3.53 schizothorax richardsonii 15.82 5.91 0.25 1.00 2.87 jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 34 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 grand total 37.4 19.07 52.0 24.75 97.0 92.32 115 107 68.05 table 5: threat categories of sampled fish species sn. fish species threat category (jha, 2006) 1 acanthocobitis botia vulnerable 2. amblyceps mangois rare 3. barilius bendelisis vulnerable 4. barilius vagra vulnerable 5. botia lohachata vulnerable 6. crossocheilus latius endangered 7. channa punctata vulnerable 8. danio rerio vulnerable 9. garra gotyla gotyla common 10. labeo rohita 11. lephidocephalichthys guntea vulnerable 12. mastacembelus armatus endangered 13. myersglanis blythii rare 14. neolissochilus hexagonolepis vulnerable 15. pethia conchonius vulnerable 16. psilorhynchus pseudecheneis endangered 17. pseudecheneis sulcata endangered 18. puntius sophore vulnerable 19. schistura beavani common 20. schistura rupecola fairly common 21. schizothorax plagiostomus 22. schizothorax richardsonii vulnerable table 6: comparison of fish species in glacial-fed streams in time-scale s.n. fish species fish family previous study (2009) current study (2015) 1. schizothorax plagiostomus cyprinidae ✓ 2. schizothorax richardsonii cyprinidae ✓ ✓ 3. schizothoraichthys labiatus cyprinidae ✓ 4. schizothoraichthys progastus cyprinidae ✓ 5. garra annandalei cyprinidae ✓ 6. garra gotyla gotyla cyprinidae ✓ 7. schistura rupecola nemacheilidae ✓ 8. psilorhynchus pseudecheneis psilorhynchidae ✓ ✓ 9. myersglanis blythi sisoridae ✓ 10. pseudecheneis sulcata sisoridae ✓ 11. neolissochilus hexagonolepis cyprinidae ✓ jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 35 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 12. barilius barila cyprinidae ✓ 13. barilius bendelisis cyprinidae ✓ ✓ 14. barilius shacra cyprinidae ✓ table 7: comparison of macroinvertebrate taxa in glacial fed and rain-fed streams note: bold letters mean common species found in glacial and rain fed streams s.n. macroinvertebrate family (glacial-fed streams) macroinvertebrate family (rain-fed streams) 1. perlidae perlidae 2. heptageniidae heptageniidae 3. baetidae baetidae 4. caenidae caenidae 5. ephemeridae ephemerellidae 6. ephemerellidae leptophlebidae 7. corydalidae corydalidae 8. stenopsychidae hydropsychidae 9. hydropsychidae glossosomatidae 10. uenoidae philopotamidae 11. brachycentridae gomphidae 12. glossosomatidae tabanidae 13. gomphidae chironomidae 14. tabanidae simuliidae 15. limoniidae limoniidae 16. simuliidae, vellidae 17. chironomidae gerridae 18. dolichopodidae nepidae 19. blephariceridae gomphidae 20. naucoridae psephenidae 21. elmidae lymnaeidae 22. gerridae thiaridae 23. hirudinea planorbidae 24. naididae potamidae, 25. unidentified decapoda(shrimp) 26. unidentified jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 36 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 figure 1: bar diagram showing the comparison of fish families between 2009 and 2015 figure 2: macroinvertebrate taxa with number of families observed during study period 4. conclusion the results of this study provide baseline information on the structure and composition of fish and macroinvertebrate communities across the two types of headwater tributaries for future studies. both, diversity and abundance of fish species was lower in glacial-fed streams than in rain/spring-fed 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% 90.00% 2009 2015 othersfamily cyprinidae 0 2 4 6 8 coleoptera diptera ephemeroptera hemiptera megaloptera odonata plecoptera trichoptera decapoda gastropoda oligochaeta number of families ta x a lalleri tawa hewa mewa maiwa jha et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 28-39 37 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 streams. the glacial-fed streams supported species preferring cool water with fast-tomoderate flow such as s. richardsonii, p. pseudecheneis, n. hexagonolepis, s. rupecola whereas warm-water species such as d. rerio, l. guntea, m. armatus, b. vagra, p. sophore were recorded from rain/spring-fed streams. g. gotyla gotyla was found to be more pervasive in the present study. comparison of fish assemblage in some streams in the past and present clearly showed the signs and symptoms of climate change. likewise, 37 families of macroinvertebrates were recorded from all sites. trichoptera, ephemeroptera and diptera dominated most of these streams. 9 taxa were recorded only in glacial-fed streams including stenopsychidae, uenoidae and oligochaetes while molluscs and crustaceans were observed only in the rain/spring-fed streams. in terms of physico-chemical parameters, ph was found to be significantly higher in glacialfed streams (p<0.05) whereas conductivity and temperature were significantly higher in rain/spring-fed streams (p<0.01). thus, variation was observed in terms of fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages as well as physico-chemical parameters in the glacialfed and rain -fed headwater tributaries. moreover, this research has tried to apply a holistic approach to study the river systems by studying physico-chemical parameters, macroinvertebrates and fish, and surely the outcome of this 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[33] d. infante, j, allan, s. linke, relationship of fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages to environmental factors: implications for community concordance, hydrobiologia, 623 (2009) 87-103. [34] h. nesemann and s. sharma, distribution of aquatic molluscs (gastropoda, bivalvia) in nepal. poll res., 24 (2005) 839-842 [35] p. sharma, effects of multiple stressors influencing river andhi khola and the response of macroinvertebrates ph. d. thesis, kathmandu university, nepal (2014). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 72 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 journal of mountain area research exploring the antidiabetic and antioxidant potential of nepeta adenophyta hedge in hepg2 cells and its phytochemical studies r. ilyas1, † , m. ali2, † , i. ali3,*, b. siyo4, w. xu3,5, a. hussain6, w. wei3, l. chen3, zamarrud7, and x. wang3,* 1. noor-ul-huda public school, eidgah, 14300-astore, pakistan 2. muhammad ali jinnah government boys high school, jutial, 15100-gilgit, pakistan 3. shandong analysis and test center, qilu university of technology (shandong academy of sciences), jinan-250014, china 4. department of chemistry, tishreen university, latakia, syria 5. school of food and advanced technology, massey university, palmerston north, new zealand 6. department of chemistry university of okara, okara, pakistan 7. department of botany, university of karachi, karachi-75270, pakistan abstract the current study is based on the phytochemical isolation and biological activity evaluation of nepeta adenophyta hedge. this plant species is traditionally used for abdominal pain, kidney pain, stomach problems, urine problems, and diarrhea and is examined to control bleeding. five compounds were isolated using column chromatography over normal silica gel from the ethanolic crude extract of nepeta adenophyta and their structures were characterized with the help of spectroscopic techniques. in addition, the crude extract was evaluated for its antioxidant and antidiabetic potential in a human hepatoma cell line hepg2 cells and the crude extract showed good activities. the phytochemical isolation studies and the biological activities are conducted for the first time on the study sample. keywords: cherchoomoro, isolation, ethanolic crude, glucose consumption, oxidative stress *corresponding authors: (email: professor xiao wang: wxjn1998@126.com, i. ali: iftikharpcr@gmail.com) † these authors contributed equally to the paper. 1. introduction nepeta adenophyta hedge (lamiaceae) is a medicinal plant endemic to astore valley (gilgit, gilgit-baltistan, pakistan). n. adenophyta (figure 1) is locally called cherchoomoro and it is reported for abdominal pain, kidney pain, stomach problems, urine problems and diarrhoea and examined to control bleeding. many local people use this plant for stomach disorders and to treat general weakness of their cattle [1]. in a recent study, n. adenophyta has shown potent analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects [2]. figure 1: nepeta adenophyta hedge (image credit: rubab ilyas). n. adenophyta has been studied for preliminary phytochemicals that reported positive results for the presence of polyphenols, flavonoids, and reducing sugars [3]. the gc-ms vol. 8, 2023 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v8i0.178 full length article mailto:wxjn1998@126.com mailto:iftikharpcr@gmail.com ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 72-81 73 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 analysis of the crude has shown the presence of phenolics, nepetalactones, flavonoids etc. [2]. nepeta adenophyta hedge is a herbal remedy commonly used in astore valley, gilgit-baltistan [1]. in literature, phytochemical study of nepeta species has shown terpenoids (mono, di, tri), glycosides, flavonoids, iridoid, particularly [4, 5]. particularly terpenoids have been isolated from nepeta species such as di, and triterpenoids were isolated from n. obtusicrena and showed anti-alzheimer activity [6]. as from n. teydea many diterpenes, triterpenes have been isolated [7]. n. cataria is also reported to have diterpenes [8]. some diterpenes are reported from n. sorgerae [9]. triterpenes are also majorly found in nepeta species like in n. hindostana [10]. pimarane diterpenoid has been mainly isolated from many species of family lamiaceae [11]. derivatives of most pimarane diterpenoid have shown promising biological properties i.e., antitumor, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial [12]. recently, nepeta species have been reported to treat depression [13], hyperuricemia [14], acute hypoxia [15] etc. n. adenophyta has not been thoroughly investigated for phytochemical isolation. the present study aims at the isolation of phytoconstituents from the ethanolic crude extract of n. adenophyta (nae). in addition, nae has also been evaluated for its antidiabetic and antioxidant properties in a human hepatoma cell line (hepg2 cells). the phytochemical studies, the antidiabetic and antioxidant potential in hepg2 cells are investigated for the first time. 2. material and methods 2.1 solvents and reagents the solvents of commercial grade nhexane, ethyl acetate, dichloromethane, methanol and ethanol were purchased from musaji adam & sons (abbottabad, pakistan). 3(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5diphenyltetrazolium bromide (mtt), and dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso) were purchased from solarbio science and technology co., ltd. (beijing, china). milliq water (millipore, bedford, ma, usa) was used to prepare all buffers and solutions. foetal bovine serum (fbs), dulbecco’s modified eagle medium (dmem), phosphatebuffered saline (pbs), streptomycin, and penicillin were purchased from jinan kang-mai science & technology co., ltd. (jinan, china). a glucose test kit was used to instruct the glucose content (rong-sheng biotech co., ltd., shanghai, china). reactive oxygen species assay kit was purchased by beyotime biotechnology (beijing, china). 2.2 structure determination the masses of isolated compounds were determined by esi-ms (positive ion mode and negative ion mode), carried out on agilent 6520 q-tof (agilent, santa clara, ca, usa). the nmr spectra were recorded on a bruker av-400 spectrometer (bruker biospin, rheinstetten, germany) with dmsod, or cdcl3 as nmr solvent, tms was used as an internal standard. the chemical shift (δ) values were determined in parts per million (ppm), and the coupling constant (j) was measured in hz. 2.3 chromatography silica gel 60 f254 plates (merck) were used to check the purity of semi pure and pure fractions. for column chromatography, silica gel 60 (merck) mesh size 60-230 was used. for the identification of uv active compounds, tlcs were checked by uv lamp (254 & 365 nm). tlcs were visualized by spraying ceric sulphate spray and heated for analyzing spray active compounds. for ceric sulphate spray, 0.1 g ceric sulphate and 1 g trichloroacetic acid were ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 72-81 74 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 dissolved in 4 ml distilled water. the solution was boiled and concentrated h2so4 was added drop wise till turbidity disappearance. 2.4 plant material the plant material of n. adenophyta hedge was collected from astore, gilgitbaltistan. the plant was identified by dr. ali noor, and the voucher number (180-kuh) was submitted to the department of biological sciences, karakoram international university, gilgit. the whole plant material were collected and dried under the shade. 2.5 extraction of nepeta adenophyta the air-dried n. adenophyta whole plant material (5.5 kg) was soaked and extracted thrice (3 × 24 h) under room temperature in absolute ethanol, keeping the ratio of solid and liquid (1:15). the extractives were combined and evaporated to dryness by rotary evaporator yielding the ethanol residue (nae; 480 g). 2.6 isolation & characterization the crude extract nae (460 g) was subjected to normal column chromatography with increasing polarity order (n-hexane, dcm, ethyl acetate, methanol), and as a result 48 fractions (n1-n48) were obtained. the fractions n6-n9 (a, 40% dcm:n-hexane), and n10-18 (b, 70% dcm:n-hexane to 10% etoac:dcm) were combined separately, dried and rechromatographed separately over normal silica gel using (n-hexane, ethyl acetate, methanol) solvent system. from part a, total 66 sub fractions (na1-na66) were obtained. the sub fractions na23-na24 (10% etoac:nhexane), na30-na36 (15% etoac:n-hexane) were separately combined which yielded compounds 1, and 2, respectively. while the sub fractions na41-na56 (1:1 etoac:n-hexane to 100%etoac) were combined and furthermore rechromatographed that yielded compound 3 (100% etoac). the part b was rechromatographed over silica gel, and total 24 fractions were obtained. the fraction 9-11 (1020% etoac:n-hexane) yielded compound 4, and the fraction 18 (100% etoac) was further rechromatographed. total 54 fractions were obtained and fraction 33 (1:1%etoac:n-hexane to 80%etoac:n-hexane) yielded compound 5. 2.7 antidiabetic activity the antidiabetic activity was performed following the reported protocol [16]. hepg2 (a human hepatoma cell line) cells were analyzed for glucose consumption assay. in brief, 96-well cell culture plates were filled with a 100 μl of the hepg2 cell suspension (5 × 104 /ml). in culturing the cell suspension, 37 °c temperature was provided along with 5% co2. the used medium was discarded after culturing the plates for 24 h and washed the cultured plates two or three times using pbs (phosphate-buffered saline) solution. afterwards, the insulin-containing solution with the serum-free dmem (dulbecco's modified eagle medium) medium was added to the cells. for 36 h, the supernatant was cultured and then aspirated. the cells were poured with serum-free drug containing, or drug-free dmem added. in this experiment, three groups were classified: component treatment group (25-100 μg/ml), blank control group, and insulin group (10-6 mmol/l). according to the glucose test kit (beijing applygen technologies inc., china), the glucose content was detected after 24 h of culture at 505 nm. the given formula was used to calculate the glucose consumption rate. ∆gc = (glucose conc. of blank wells glucose conc. of cell-inoculated). 2.8 antioxidant activity hydrogen peroxide-induced oxidative stress was determined in hepg2 cells to check ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 72-81 75 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 the sample's antioxidant capability. the reported protocol [17] with slight modification was followed in the current experiment. test sample was prepared by adding stock solution with dmso. hepg2 cells were grown in 96-well plates at 5 × 104 cells/well and cultured for 24 h at 37 °c with 5% co2. then different samples were added to the plates and were left for 24 h. last, hepg2 cells were incubated with hydrogen peroxide solutions (200 μm) for 6h. then 1 mg/ml mtt (3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) solution was prepared and added to each well about 50 μl of mtt solution and incubated the samples containing mtt solution further for 4h at 37 °c. then the supernatant was removed and 500 μl dmso (dimethyl sulfoxide) was added to lyse or split the cells on a gyratory shaker. the absorbance of each sample was recorded at 490 nm by using the microplate reader. the results were expressed as the mean of cell survival normalized to control (without treatment). however, the minor modification that was employed in the present study is illustrated here. in the reported protocol [17], the authors used 24 multi-well plate, 100 µm hydrogen peroxide, 100 µm of dcfh-da (2,7dichlorodi -hydrofluorescein diacetate), and finally analyzed the samples at 485 and 535 nm. while in the present experiment, the minor modification was adopted using 96 multi-well plates, using 200 µm hydrogen peroxide, 1 mg/ml mtt solution, and finally analyzing the samples at 490 nm. 3. results and discussion 3.1 structure characterization five compounds (1-5) were isolated in pure form from n. adenophyta by repeated column chromatography over normal silica gel. the structures of 1-5 were elucidated by various spectral techniques. moreover, the spectral data were compared and found in agreement with the literature. compound 1: the esi-ms (positive ion mode) showed molecular ion [m+h]+ at m/z 581.2538 corresponding to the molecular formula c39h64o3 (calcd. 581.4928). in proton nmr, the signals for methyl protons were observed at different chemical shift values. a double bond proton appeared at δh 5.40, which corresponded to position 6. a signal at δh 3.70 ppm attributed to h-3. likewise, a signal with δh 5.06 appeared for highly deshielded proton attached between two electronegative atoms at 3′ position. the 13c nmr showed 39 signals including 8 methyl, 13 methylene, 14 methine and 4 quaternary carbon atoms, as determined by 2d nmr. the structure was elucidated for compound 1 as 3′α-[β-sitosteryl-3β-oxy]dihydronepetalactone. the experimental data was found in correlation with previous literature [18]. 1h nmr (400 mhz, in cdcl3): δh 5.40 (1h, d, j = 4.7 hz, h-6), 5.06 (1h, d, j = 8.6, h-3′), 3.70 (1h, m, h-3), 1.25 (3h, d, j = 6.6 hz, me-8′), 1.06 (3h, d, j = 7.1 hz, me-9′), 1.06 (3h, s), 0.91 (3h, d, j = 7.5 hz), 0.87 (3h, d, j = 6.7 hz), 0.85 (3h, d, j = 6.9 hz), 0.83 (3h, t, j = 6.9 hz), 0.64 (3h, s). 13c nmr (100 mhz, in cdcl3): δc 173.4 (c-1ʹ, c=o), 139.7 (c-1, ch2), 120.7 (c-2, ch2), 103.9 (c-3ʹ), 77.8 (c3, ch), 55.7 (c-4, ch2), 55.0 (c-5), 49.1 (c-6, ch), 49.0 (c-7aʹ, ch), 48.6 (c-7, ch2), 41.3 (c-8, ch), 39.3 (c-9, ch), 39.1 (c-4aʹ, ch), 38.7 (c-5ʹ), 38.1 (c-10), 37.1 (c-11, ch2), 36.2 (c-7ʹ, ch), 36.1 (c12, ch2), 35.5 (c-13), 35.1 (c-6ʹ), 32.9 (c-14, ch), 32.4 (c-15, ch2), 32.2 (c-16, ch2), 30.6 (c-17, ch), 29.2 (c-18, ch3), 29.1 (c-19, ch3), 26.1 (c20, ch), 24.3 (c-21), 22.5 (c-22, ch2), 21.1 (c-23, ch2), 19.8 (c-9ʹ, ch3), 19.6 (c-24, ch), 19.6 (c25, ch), 19.4 (c-26, ch2), 19.1 (c-27, ch3), 15.4 (c-8ʹ, ch3), 10.9 (c-28, ch3), 10.8 (c-29, ch3). ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 72-81 76 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 compound 2: the esi-ms (positive ion mode) showed molecular ion [m+h]+ at m/z 731.6175 corresponding to the molecular formula c46h82o6 (calcd. 731.6184). the aromatic protons resonating at δh 7.70 and 7.53 ppm attributed to h-3/6 and h-4/5, respectively. the 13c nmr revealed 2 methyl, fifteen methylene, 2 aromatic sp2 carbon atoms, 2 methine and two quaternary carbon atoms for half of the compound, as determined by 2d nmr spectra. all these promising signals helped to elucidate the structure of the compound 2, identified as bis [7-ethyl-2-(2-hydroxyethyl) pentadecyl] phthalate. the experimental data was found in correlation with previous literature [19]. 1h nmr (400 mhz, cdcl3): δh 7.70 (2h, m, h-3, h-6), 7.53 (m, h-4, h-5), 4.15-4.28 (4h, m, h-1′, h-1′′), 3.593.67 (4h, m, h-17′, h-17′′), 1.47-1.53 (4h, m, h-2′, h-2′′, h-16′, h-16′′), 1.38-1.41 (2h, m, h-7′, h-7′′), 1.30-1.34 (4h, m, h-4′, h-4′′), 1.20-1.22 (24h, m, h3′, h-5′, h-6′, h-9′, h-14′, h-18′, h-18′′, h-3′′, h-5′′, h6′′, h-9′′, h-14′′), 0.89 (6h, m, h-19′, h-19′′), 0.87 (6h, m, h-15′, h-15′′). 13c nmr (100 mhz, cdcl3): δc 167.9 (2co, c-1, -8), 132.5 (2c, c-2, -7), 130.8 (2ch, c-4, -5), 128.8 (2ch, c-3, -6), 68.1 (2ch2, c1′, -1′′), 63.3 (2ch2, c-17′, -17′′), 38.7 (2ch, c-2′, 2′′), 32.8 (2ch, c-7′, -7′′), 31.9 (2ch2, c-8′, -8′′), 29.6 (2ch2, c-6′, -6′′), 29.5 (12ch2, c-9′ to -14′, -9′′ to -14′′), 28.9 (2ch2, c-5′, -5′′), 25.7 (2ch2, c-18′, 18′′), 23.7 (2ch2, c-3′, -3′′), 22.9 (2ch2, c-4′, -4′′), 22.7 (2ch2, c-16′, -16′′), 14.1 (2ch3, c-15′, -15′′), 10.9 (2ch3, c-19′, -19′′). compound 3: the esi-ms (negative ion mode) gave the quasi molecular ion peak at m/z 303.2260 [m-h]+ corresponding to c20h31o2 (calcd. 303.2318). the esi-ms (positive ion mode) showed molecular ion [m-h2o+h] + signal at m/z 287.1674. the 1h-nmr of the compound represented doublet of doublet for double bond protons resonating at δh 5.90 (dd, j = 17.6, 10.9 hz). a multiplet of a single proton appeared at δh 5.29 showed a double bond at carbon 7. a proton attached to electronegative atom at position 12 appeared at chemical shift of δh 3.56 (dd, j =11.5, 4.4 hz) connected with δc 73.9 at position 12, one proton appeared at δh 3.48 and δh 3.48 ppm. likewise, four quaternary carbons were observed at c-4, c-8, c-10 and c-13 with δc of 32.4, 135.3, 39.0 and 42.0 ppm, respectively. however, all the spectral information was in agreement with reported values [20] and the structure of the pimarane diterpenoid was deduced as (2r,4as,4bs,8as)2-ethenyl-1,2,3,4,4a,4b,5,6,7,8,8a,9dodecahydro-2,4b,8,8-tetramethyl-3,5phenanthrenediol (3) with the molecular formula c20h32o2. 1h-nmr (dmso-d6, 400 mhz): δh 5.90 (1h, dd, j = 17.6, 10.9 hz, h-15), 5.29 (1h, m, h-7), 4.92 (2h, m, h-16), 3.56 (1h, dd, j = 11.5, 4.4 hz, h-12), 3.48 (1h, m, h-1), 2.54 (1h, m, h-9), 1.97 (2h, m, h-14), 1.85 (2h, m, h-6), 1.61 (2h, m, h-3), 1.57 (2h, m, h-11), 1.44 (2h, m, h-2), 1.36 (1h, m, h-5), 0.89 (3h, s, h-18), 0.84 (3h, s, h-19), 0.78 (3h, s, h-20), 0.75 (3h, s, h-17). 13c-nmr (dmso-d6, 100 mhz): δc 148.5 (ch, c-15), 135.3 (c-8), 120.5 (ch, c-7), 111.3 (ch2, c-16), 73.9 (ch, c-12), 69.4 (ch, c-1), 45.2 (ch2, c-14), 43.8 (ch, c-5), 42.0 (c-13), 41.3 (ch, c-9), 39.0 (c-10), 34.1 (ch2, c-3), 33.8 (ch3, c-19), 32.5 (c-4), 28.5 (ch2, c-11), 25.9 (ch2, c-2), 23.4 (ch2, c-6), 23.0 (ch3, c-18), 15.4 (ch3, c-17), 15.2 (ch3, c-20). compound 4: the esi-ms (positive ion mode) showed m/z at 309.2790 [m+h]+ showing molecular formula c20h36o2 (calcd. 309.2788). the 1h nmr data represented singlet for methyl protons resonating at δh 0.95, 0.86, 0.85 and 1.69 ppm which represent protons at h-18, h-19, h20, and h-16 respectively. the chemical shift values for protons at δh 2.15 (2h, t, j = 8.1) and δh 5.41 (1h, t, j = 8.1) confirmed the protons at positions 12 and 14, respectively. the peak at δh 4.18 (2h, d, j = 7.9 hz) was assigned to proton at ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 72-81 77 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 position 15. the experimental data was found in correlation with previous literature [21] and the structure was confirmed as labd-13(e)ene,8α,15-diol (4). 1h nmr (400 mhz, cdcl3): δh 5.41 (1h, t, j = 8.1, h-14), 4.18 (2h, m, h-15), 2.15 (2h, m, h-12), 1.69 (3h, s, h-16), 1.12 (3h, s, h-17), 0.95 (3h, s, h-18), 0.86 (3h, s, h-19), 0.85 (3h, s, h20). the remaining protons were observed as multiplet signals. 13c nmr (400 mhz, cdcl3): δc 140.9 (ch2, c-1), 123.1 (ch2, c-2), 74.3 (ch2, c3), 61.1 (c, c-4), 59.2 (ch, c-5), 56.1 (ch2, c-6), 44.5 (ch2, c-7), 43.8 (c, c-8), 42.8 (ch, c-9), 39.7 (c, c-10), 39.2 (ch2, c-11), 33.3 (ch2, c-12), 33.2 (c, c-13), 23.9 (ch, c-14), 23.5 (ch2, c-15), 21.5 (ch3, c-16), 20.5 (ch3, c-17), 18.4 (ch3, c-18), 16.4 (ch3, c-19), 15.4 (ch3, c-20). compound 5: the esi-ms showed molecular ion peak [m+h]+ at m/z 315.08642. the 1h nmr showed two signals at δh 6.81 and δh 6.86 ppm for hydrogens at c-3 for deshielded methine proton and for aromatic hydrogen at c-8, respectively. the signal at δc 182.6 was assigned to carbonyl carbon at c-4. the chemical shifts at δc 132.3 and δc 159.0 ppm were assigned to c-6 and c-7, respectively. so all these promising signals helped for elucidation of structure and the compound 5 was named as cirsimaritin with molecular formula c17h14o6 (calcd. 315.0863). the experimental data was found in correlation with previous literature [22]. 1h nmr (400 mhz, dmso-d6): δh 12.93 (1h, 5-oh), 10.40 (1h, 4′-oh), 7.95 (2h, d, j = 8.7 hz, h-2′, h-6′), 6.93 (2h, d, j = 8.7 hz, h-3′, h-5′), 6.86 (1h, s, h-8), 6.81 (1h, s, h3), 3.93 (3h, s, -och3), 3.76 (3h, s, -och3). 13c nmr (400 mhz, dmso-d6): δc 182.6 (co, c-4), 164.4 (c-2), 161.7 (c-4ʹ), 159.0 (c-7), 153.0 (c-9), 152.5 (c-5), 132.3 (c-6), 128.8 (2ch, c-2ʹ, 6ʹ), 121.5 (c-1ʹ), 116.3 (2ch, c-3ʹ, 5ʹ), 105.5 (c-10), 103.0 (ch, c-3), 91.8 (ch, c-8), 60.4 (och3, c-6), 56.8 (och3, c-7). figure 2. structures of compounds (1-5) isolated from nepeta adenophyta hedge 3.2 results of antidiabetic activity based on the consumption of glucose assay on hepg2 cells, antidiabetic activity of nae was carried out. the results are shown in the table 1. table 1. antidiabetic activity in hepg2 cells of crude extract of nepeta adenophyta hedge sample code & concentration glucose uptake (mmol/l) 25 (μg/ml) 50 (μg/ml) 100 (μg/ml) nae 3.908078 4.103064 4.103064 4.086351 4.73259 4.73259 3.437326 3.640669 3.640669 * control (6.210515, 6.159660, 6.454621); model (3.514492, 4.079756, 3.805199); metformin (6.051500, 5.966000, 6.546210) 78 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 figure 3. glucose consumption assay on hepg2 cells the test samples were taken in concentrations of 25, 50, and 100 μg/ml. each sample was examined three times. alongside the results for the control group, the model group and metformin are also provided in table 1. the glucose uptake in hepg2 cells increased with increasing concentrations of sample, i.e., 25, 50, and 100 μg/ml as shown in fig. 3. the ethanol extract was found active. significant activity (p<0.05) was found at all tested concentrations. results of antioxidant activity the antioxidant potential of the test sample was determined in hepg2 cells. for almost six hours, the cells were treated with 200 μm hydrogen peroxide, and the results are shown in table 2, which also shows the results for the control group, the model group and quercetin. table 2. antioxidant activity in hepg2 cells of crude extract of nepeta adenophyta hedge sample code & concentration cell viability (% of control) 25 (μg/ml) 50 (μg/ml) 100 (μg/ml) nae 0.1288 0.1039 0.1048 0.1301 0.1101 0.1079 0.1301 0.1047 0.1063 0.1411 0.1212 0.1035 * control (0.520, 0.530, 0.520); model (0.2904, 0.2754, 0.1985); quercetin (0.4810, 0.4456, 0.4710) figure 4. the cell viability of components on hepg2 cells the crude extract of the study plant was used for antioxidant potential which were checked in hydrogen peroxide induced hepg2 cells. as presented in table 2, the test sample was analyzed in three different concentrations, i.e., 25, 50, and 100 μg/ml. each sample was analyzed in triplicate. as shown in fig. 4, the sample was tested by taking three different concentrations i.e., 25, 50, and 100 μg/ml. the cell viability was found lesser than 50%, and the standard antioxidant quercetin was used. the increase in concentration showed good results. the mint family (lamiaceae) is a source for healing and managing various metabolic disorders, included diabetes [4]. n. cataria is the most studied species of the genus nepeta, it is traditionally used for fever, pneumonia, etc., and it has previously shown many biological properties like antioxidant and most importantly against diabetes [23, 24]. likewise, n. racemosa showed antidiabetic and antioxidant activities ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 72-81 79 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 which are due to the presence of phenolic and flavonoid content [25]. n. hindostana, n. graciliflora and n. cataria have previously shown high potential for antioxidant, antiinflammatory and anti-diabetic properties [26]. similarly, recently, n. baytopii, turkey’s endemic specie, has been reported for its antioxidant and antidiabetic potential [27] and n. deflersiana has exhibited high content of antibacterial and antidiabetic properties [28]. herein, nepeta adenophyta hedge showed antioxidant and antidiabetic potential, which favors its traditional uses and could be an important source in search of medicine for such diseases in future. conclusions the himalayan nepeta adenophyta hedge was studied for the isolation, and five compounds were isolated by using chromatographic techniques. the compounds namely 3′α-[β-sitosteryl-3β-oxy]dihydronepetalactone (1), bis [7-ethyl-2-(2hydroxyethyl) pentadecyl] phthalate (2), a pimarane diterpenoid (3), labd-13(e)ene,8α,15-diol (4), and cirsimaritin (5) were isolated in pure form using column chromatography over normal silica gel. the plant crude material (nae) showed good results in antioxidant and antidiabetic activities in hepg2 (a human hepatoma cell line) cells. the current study has unlocked new ways for the phytochemical and bioactivity evaluation of this medicinal plant. the compounds like nepetalactones, diterpenes and flavones are present in the plant sample, and in future studies, some other related compounds of these classes might be isolated. declarations funding: the authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this study derived from the shandong major technological innovation project (2021cxgc010508). conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no conflict of interest or competing interest. authors’ contributions: rubab ilyas: investigation. m. ali: investigation. i. ali: conceptualization; formal analysis; funding acquisition; methodology; project administration; resources; supervision; roles/ writing original draft. baraa siyo: formal analysis; writing review & editing. wenliang xu: investigation. amjad hussain: formal analysis; writing review & editing. wang wei: formal analysis. long chen: investigation. zamarrud: formal analysis; resources; writing review & editing. xiao wang: project administration; supervision; writing review & editing. acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge dr. ali noor, department of biological sciences, karakoram international university, gilgit for identification services. references [1] a. noor, s. khatoon, m. ahmed, enumeration of the ethnobotaniacal uses of some herbs in astore valley, gilgit-baltistan, pakistan with particular reference to health cure purposes, fuuast journal of biology, 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[27] g. zengin, m. f. mahomoodally, a. aktumsek, j. jekő, z. cziáky, m. j. rodrigues, l. custodio, r. polat, u. cakilcioglu, a. ayna, chemical profiling and biological evaluation of nepeta baytopii extracts and essential oil: an endemic plant from turkey, plants, 10 (2021) 1176. [28] i. ahmad, s. irfan, m. abohashrh, s. wahab, s. s. abullais, m. a. javali, n. nisar, m. m. alam, s. srivastava, m. saleem, inhibitory effect of nepeta deflersiana on climax bacterial community isolated from the oral plaque of patients with periodontal disease, molecules, 26 (2021) 202. received: 06 april 2023. revised/accepted: 02 may 2023. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 44 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 journal of mountain area research a study of long-term sunspots and k-index geometric cycles using probabilistic modeling danish hassan1, 2, hamza khan3, 4, *, muhammad fahim akhter2, muhammad danish khan5, shaheen abbas2 1. department of applied sciences, national textile university karachi campus, karachi pakistan. 2. mathematical sciences research center federal urdu university of arts, sciences and technology, karachi, pakistan. 3. department of textile and clothing, national textile university karachi campus, karachi pakistan 74900. 4. doctoral school of applied informatics and applied mathematics óbuda university, budapest hungary. 5. shaheed zulfikar ali bhutto institute of science and technology, karachi, pakistan. abstract the research work done in this paper comprises the application of different well-known probability distribution models. this includes the understanding of the behavior and dynamics of 24 sunspot cycles with total data. the time-series data sets were selected from 1749 to 2014. to observe the solar activity effects on k-index activity the double cycles from 1932 to 2014 were also incorporated in the study. the comparative study is useful to observe the long-term solar-terrestrial connection. the magnetic field of the sun reverses its polarity after every 11 years of the cycle. so after every 22 years, the north pole becomes again north pole. by using the two well-known tests kolmogorov-smirnov (kst) and anderson-darling test (adt) the probability distribution models were obtained for each sunspot cycles and compare. the significant probability models for all the sunspot cycles have been obtained. the fitted probability distribution models on selected data sets may be useful to understand the trend of solar and geomagnetic activity. keywords: sunspot cycles; geomagnetic activity; kolmogrove-smirnove test (kst); anderson darling test (adt). *corresponding author: dr. hamza khan (email: hamzakhan@ntu.edu.pk, phone: 0092-333-3032982) 1. introduction the study of sunspots and its cycles has been unique importance in understanding the space climate, global climate and solarterrestrial relationship. the solar cycles are depending on the sunspots and on its variation that is because of polar reversibility on sun. the quiet and active durations are also strongly connected with the number of sunspots [1, 15]. the other phenomena on sun like plages, flares, solar wind and prominences are also depending on sunspots activity [14]. the astrophysics provides the information about the solar-terrestrial connection in the perspective of magnetic field of sun, electromagnetic radiation and emission of different particles. the composition of different gases on sun are h (60%), he (40%) and heavier particles (1%). the cumulative mass is 2 × 1033 grams with 5 × 109 years of age. the earth is 1.5 × 108 km away from the sun with a nearly colloidal magnetic field [1, 4, 7]. according to the lorentz force equation perpendicular to both the direction of the velocity vector and the field (the cross product). the k-index of geomagnetic activity full length article vol. 7, 2022 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.141 hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 45 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 in the perspective of the climate of the earth has been one of the important indices to experience the variation. it categorizes from 0-9 (very quiet to extremely disturb) scale on a scale [10]. the data from any observatory represents the measured at three hours of intervals. the index depicts the third of a unit (5 − is 4 2 3 , 5o is 5 0 3 , and 5 + is 5 1 3 ) [4, 7]. the average of activity k-index is the 𝐾𝑝 index that is determined and standardized by the data of all station. a storm is labeled a major storm if it is equivalent or surpasses forty [11]. in 1932 to 1989 more than thousands of such storms were happened. a distinct index is sustained by the number of storms which by allen in 1978 [5,10] has been presented and recognized as ap index. the independent classification has the c-figures arithmetic mean in every day magnetic activity by separate observatory on a scale of 0 to 22 (quiet-storm). the average of the dimension of two antipodean observatories is entitled aa index. individuals two antipodal observatories are the greenwich-melbourne characterizes the magnetic activity on earth given in gammas [5]. 2. methodologies this manuscript analyzes the sunspots-k-index geomagnetic cyclic activity time series data in the perception of probability models and tail of sunspot cycles depending on the two tests kst and adt. the tests are substantial to recognize the best fitted probability distribution. for the probability distribution models, the data of sunspot cycles 1749-2014 were incorporated while for assessment of the sunspotsgeomagnetic relationship double-cyclic time series 82 years data 1932-2014 were selected. for these purposes a most suitable statistical software easyfit (ef) was experienced. 3. details of material and methods the sun comprises numerous kinds of cycles, many features of the passing solar atmosphere and lots of assets of the quiet as well as the active sun are linked with sunspots. the number of sunspots and latitude foundation is considered almost periodic, again over an 11year cycle [11, 12]. a specific sunspot remains at persistent latitude in its lifetime; also flourishing sunspots tend to format increasingly worse altitudes, moving from the poles towards the equator. as the end of sunspots in one cycle disappear near the sun's equator, a new cycle starts near ± 40o (north and south) of the equator. the major number of sunspot maximum arises at transitional latitudes. the solar-terrestrial events are wolf sunspot numbers well-defined as 𝑅 = 𝐾(𝑓 + 10𝑔) where f is the whole number of spots perceived, g is the number of concerned regions and k is a constant of observatory, associated to the sensitivity of the detecting instrument. there are additional important indices for occurrence the number of solar flares observed through one solar variation and the flux of 10 cm radio releases. jointly these indices in turn narrate to the sunspot numbers [4, 5]. solar singularities like flares, plages and prominences with connection to sunspot activity. in some cases, sunspot-flares or dissimilarities are detected during a period of small solar activity. consequently, it is understood that the quiet solar corona can be normally further extendable at the equator as compare to the poles [4]. in an 11-year cycle, the sunspot will be for all time that have the same deviation in one hemisphere. a north pole in the physical northern hemisphere, nevertheless the main sunspot in the further hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 46 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 hemisphere will have the reverse polarity [5]. when a large collection of sprawling spots exists then it creates a twisted magnetic field shape, a fundamentally bipolar field is existent. the polarizations will additionally be reserved in time of the forthcoming cycle of 11 years. in the north hemisphere the sunspot will prime with a magnetic polarity in south. in overall, the dipole park of the sun will variation with the intent that the north-pole of the sun will control from the geographic north-pole to the geographic south-pole. at minimum sunspot time, where the first sunspot is begins to form at higher latitudes. it is noticed that the change of polarity occurs always. for this purpose, the sun is known to have a cycle of 22 year [3, 5]. in this manuscript, the behavior of 24 sunspots cycles have been investigated 1749-2014 with the 4 k-index cycles 1932-2014.the performance of the selected two-time series data was compared during eight last sunspot cycles 1932-2014. it is also known that 4 k-index cycles associated to these eight-sunspot double-cycles in the duration. depending on two tests kolmogorov-smirnov (ks) and anderson-darling (ad) the appropriate probability models were obtained for two data sets. the distribution log-gamma along with parameters are given as under. 𝑓(𝑥) = ln[𝑥 − 𝑦 + 1]𝛼−1 (𝑥 − 𝑦 + 1) 1+𝛽 𝛽 𝛽𝛼 𝛾(𝛼) (1) here 𝑥 > 𝑦, 𝛼 > 0, 𝛽 > 0 and the mean of loggamma distribution is (1 − 𝛽) − 𝛼 + 𝛾 − 1. the unique example of the gamma distribution is the chi-square distribution. there are two parameters contains in the family of gamma distribution. the random variable x of continuous type has the probability distribution function (pdf) contains parameters 𝛼 = 𝛾 2 and 𝛽 = 2, where 𝛾 is depicts the positive integer [6]. 𝑓(𝑥) = 1 𝛾 ( 𝑟 2 ) 2 𝑟 2 χ γ 2 𝑒 − 𝑥 2 , 2 < 𝑥 ∞ 0 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 the obtained models may be the most applicable distribution for the sunspot and kindex cycles. since the probability distribution helps to realize the potential future variation of the variables. the aim of this research work was to test the behavior of all the sunspot cycles using probability distribution. it is obvious that 4 k-index cycles correspond to these 8 sunspot cycles in the duration [5]. the normal distribution of continuous variables is the most important distribution fitted on the selected time series. it can be demonstrated mathematically as follows. 𝑓(𝑥) = 1 𝜌√2𝜋 𝑒 − 1 2 ( 𝑥−𝜇 𝜌 ) 2 , ∞ < 𝑥 < ∞ (3) where, 𝜇 is recognizes as the mean of the sample and 𝜌 is the standard deviation. similarly, with parameters 𝛼 and 𝛽, if the random variable y depicts the gamma distribution, then the likelihood of y can be indicated in the form as. 𝑔(𝑌) = 𝛽𝛼 𝛾(𝛼) 𝑌𝛼−1 𝑒 −𝛽𝑦 , 𝑌 ≥ 0, 𝛼 > 0, 𝛽 > 0 (4) where 𝛼 and 𝛽 are the shape and scale parameter respectively. 𝐸(𝑌) = 𝛼 𝛽 , 𝑉𝑎𝑟(𝑌) = 𝛼 𝛽2 . moreover, it is normally have noticed that the normal distribution is shifted to gamma distribution and this gamma distribution can be further transformed to log-normal distribution [6]. for the log-normal distribution the mathematical model is expressed as, ℎ(𝑥) = 1 𝑥𝜌√2𝜋 𝑒 − 1 2 ( 𝑙𝑛𝑥−𝜇 𝜌 ) , −∞ < 𝑥 < +∞ (5) 𝐸[𝑋] = 𝑒 𝜇+ 𝜎2 2 ,𝑉𝑎𝑟(𝑋) , 𝑒 2𝜇+𝜎 2 (𝑒 𝜎 2−1) (6) hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 47 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 equation 6 signifies the mean (e[x]) and variance (var (x)) of experiments respectively [6, 14]. where parameters 𝜇 = δ > 0 and the variable x > 0 belongs to real numbers. the lognormal distribution, has been used as a first estimate sometimes known as landau distribution, explains the loss of energy of a heavy charged particle by ionization [6, 9]. the normal distribution can be assessed the chisquare distribution and is given by 𝑓(𝑥; 𝑛) = 𝑥 𝑛 2 2 𝑒 − 𝑥 2 2𝜎2𝛾( 𝑛 2 ) the variable 𝑥 ≥ 0 and positive integer n is the number of degrees of freedom in the chi-square distribution [9]. the hyper secant distribution is like a normal distribution, characterized by parameters mean and standard deviation. the hyper secant distribution is used for those data sets which are symmetric in shape like the normal distribution. the mathematical expression for hyper secant distribution is given by 𝑓(𝑥) = sech(𝑦) 2𝜎 , 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑦 = 𝜋 2𝜎 (𝜒 − 𝜇) (8) 4. goodness-of-fit tests the kolmogorov-smirnov test (ks) is one of the tests which assesses the empirical distribution function with the distribution function of the hypothesized distribution. the ks-test does not vary on the grouping of the data. this test reduces those problems which are linked to interval specifications. the main objective of kstest on any empirical data is to verify the theoretical distribution with the help of expected parameters the data could have originated [6, 9]. however, as the ks-test does not involve any grouping of the data hence it has several benefits over the chi-square test. furthermore, this test can be used for the exact sample size, which makes it powerful against alternative distributions, more meaning full. this test can be applied for any type of input data excluding the discrete distribution functions, and it does not distinguish tail discrepancies very well, which is one of the limitations of this test [8, 13]. thus, we subject the constructed model to the ks-test as. 𝐷 = 𝑚𝑎𝑥|𝐹(𝑥) − 𝐺(𝑥)| (9) where f(x) and g(x) are pre-determined cumulative and sample cumulative distribution respectively, which is corresponding to the given sample of size n [5]. regarding the tails analysis of the distributions there is a difference between anderson-darling (ad) test and the kstest. ad test was designed to detect discrepancies in the tails especially [6]. although the ad test is similar to the ks-test, but it gives more insight information related to the tails of the distribution. the dependent behavior, in this case, can be considered the strength of the number of the periods. moreover, the ad test can only be utilized for the input data sample which is considered the faults of the test [6, 15]. we apply the ad test [anderson-darling ap2ptest] [5, 6], where the hypothesis testing is based on comparing the parameters in the question with the larger values of the statistic. 𝐴2 = − 1 𝑛 σ𝑖 𝑛(2𝑖 − 1)[𝑙𝑛𝑢𝑖 + ln(1 − 𝑢𝑛−𝑖+1)] − 𝑛, (10) where 𝑢𝑖 is the value of the theoretical cumulative distribution at the 𝑖𝑡ℎ largest observation, n being as usual the number of observations [2, 5]. 5. results and discussions for the sunspots and k-index cycles the probability distributions were discovered in the first section. in the study data have been used from 1749 to 2014 for sunspot cycles and 4 kindex cycles from 1932 to 2014. the last cycle of sunspots and k-index are yet not complete, that hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 48 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 is in the development. the probability distributions of time series are assessed in terms of two tests kolmogorov-smirnov and andersondarling. table 2 describes that the 24 sunspot cycles have various probability distributions which are according to the kolmogrovesmirnove test they are normal distribution (12.5%), log gamma distribution (79.17%), hyper-secant distribution (4.17%) and chi{square distribution (4.17%). the same 24 sunspot cycles following the chi-square distribution (95.83%) and log-gamma distribution (4.17%) all the probability distributions which are tested according to anderson-darling test (see figure 1). since adt gives better results for tail analysis as compared to the ks-test. chi-square distribution among all, the sunspot cycles is 95.83% according to ad test. the results show that 23 out of 24 sunspot cycles represent the chi-square distribution tested with the help of ad. while testing in kstest it shows just 4.17% of chi-square distribution. the comparison of the log-gamma distribution for both tests ks-test and ad test is almost vice versa to the chi-square distribution. the loggamma distribution is just 4.17% in ad test and 79.17% in ks-test. the evaluation of the two tests depicts that chi-square distribution is increasing from ks-test to ad test while log-gamma distribution is decreasing among the sunspot cycles. it represents that the dynamics of sunspot cycles are periodic and regular. the two tests for k-index cycles show that probability distributions vary from a normal distribution to chi-square distribution and chi-square distribution to normal distribution in ks-test and ad test respectively except the last cycle which is in progress. table 2 depicts the related variations (also see related figure 3). table 1 and 2 shows that for any probability distributions in ks-test the chi-square distribution mostly occurs when tested according to the ad test. the chisquare distribution has the greater right tail as compared to the other used probability distribution. since ad test gives the significant results of the tail analysis. the chi-square distribution containing the greater length of tail as compared to the others probability distributions. the comparative analysis of two tests ks and ad for 22-year's sunspots and kindex cycles show that cycle 1 follows the normal distribution and chi-square distribution, respectively. the probability distribution for 22year sunspot-double-cycle 2 represents the loggamma distribution and log-normal distribution respectively for ks and ad tests. the 22-years, sunspot cycle 3 shows the log-gamma distribution and gamma distribution for both tests respectively, shown in figure 2. the last cycle of 22-years, sunspot data in progress confirms the chi-square distribution for both the tests. the probability distribution of sunspot data (1749-2014) shows the normal distribution and chi-square distribution under the above both discussed tests respectively, while 22-years (approximately) sunspots and k-index 4 cycles total data (1932-2014) represents that loggamma distribution and log-normal distribution are significant depicted in figure 4. table 1. comparison of probability distributions of sunspots 24 cycles along with the total time series data in the perspective of kst and adt, in which 24th cycle is in progress (1754-2014) kolmogorov-smirnov test (kst) anderson-darling (adt) cycle distribution kst value parameter distribution adt value parameter 1 normal 0.09932 =2.6387 =1760.5 chi-square 5.2496 =7 =1753.1 hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 49 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 2 log-gamma 0.12342 =4.8566e+7 =1.5399e-7 chi-square 5.5714 =4 =1766.0 3 log-gamma 0.15137 =5.5769e+7 =1.3419e-7 chi-square 7.1441 =4 =1774.9 4 log-gamma 0.13322 =2.3098e+7 =3.2426e-7 log-gamma 37.882 =2.3136e+7 =3.2373e-7 5 normal 0.10834 =1.9989 =1803.3 chi-square 3.7806 =5 =1797.9 6 hypersecant 0.11953 =2.6783 =1816.3 chi-square 15.445 =10 =1806.2 7 normal 0.10979 =2.1522 =1828.7 chi-square 14.281 =7 =1821.6 8 log-gamma 0.14297 =5.0080e+7 =1.5009e-7 chi-square 4.0482 =5 =1833.0 9 log-gamma 0.1143 =2.9716e+7 =2.5314e-7 chi-square 8.2573 =6 =1842.6 10 log-gamma 0.13263 =3.5636e+7 =2.1127e-7 chi-square 4.4769 =6 =1855.0 11 log-gamma 0.12863 =4.5529e+7 =1.6549e-7 chi-square 25.204 =4 =1866.9 12 log-gamma 0.10054 =4.4232e+7 =1.7048e-7 chi-square 10.156 =5 =1878.0 13 log-gamma 0.12973 =3.9729e+7 =1.8995e-7 chi-square 13.195 =5 =1889.1 14 log-gamma 0.10832 =4.7389e+7 =1.5938e-7 chi-square 7.3971 =6 =1900.9 15 log-gamma 0.12354 =5.0977e+7 =1.4828e-7 chi-square 8.2736 =6 =1911.8 16 log-gamma 0.09771 =5.3085e+7 =1.4249e-7 chi-square 8.564 =4 =1923.8 17 log-gamma 0.12025 =4.9872e+7 =1.5178e-7 chi-square 6.815 =5 =1933.1 18 log-gamma 0.12085 =5.8543e+7 =1.2939e-7 chi-square 10.806 =4 =1943.9 19 log-gamma 0.13054 =5.6869e+7 =1.3329e-7 chi-square 14.612 =4 =1954.0 20 log-gamma 0.10587 =3.6282e+7 =2.0907e-7 chi-square 4.4769 =6 =1855.0 21 log-gamma 0.11993 =5.8063e+7 =1.3074e-7 chi-square 4.1257 =5 =1976.0 22 log-gamma 0.12037 =6.0314e+7 =1.2594e-7 chi-square 17.499 =4 =1986.0 23 log-gamma 0.11131 =4.4413e+7 =1.7115e-7 chi-square 27.709 =5 =1996.0 24 chi-square 0.36538 =5 =1996.0 chi-square 3.9916 =2 =2009.1 1-24 normal 0.11513 =78.477 =1889.1 chi-square 48.733 =3164 =-1273.4 table 2. comparison of probability distributions of sunspots and k-index 22-years cycles along with the total time series data using the kst and adt (1932-2014) cyc le duration mean(s c) mean(kindex) kst(sc) adt(sc) kst(kindex) adt(kindex) 1 1932.01-1953.12 62.4 14.583 normal chi-square normal chi-square 2 1954.01-1976.06 73.811 14.344 log-gamma log-normal chi-square normal 3 1976.07-1996.09 79.72 15.519 log-gamma gamma normal chi-square 4 1996.10-20…. 48.834 11.006 chi-square chi-square chi-square log-gamma 1-4 1932.01-20…. 67.446 14.103 log-gamma log-normal log-gamma log-normal sunspots cycle 2 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 1775177417731772177117701769176817671766 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 1 kstadt normal chi-squared (2p) time (years) 1766176417621760175817561754 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.28 0.26 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 50 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 sunspots cycle 3 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 1784178317821781178017791778177717761775 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 4 kstadt log-gamma time (years) 17981796179417921790178817861784 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 5 kstadt normal chi-squared (2p) time (years) 1807180618051804180318021801180017991798 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 6 kstadt hypersecant chi-squared (2p) time (years) 18221820181818161814181218101808 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 7 kstadt normal chi-squared (2p) time (years) 183218301828182618241822 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 8 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 18421840183818361834 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.4 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 9 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 185418521850184818461844 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.26 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 sunspots cycle 10 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 186618641862186018581856 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 51 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 sunspots cycle 11 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 187818761874187218701868 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.44 0.4 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 12 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 188818861884188218801878 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 13 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 190018981896189418921890 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.26 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 sunspots cycle 14 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 191219101908190619041902 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.3 0.28 0.26 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 sunspots cycle 15 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 1924192219201918191619141912 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 16 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 1933193219311930192919281927192619251924 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 17 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 194419421940193819361934 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 18 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 195419521950194819461944 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.4 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 52 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 1. comparison of probability distributions of sunspots 24 cycles in terms of kst and adt in which 24th cycle is incomplete. the long right tail is indicating for the chi-square distribution (1754-2014). sunspots cycle 19 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 196419621960195819561954 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.4 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 20 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 1976197419721970196819661964 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.26 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 sunspots cycle 21 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 198619841982198019781976 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.4 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 22 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 199619941992199019881986 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.4 0.36 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 23 kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (years) 2008200620042002200019981996 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 sunspots cycle 24 (in progress) kstadt chi-squared (2p) time (years) 20112010.520102009.5 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.72 0.64 0.56 0.48 0.4 0.32 0.24 0.16 0.08 0 sunspots cycle 1 kstadt normal chi-squared (2p) time (22-years) 1950194519401935 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 sunspots cycle 2 kstadt log-gamma lognormal time (22-years) 19751970196519601955 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 53 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 2. comparison of probability distributions of sunspots 4 cycles (approximately 22-years of each) in the perspective of kst and adt, the last 4th cycle is in progress. the single line in cycle 2, 3 and 4 is representing the overlapping of two probability distributions. (1932-2014) figure 3. comparison of probability distributions of k-index 4 cycles (approximately 22-years of each) in the perspective of kst and adt. the last 4th cycle is incomplete. chi-square distribution is representing the right long tail. sunspots cycle 4 (in progress) kstadt chi-squared (2p) time (22-years) 20102008200620042002200019981996 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.32 0.28 0.24 0.2 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0 k-index cycle 1 kstadt normal chi-squared (2p) time (22-years) 1950194519401935 k -i n d e x d a ta 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 k-index cycle 2 kstadt normal chi-squared (2p) time (22-years) 19751970196519601955 kin d e x d a ta 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 k-index cycle 3 kstadt normal chi-squared (2p) time (22-years) 1995199019851980 k -i n d e x d a ta 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 k-index cycle 4 (in progress) kstadt chi-squared (2p) log-gamma time (22-years) 20102008200620042002200019981996 k -i n d e x d a ta 0.24 0.22 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 k-index cycle(1-4) kstadt log-gamma lognormal time (1932-2014) 2000198019601940 k -i n d e x d a ta 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 sunspots cycle (1-4) kstadt log-gamma lognormal time (1932-2014) 2000198019601940 n o o f s u n s p o ts 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 sunspots cycle 3 kstadt gamma log-gamma time (22-years) 1995199019851980 n o . o f s u n s p o ts 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 hassan et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 44-55 54 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 4. comparison of probability distributions of sunspots and k-index time series data (1932-2014) along with the total sunspots time series data (1749-2014) in the perspective of kst and adt conclusion the study reveals that the 24 cycles of sunspots (1749-2014) and 4 cycles of sunspots and kindex (1932 to 2014) of 22 years show several distributions which are analyzed according to ks-test and ad test by comparison of each sunspot and k-index double-cycles. distribution diagrams depict that each cycle is right tail, which confirms the periodicity and consistency of the dynamics involve as well. it is recommended: since ad test gives the significant result for tail as compared to the kstest, the results obtained for 24 cycles of sunspots are found to be chi-square distributed except 4th cycle according to ad test. chisquare distribution has right long tail, that represents the long dynamics for the sunspots and k-index activity in the right tail corresponding to the anderson-darling test. declarations funding: we do not have any funding for this research. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest. data availability: not applicable. code availability: not applicable. authors’ contributions: danish hassan and shaheen abbas: conceptualization, methodology danish hassan and hamza khan visualization, investigation danish hassan, hamza khan, fahim akhter and muhammad danish khan software, validation hamza khan: writing-the final version. references [1] badalyan, o. & bludova, n. relation of the green coronal line intensity to sunspot areas and magnetic fields of different scales. solar system research, 48(4), 305-315. 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[9] maio, c., schexnayder, c.: relationships between input data and goodness-of-t tests [10] mariska, j.t., & oster, l. solar activity and the variations of the geomagnetic k p-index. solar physics 26 (1972) 241-249. [11] rathore, b.s., kaushik, s.c., firoz, k., gupta, d., shrivastava, a., parashar, k.k., & bhaduriya, r.m. a correlative study of geomagnetic storms associated with solar wind and imf features during solar cycle 23. international journal of applied physics and mathematics 1 (2011) 149. [12] roshchina, e., & sarychev, a. appearance and quantitative characteristics of 11-year solar cycles. solar system research 48 (2014) 460-465. [13] rykiel jr, e.j. testing ecological models, the meaning of validation. ecological modelling 90 (1996) 229-244. [14] thomas, j.h., & weiss, n.o. sunspots and star spots, vol. 46. cambridge university press cambridge. (2008) isbn 978-0-521-86003-1 (hb). [15] weiss, n. sunspot structure and dynamics. in: solar dynamics and its effects on the heliosphere and earth, springer, (2006) 13-22. received: 12 nov. 2021. revised/accepted: 20 april 2022. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 53 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 journal of mountain area research climate change impact on mountain biodiversity: a special reference to gilgit-baltistan of pakistan s. ishaq1*, m. z. khan1, f. begum1, k. hussain2, r. amir3, a. hussain1, s. ali1 1. department of environmental sciences, karakoram international university, gilgit-baltistan, pakistan 2. forest, wildlife and environment department of gilgit-baltistan 3. pakistan institute of development economics islam abad abstract climate change is not a stationary phenomenon; it moves from time to time, it represents a major threat to mountainous biodiversity and to ecosystem integrity. the present study is an attempt to identify the current knowledge gap and the effects of climate change on mountainous biodiversity, a special reference to the gilgit-baltistan is briefly reviewed. measuring the impact of climate change on mountain biodiversity is quite challenging, because climate change interacts with every phenomenon of ecosystem. the scale of this change is so large and very adverse so strongly connected to ecosystem services, and all communities who use natural resources. this study aims to provide the evidences on the basis of previous literature, in particular context to mountain biodiversity of gilgit-baltistan (gb). mountains of gilgit-baltistan have most fragile ecosystem and are more vulnerable to climate change. these mountains host variety of wild fauna and flora, with many endangered species of the world. there are still many gaps in our knowledge of literature we studied because very little research has been conducted in gilgit-baltistan about climate change particular to biodiversity. recommendations are made for increased research efforts in future this including jointly monitoring programs, climate change models and ecological research. understanding the impact of climate change particular to biodiversity of gb is very important for sustainable management of these natural resources. the government organizations, ngos and the research agencies must fill the knowledge gap, so that it will help them for policy making, which will be based on scientific findings and research based. keywords: mountainous biodiversity, ecosystem services, sustainable management, wild fauna *corresponding author: (email: sultan.iq11@gmail.com) 1. introduction climate is not a stationary phenomenon it varies from time to time. it is a product of weather which always experiences variations over space and time [1]. climate change is resulting from a growing concentration of greenhouse gases (ghgs) and uses of fossil fuels and other anthropogenic activities has become a major worldwide concern [2]. anthropogenic emissions of ghs such as carbon dioxide (co2), methane (ch4), and nitrous oxide (n2o) have led to increases in their atmospheric concentration and cause warming of the lower atmosphere [3]. human induced climate change threatens ecosystems and human health on global scale. climate change has greatest impact on those countries that are already poor due to lack of resources and access to scientific information. earth’s average surface temperature rises are likely to surpass the safe threshold of 2°c [4]. the average temperature of today's world has already increased by 0.6°c from the middle of the 1800s. vol. 1, 2016 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar review ishaq et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 53-63 54 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 the instrumental records from the past years have shown an increase in mean temperature all over the globe [4], with the global mean temperature increase at the rate of 0.007oc decade -1over the last century [5]. the overall global mean sea level rose by 19 cm from 19012010 [6]. at present climate is changing rapidly, the atmosphere has responded to the increased inflows of co2 and other ghgs through worldwide [7, 8]. the land use change brings number of changing in climatic pattern. excessive deforestation leads to decrease in precipitation level and increase in surface temperature on global scale, thus it change whole global climatic model [9]. the scale of this change is so large and very adverse so strongly connected to ecosystem services, and all communities who use natural resources. biodiversity change is now considered an important global change [10]. since first “intergovernmental panel on climate change” (ipcc) it has been observed that earth global temperature has been increasing because of climate change, which is more dangerous for over all biodiversity. the altitudinal distribution of vegetation is expected to shift to higher elevation and some species with climatic ranges limited to mountain tops possibly will become extinct because of disappearance of their habitat or reduced migration potential [11]. mountain region are considered as sensitive ecosystem. climate change represents major threats to the ecosystems integrity and global biodiversity. the consequences of these climatic changes have negative impact on number of wildlife and other natural ecosystems [12]. mountains have most fragile ecosystem in the world [13]. change in the global temperature and local precipitation might significantly change the altitudinal ranges of some keystone species existing in the different ranges of mountainous areas, and create more stresses on the fragile ecosystem of mountainous areas [14, 15]. according to nogues-bravo et al. [16], it is difficult to estimate the exact effect of climate change on mountainous areas because of the doubts associated with the climatic scenario and also the presence of nonlinear feedback and the knowledge gap between the impacts. many studies show that the mountain ecosystems are more vulnerable to climate change [17, 18, 19]. according to theurillat and guisan, 2001, indicated that climate change in mountainous ecosystem are most noticeable in the areas such as at boundary ecosystems (“ecocline”) or at eco tones, where two ecosystems are meet. species can response either by migrating or though adaptation [20]. 2. climate change in pakistan south asia is considered as one of the most susceptible regions for global climatic changing. in pakistan there has not been such extensive research carried out regarding climate change and biodiversity as compared to other parts of the world. as pakistan is an agricultural based country, the country depends on the indus irrigation system, as indus river is one of the key water carriers of south asia rising from the tibetan plateau and the himalayas [21]. the country is highly vulnerable to climate change, hence large floods, drought and biodiversity loss is expected in future [1]. according to a survey conducted by khan et al. [2] about 40% of pakistani’s believe that climate is changing moderately while 60% of them believe that it has been changing harshly. many studies indicate that change in climate affecting, directly or indirectly the whole biodiversity and their habitats [22, 23, 24] ishaq et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 53-63 55 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 leading to their displacement and in most harsh cases, even extinction. change in climate also affecting the competitiveness of many species by changing growth, death rates and regeneration success rates [25]. however a vital problem in mountain ecosystem concern to climate change is the increased in the erosion and in reduction of the slope stability [14]. it is being found that change in climate has caused a shift in habitat from wet monsoon forest to savannah [26]. many unique species of flora and fauna are also on the edge of extinction due changing in habitat conditions. increase in high temperature and precipitation patterns can has also increase forest insects, pest and weeds which result in greater damage of forest vegetation, change the species composition and reduce the area of forest [26]. globally the natural ecosystem has been affected by current climate change. slatyer [27] stated that, the australian natural ecosystem is more vulnerable to climate change, the particular impact will depends on the adaptation and resilience of individual species. due to increase in warming at alpine areas[13, 18, 27, 28] the species which are already occupying the high altitudes areas have less possibility for up moving migration [29, 30]. most of the species in particular ecosystem cannot adapt to the sudden climate change, in the cause forest, the species with very limited ranges, which have nowhere to migrate are more vulnerable to climate change. and the probability of species to higher altitudes to find the similar condition of those at present will certainly be limited by some other factors like water availability and soil type and many other external factors [31]. as from literature it is found that pakistan in more vulnerable to climate change in coming decades. most of the areas in pakistan are showing positive trend in temperature for the period 2011-2050 and maximum rise is expected in gilgit-baltistan, central and southern punjab and lower kpk [32]. this increase in rate of temperatures will increase the heat waves which have likely to be adverse effect on biodiversity and water resources in pakistan [33]. as pakistan is agriculture dependent country; change in climate is expected to decrease the crop production that would have a great effect on the livelihood of pakistan [34]. 3. climate change impact on mountain biodiversity mountainous ecosystems are fragile [35] and more susceptible to climate change [36, 37]. most of the global biological diversity hotspots are located in mountainous and coastal regions. mountains are the most fragile environment on earth, and one of the major “experimental fields of nature” because of steep environmental slope, wilderness and habitat types, and rich for biodiversity and water and they also provide services with tangible economic value [16, 38]. mountain ecosystems cover about one-fifth of the earth’s continental areas [18] and so called storehouses of global biodiversity [39] these area host many threatened and endemic species of world so climate change is considered to be big threat to mountain biodiversity, because they are likely to be more exposed to extreme events of weather [40]. the hotspots of himalayas, karakorum and hindu kush (hkh) have a rich of species, gene pools and ecosystems which have global importance. human-induced climate change is predictable threat to species of himalayas. these mountain environments are strongly ishaq et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 53-63 56 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 affected by climate, due to their vertical (altitudinal) dimension [41, 42]. environmental change is by now beginning in the high-altitude areas where glaciers are abundant. accelerated glacier melting is only one of the continuing changes in regions of hkh, which faces many different pressures, among them the impacts of climate change [43]. nogue´s-bravo et al. [16] have provided an assessment on surface temperature changes in mountainous area of the world. they projected that the average temperature change varied between “+3.2 1c (+0.4 1c/per decade) and +2.1 1c (+0.26 1c/per decade) for 2055 and +5.3 1c (+0.48 1c/per decade) and +2.8 1c for 2085 (+0.25 1c/per decade)”. and it will expect to rise in northern latitude mountain systems than in mountains located in tropical and temperate zones [44]. some of the world’s most endangered and endemic species are found in mountain ecosystems [45]. mountain ecosystems are more susceptible for small climate change. because little change in climate can melts both the snow and ice to water. many species can response to climate by adaptation, shifting of their geographic ranges, altering their abundance or vanishing altogether [46, 47]. protected areas and national parks are the cornerstones of biodiversity and conservation and acting as valuable buffer against the impacts change. these areas are more vulnerable for climate change. habitat fragmentation reduced the species movement and dispersal. already many species are not able to survive without adequate protection of landscape [48]. due to climate change many species of wildlife are forced to moved away from their natural habitat [49]. however if distribution of species is controlled by variations in climatic conditions or soils within certain geographic area, dispersal processes may have little consequence [50]. sala et al. [10] carried a study about global biodiversity scenarios, they investigate that little change in precipitation or temperature in arctic, alpine, boreal forest and deserts will bring large change in biodiversity and also in species composition. by coming 2020 major loss of biodiversity is projected in ecologically rich area of the world. while the loss of biodiversity, extinction of species already happening [51]. wetlands are best indicators of climate change. global warming accelerates the rate of glacial melting which directly cause flooding. loss of wetlands is a major problem because they provide a specific life support system to unique biodiversity [52]. the mountains of himalayas, karakorum and hindu khush are more vulnerable to climate change [53, 54]. a most recent study conducted by khan et al. [53] reveals that the mountains karakorum, himalayas and the hindu khush, which are the most vital source of water for pakistan, are more vulnerable to climate change, so that there is great need of study on the alpine ecosystems and to develop strategies and management actions for the restoration purposes. apart from the amount of flow in the rivers the excessive melting of glaciers affects the fauna and flora of mountainous areas, the indigenous species may become extinct and exotic species may get their part in the snowless environment. human society and the alpine ecosystems are interlinked [55]. it has been stated through many researches that, the mountain biota (tree line) is moving upward, ishaq et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 53-63 57 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 due to global, climate warming, in many mountains system [56, 57, 58]. 4. climate change in gilgitbaltistan the climate of earth is changing and the impacts are already being felt by biodiversity and wildlife habitats across the whole planet [59]. very little research has been conducted in the himalayan and karakorum highlands of northern pakistan on the aspects of biodiversity and conservation [60]. like other mountainous area of the world, climate changing is also taking place in mountainous areas of pakistan. in gilgit-baltistan (gb) the climate stations in gilgit, skardu, gupis and bunji shows increase in the total temperature in last two decades from 1980 to 2006, and increased by 0.440 c per decades observed. all most all the natural ecosystems are vulnerable to climate change in gb. the rapidly melting of glaciers causes habitat loss of many species and it cause damaged in migratory routs of many migratory species [61]. gb of pakistan has seems to be increase in precipitation and temperature has shown different trends in different seasons. there found to be more rainfall than snow [62]. through a detailed analysis of past records of different meteorological stations of the gb, it was observed that, the night temperatures are increasing in the northern areas (gb) of pakistan [63]. according to a research conducted by hussain et al. [64], the maximum temperatures have increased all around the year, especially in high mountainous regions in pakistan during the period between 1971 to 2000. climatic conditions vary widely in the gb, and are characterized by low annual precipitation, a great range of mean monthly temperature values, low winter temperatures, and harsh frosts during portions of the winter season. climate change is taking place in gilgit-baltistan. information taken from different climate stations like gilgit, skardu, gupis and bunji an increase in mean temperature was observed between the years 1980 to 2006 by 0.19oc per decade [65]. figure 1: mean temperature in gilgit for 1980 to 2006. an increase by 0.19 oc per decade has been observed (p<0.10) [65] figure 2: an increasing trend was found for maximum temperature from 1980 to 2006. significant (p<0.10) was a warming by 0.63 and 0.41 oc decade ishaq et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 53-63 58 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 1 for gilgit and gupis, respectively, and 0.37 oc decade-1 for skardu [65]. the hkh region is home to some of the world richest and varied ecosystems on the planet. these mountains are important sources of genetic diversity and resources such as timber minerals being an important source of livelihood for locals. changes in the climatic conditions and the resulting changes in the availability of water have found adverse effect on biodiversity of these ecosystems [64, 66]. it was discovered that change in climate caused flash floods and river bank erosion in skardu district gb. the flash floods emanating from glacial melting, leading to river bank which causes erosion and flooding of fields [67]. the general overview about the climate change and their associate hazards in gilgit-baltistan are loss of habitat, species extinction, less grasses in pasture, pest attacks, increased frequency of glacial melting, high turbid water, cold spell, glof, and destruction of water bank infrastructure are common ideals of the communities [68]. according to ahmad (2010) the loss and deaths markhor in chitral are occurring due to disturbances and variations in the local environmental conditions, possibly triggered by climate change [69]. according to some elders in gilgit-baltistan a decade ago there were various birds and animal species which are now disappeared and less sited [70]. 5. future direction climate change and its influence is on biodiversity is an important topic all over the world. on local scale in gilgit-baltistan some non-government organization like worldwide fund for nature (wwf-p), united nation development program (undp) and international union for conservation of natural resources (iucn) has been trying to protect and conserve the natural resources of gb and has keen interest to implement the adaptation and mitigation strategies for the gilgit-baltistan. it is very imperative and necessary to conserve the mountainous biodiversity, because directly or indirectly we depend on it. gilgit-baltistan is gifted with umber of natural resources, such as wildlife, fertile soil, glaciers, fresh water and natural forest. the climate change has got a pressure on these natural resources particular to biodiversity in gilgit-baltistan (gb). understanding the impact of climate change particular to biodiversity of gb is very important for sustainable livelihood development. the mountain communities of gilgit-baltistan are totally dependent on natural resources. these resources are under pressure due to over exploitation. many communities have started migration to other areas to cope from climate change. there is need of scientific research, climate modeling and ecological research to provide pertinent recommendations for climate change adaptations at community level. ecosystem based adaptation (eba) and community based adaptation (cba) is needed to focus and important for the mountain poorest communities who are badly hit by climate change and who also disproportionally reliant on the ecosystem services. 6. knowledge gap in key research areas there is knowledge gap about the climate change and its impact on different components of biodiversity, especially in reference to gilgitbaltistan. because there is no reliable data is available about the impact of climate on ishaq et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 53-63 59 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 biodiversity of gb. after literature review we have found the following knowledge gap. 1. the effect of climate change is more adverse on aquatic life (fish fauna). this component of biodiversity is still need to be debated. 2. there is need of research on climate change impact on floral species, especially the ones which are economically important for the livelihood of gb. (fruit plants, vegetation, crops) 3. the impact of climate change on migration patterns of faunal species like, migratory birds and altitudinal migration of large mammals. ( snow leopard and ungulates of gb) 4. there is lack of understanding of climate change impact on high altitudes ecosystem of gb. therefore its resources are over exploited which results in habitat loss and fragmentation, mismanagement of pastures and loss of important biodiversity. 5. the impact of climate change on range lands is still to be documented in gb. 6. the impact of climate change behavior of people of gb 7. conclusion an unavoidable conclusion form the above mentioned literature is that, the climate change is not a static phenomenon, it is changing with time. the biosphere has been reacting to climate change and the effects are highly complex, in the shape of biodiversity loss. the impact of climate change is expected to increase in future. most of the species are moving towards poles and to higher elevations [71]. many small mammals over the world are found to be niche specialist and are more vulnerable to climate change. these small mammals are considered as indicators of climate change [72]. as gilgitbaltistan is a fragile mountainous ecosystem, little change in climate alters the ecosystem services. human being are directly depends on biodiversity for their survival. so it is necessary that biologists should need to make better understanding of what our living world will look like in the near future [73]. people of gilgit-baltistan are totally dependent on natural resources, so there is great need of policy implementation for better management of natural resources and livelihood support in the changing climate. the government organizations, ngos and the research agencies must fill the knowledge gap, so that it will help them for policy making, which will be based on scientific findings and research base. references [1] g. rasul, climate data and modelling analysis of the indus ecoregion. wwf – pakistan, (2012). 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[73] f. krupp, l. j. musselman, m. a. kotb, i. weidig, the effects of climate change on biodiversity: pressing issues and research priorities. biorisk, 3 (2009) 1-4. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://pamirtimes.wordpress.com/tag/climate-change/ http://pamirtimes.wordpress.com/tag/climate-change/ http://pamirtimes.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/wildlife-official-sees-climate-change-behind-the-death-of-7-markhors-in-chitral/ http://pamirtimes.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/wildlife-official-sees-climate-change-behind-the-death-of-7-markhors-in-chitral/ http://pamirtimes.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/wildlife-official-sees-climate-change-behind-the-death-of-7-markhors-in-chitral/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 40 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 journal of mountain area research sustainable diversified agriculture and land management in the himalaya: implications for climate change adaptation and mitigation r.m. bajracharya1,*, k. atreya1, n. raut1, h.l. shrestha1, d.k. gautam.2 and n.r. dahal1 1. department of environmental science and engineering, school of science, kathmandu university 2. nepal agroforestry foundation, koteshwor, kathmandu abstract the soil and land resources play a vital role in sustaining the local livelihoods of rural communities in the himalaya. most of the arable land has already been brought under cultivation, hence the ever-increasing demand for food and fiber has left farmers with no choice but to intensify agriculture. however, producing more crops and greater quantities of food, fiber and other materials on the same parcel of land can to soil fertility and productivity decline with overall degradation of land quality. therefore, ways and means to intensify agriculture to enhance productivity without degrading the soil and land resource base have become imperative. agro-forestry, agro-slivipastoral systems, and the adoption of a variety of crop, soil and water management and conservation practices offer potential to deliver multiple benefits without sacrificing the very resource upon which the human population depends. presented herein are findings on approaches to sustainable intensification of agriculture and land management related to soil om management and c sequestration for multiple benefits, and, agro-forestry as a crop diversification strategy with both livelihood, and climate change adaptation/mitigation benefits. the results indicate that sustainable soil management practices could lead to significant soc accumulations (4-8 t/ha over 6 yrs). soc and soil c stocks tend to increase with elevation due to cooler climate and slow decomposition rates. carbon stocks for the 3 lu types was in the order cf>af/lh>ag, suggesting that diversified cropping practices including agro-forestry have good potential sequester c while providing livelihood opportunities and climate adaptive capacity for local farming communities. biochar amendment increased growth of both coffee plants and radish with mixed grass/weed biochar being most effective. biochar application also significantly decreased emission of ghgs, especially n2o. keywords: agroforestry, biochar, carbon sequestration, crop diversification, soil quality *corresponding author: (email: rmbaj@ku.edu.np) 1. introduction soil and land resources have been the backbone of human civilization ever since prehistoric communities established permanent settlements and began settled agriculture some 10,000 years ago [1]. historical records show that past civilizations (such as the ancient settlements of the tigris-euphrates and nile river valleys), flourished because of access to fertile soils and likewise they declined as a result of land degradation and loss of fertility of agricultural lands [2]. yet over the millennia, through traditional practices handed down over the generations, previous human communities learned to manage soils and vol. 1, 2016 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 41 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 cultivate their lands, even in harsh climates and terrains like the arid region of egypt and mountainous regions of south asia [3]. after the industrial revolution of the 1800s the world population has grown tremendously, exceeding 7 billion and growth is still rapid in some parts of the world, such as, asia, africa and the middle east. arable land has essentially reached the limits of expansion but pressures on land resource base continue to increase, with evergreater demands for settlements, food and fiber production. the need for producing more food on the same amount of land has evidently fuelled agricultural intensification. moreover, the impending impacts of climate change pose major challenges to production and human well-being [4]. hence there is an urgent need for “sustainable” intensification of agriculture as well as land management. agricultural intensification is regarded as any change in the cropping or livestock-rearing practices that makes use of a fixed area of land more frequently or intensely than previous traditional or conventional approaches. thus, increased numbers of crops grown per annual cropping cycle, an increase in the stocking rates of livestock grazed on a parcel of land, or change in types or sequences of crops grown (for example intercropped or relayed) are all forms of agricultural intensification [5-7]. agricultural intensification can have both beneficial and adverse impacts on the environment and human societies [8, 9]. while intensified production systems provide higher yields, and therefore, returns, it is often achieved through the use of chemical fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, which have far-reaching and long-term consequences for ecological balance and human health [10]. however, with proper balance of inputs and an integrated, holistic approach to farming and land management, it is possible to achieve production goals with while minimizing adverse impacts to the environment and human health [7, 11]. soil is an essentially non-renewable resource upon which natural ecosystems and agriculture depend that forms the interface and acts as a buffer between terrestrial systems and aquatic systems as well as the atmosphere. soil organic matter (som) can be regarded as a biophysical property of soil and perhaps the single most important constituent determining soil quality. it has a profound influence on many soil properties and is a dynamic and complex entity having major implications for soils. sustainable soil or land management and intensified agriculture involves three key components, namely, sustainable soil management practices, crop improvement and diversification, and, water and runoff management. sustainable soil management revolves around organic matter management and integrated nutrient/fertility management. crop management includes improved hybrid varieties as well as diversified cropping patterns. water or runoff management involves water harvesting and recharge, careful disposal of excess water, and, water conservation along with micro-irrigation. this study presents a few approaches to sustainable land management and intensification of agriculture focusing on: som management and c sequestration for multiple benefits; and, agro-forestry as a crop diversification strategy with both livelihood and climate mitigation/adaptation benefits. sustainable soil management (ssm) practices were introduced by helvetas of the sdc in 15 mid-hill districts of nepal. these ssm were centered around som management and integrated fertility management. they included farmer practices such as: improved cattle bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 42 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 sheds for separate collection of urine and manure; improved composting with protection from sun light and rain leaching (roof or cover); application of cattle/human urine as n source; legumes, fodder plants, vegetables and cash crops. agro-forestry along with diversified cropping has potential as a sustainable land use practice, particularly in hilly regions that do not support intensive food crop production. such practices offer opportunities for poor rural communities to generate income from high value crops such as medicinal and aromatic plants (maps) and fruit tree under unpredictable climate conditions and hence are good climate change adaptive strategies. moreover, permaculture can, over time, lead to increased carbon capture and storage over conventional agriculture, thus also serving as a climate mitigative approach. studies have shown that these systems are well suited to hill regions with marginal and steeply sloping land and can lead to improvement of farmers’ livelihoods and adaptive capacity [12, 13]. biochar as a soil amendment has numerous benefits that could enhance soil quality and productivity, especially on marginal lands. biochar is a pyrolysis product of vegetative biomass combusted under low oxygen conditions. it has the potential to enhance the carbon storage and longevity in soils while simultaneously increases soil productive capacity [14]. it has been known to be used by ancient civilizations in australia, the amazon, north west europe and the andes [15-17]. the unique structural, porosity, and nutrient retention characteristics of biochar enables it to acts as a catalyst for microbial activity. highly stabile and resistance to microbial breakdown biochar acts as sites for increased water and nutrient retention [18]. 2. materials and methods 2.1 sustainable soil management program (ssmp of sdc) on farmer fields this study was conducted in order to estimation of the total soc sequestration potential in ssmp farm areas [19]. four replicate farm fields in 4 districts with ssmp interventions were selected, namely, baglung, syangja, kavrepalanchok and sindhupalchowk. comparison of soc in farm fields over 6 years of ssm practices (mainly improved compost/fym) were conducted by sampling 4 replicate farms in each district and comparing values with baseline soil organic c data. the soils on upland farms in each of the districts were sampled in four depth increments: 0-15, 15-30, 30-60 and 60-100 cm to determine total soil c stocks. calculations of the soc stocks were done as follows: total soc stock (t ha-1), doc = soc x bd (i) x h x (104 m-2 ha-1) (1) where, doc = soil organic carbon density (t ha-1) soc = average soil organic carbon content of soil (%) bd = average bulk density of soil samples (t m-3) h = thickness of the plow layer = 0.15 m further, the determination of the soc increase rate (t ha-1 y-1) was done using the following equation: soc = βy + c (2) where, β = slope of the regression line y = year (independent variable) c = regression constant bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 43 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 finally, estimation of the total soc sequestration potential in ssmp farm areas across the nepal hills (in millions of tons) was done by extrapolation of average soc increase over the period in the four districts to the entire area in all 15 ssmp districts. moreover, the hypothetical payments to farmers for enhancing soil c accumulation under a carbon-trading scheme was determined. the calculation of total monetary benefits under carbon trading as per the kyoto protocol using nominal payments of $2.50 and $5.00 per ton of c sequestered in soil were presented. 2.2 land management impacts on soil organic carbon and soil quality three districts in central nepal representing 3 agro-ecological zones: chitwan (200-300 m); gorkha (1000-1100 m); and, rasuwa (1600-1700 m) were selected for the study. in each district, plots were chosen on three land management regimes, namely, community forests (cf), agroforestry or leasehold forests (af/lh), and upland agriculture (ag). four replicate plots in each lm type for each location (500m2 forest plots; farm fields) were randomly chosen for quantification of total c stocks. the aboveground biomass carbon (agb-c) was calculated by measuring diameter at breast height (dbh) and tree height and applying the allometric equation by chave et al. [20]. the below-ground biomass carbon (bgb-c) was estimated as 20% of the agb-c. the leaf-litter, herbs and grass carbon (lhg-c) was determined by destructive sampling and dryashing in a muffle furnace at 550 ⁰c. the soil organic carbon (soc) stocks was derived from the soil organic matter content by loss on ignition and the dry bulk density (bd) of the soil. baseline soil properties such as soil texture, ph, bd, soc, and total nitrogen (tn) were determined by standard methods according to the usda-asa monograph no. 9 [21]. 2.3 biochar amendment of soil (coffee/vegetable plant growth and ghg emission) field trials to examine the effect of biochar application on coffee plant growth and the growth performance of vegetables were established at two locations during 2014. at panchkhal in kavre district, a coffee nursery trial with different rates and types of biochar was conducted to determine the effect of different combinations and rates of application of biochar on coffee plant growth. biochar made from coffee pulp/husk or grass/weeds were applied at 2 tons/ha and 4 tons/ha with and without cattle urine addition. in a separate field trial at saraswatikhel, bhaktapur, an agroforestry trial using coffee planted in rows with vegetables (radish) planted between the rows was established. here a constant rate of 4 tons/ha of biochar made from grass/weed feedstock was applied to both the coffee and radish plants. in both trials, the growth rate (height of plants) was monitored over a period of several months 3. results the key findings and notable results of each of the studies described above are summarized in the tables and figures below and discussed in light of sustainable management of soils for enhancing productive capacity of the land. 3.1 effect of sustainable soil management practices on soc accumulation this study revealed that in the fours study districts, the average soil organic matter contents, and hence soc amounts, 43 ractice bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 44 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 44g significantly compared to baseline values at each of the farm fields where ssm 44 ractice, such as improved composting and application of cattle urine, were adopted by the local farmers (table 1). the mean soc contents at the ssm farms in the four districts ranged from two to three times the baseline amounts over a period of six years. the results clearly indicated that total carbon accumulation in soils and the corresponding amounts of carbon sequestered in agricultural lands in the mid-hills region of nepal could be significantly increased through the use of such ssm practices. this has beneficial implications for the fertility and productivity of these hill soils as well as for climate change mitigation through carbon capture and sequestration. table 1. mean soc contents (%) of upland soil bef ore and after 6 years of ssmp in four districts of nepal. district baseline 3-year mean 6-year mean baglun g 1.60 3.72 4.96 kavre 0.68 1.36 2.99 sindhup alchow k 1.19 1.31 2.45 syangja 2.29 2.97 6.37 mean ± std.dev . 1.44 ± 0. 86 2.34 ± 1.20 4.19 ± 1.81 using low and high carbon accumulation scenarios based on table 1, the soc increase trends for each case are depicted in figure 1. the mean soc accumulation over 6 years for the low carbon accumulation scenario was 2.72 % soc, while that for the high c accumulation scenario was 4.19% soc. based on these c accumulation rates, the total carbon stocks accumulated over the 6-year period for each case over the entire agricultural land area (67,000 ha) of the 15 ssmp districts would be 2.7 million tons of carbon (low scenario) and 4.6 million tons carbon (high scenario), respectively (table 2). then, taking nominal carbon trading values of $ 2.50 per ton c in the low scenario case and $ 5.00 per ton c in the high scenario case, the value of soc accumulated in 6 years over the 15 ssmp districts of the nepal mid-hills would range from about usd 2 million to a high of usd 13.5 million. or on average, a total of usd 6.6 million could be received as compensation for carbon accumulated due to farmers adopting ssm practices in the mid-hills over a period of 6 years (table 2.). such returns for climate mitigative actions by local farmers would offer good incentives for them to conserve their soils through adopting sustainable farming practices for improving the fertility and productivity of their lands. bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 45 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 table 2. estimated c stocks, annual accumulation, and potential c-trading benefits due to ssmp. scenario avg. soc (%) bulk density (g cm-3) c density (t ha-1) soc stock* (mi llion t) c-trade value ( millions $) baseline 1.44 1.43 30.9 1.9 low scenario 2.72 1.18 41.4 2.7 2.0§ high scenario 4.19 1.18 74.2 4.6 13.5† average increase 1.83 1.18 57.8 3.65 6.6‡ *extrapolated across total area of agricultural land (67,000 ha) in 15 ssmp districts of mid-hills nepal. §ctrade valued at us$ 2.50 per ton; †c-trade at us$ 5.00 per ton; ‡c-trade at us$ 3.75 per ton of carbon accumulated. figure 1. soil organic carbon increase for low (to p) and high (bottom) carbon accumulation scen arios compared to baseline soc contents over a 6-year period. 3.2 land management impacts on soc and soil quality as shown in figures 2 and 3, land use type had an effect on the total soc contents, soil ph and total nitrogen. the one-way analysis of variance (table 3) indicated, however, that soil bulk density did not differ according to land use and that soc differed significantly only in gorkha district, total n differed significantly only in chitwan, while soil ph was significantly different among land uses in chitwan and gorkha. for rasuwa district all soil quality parameters did not differ significantly among the land use types. the soc contents and total n were highest for all land uses in rasuwa district owing to the cool climate located at elevations of 1700 to 1800 m asl. under these conditions, the soil organic matter decomposition rates are slow and a net accumulation of som tends to occur. moreover, it was noted that farmers relied y = 0.3655x + 0.4444 r 2 = 0.8941 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 year s o c ( % ) y = 0.5563x + 0.8024 r 2 = 0.501 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 year s o c ( % ) bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 46 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 figure 2. soil organic carbon contents and bulk densities under different land uses (cf = community forest, lhf = leasehold forest, and ag = agriculture) at the three study districts. more on organic manures and compost in rasuwa compared to chitwan and gorkha where chemical fertilizers are more readily available. the soils were more acidic in rasuwa compared to chitwan or gorkha, which likely reflects the nature of the geology and rocks/parent material from which the soil was derived. contrary to expectations, however, in both chitwan and gorkha, soil ph was higher in agricultural soils compared to community or leasehold forests. this may be due to the use of agricultural lime by farmers to ameliorate soil acidity. figure 3. soil ph and total nitrogen under different land uses (cf = community forest, lhf = leasehold forest, and ag = agriculture) at the three study districts. table 3.one-way anova of soil properties by land use for each location (agroecological zone). chitwan gorkha rasuwa soil property f-test value signif. f-test value signif. f-test value signif. soc % 0.89 ns 12.92 *** 1.66 ns bulk density 1.32 ns 0.81 ns 0.01 ns soil ph 11.86 *** 6.85 ** 2.41 ns total n 4.12 * 0.24 ns 0.72 ns c-stock 0.59 ns 15.28 *** 1.63 ns note: *, **, *** indicate significance at 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 level of p, respectively. as expected, the total carbon stock in soils of the three study districts were highly correlated with the soc content of the soils as shown in table 4. soil organic carbon content was also highly correlated with total nitrogen and negatively correlated with soil ph. similarly, soil carbon stock was positively correlated with total nitrogen and negatively correlated with soil ph (table 4). 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 cf lhf ag cf lhf ag soil organic carbon bulk density s o c % ; b d ( m g m -3 ) land use chitwan gorkha rasuwa 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 cf lhf ag cf lhf ag soil ph total nitrogen s o il p h ; t o ta l n ( g k g -1 ) land use chitwan gorkha rasuwa bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 47 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 table 4. pearson’s correlation matrix for soil properties across land uses and locations. *, **, *** indicate significance at the 5%, 1%, 0.1% levels of probability, respectively. calculation of the total carbon stocks under each land use in each of the three study districts (figure 4) revealed that, expectantly, community forests had the highest total c stock due to the presence of trees, resulting in a high above-ground biomass carbon (agb-c). however, it should be noted that the belowground (root) biomass and soil organic carbon components were also high and contributed significantly to the total c stocks in forests. moreover, with the exception of gorkha, leasehold agroforests (lhaf) also had comparatively high total carbon stocks. in agricultural land use, it is only the soil oc that contributed to the total c stocks as above ground biomass (crops) are harvested annually and cannot be counted in the total carbon stock. hence, leasehold or agroforestry systems offer potentially sustainable options for meeting the production and income needs of farm households while simultaneously contributing to sequester carbon. 3.3 effect of biochar amendment on growth of coffee and vegetables. biochar applied to the soil in nursery trials at panchkhal produced a mixed response in the growth of coffee seedlings as seen in table 5. compared to the control treatment, which received only vermi-compost according to the usual farmer practice, the mixed (weed/grass) biochar gave the best response as seen in overall plant height and growth rate (table 5 and figure 5). the higher application rate of 4 t/ha (20% of fym) gave the better responses for both mixed and coffee pulp biochar. other combinations and lower rate (2 t/ha) of biochar application including cattle urine application did not have improved growth over the control treatment. table 5. mean height of coffee plants in the coffee nursery trial at panchkhal, kavre. treatment * days after planting 73 91 12 2 13 9 172 201 245 control 2. 1 2. 7 6 7.7 9.9 13. 3 14. 1 mb-20 2. 4 2. 9 6.3 8.4 10. 6 13. 3 15 cb-20 2. 6 3. 1 6.1 7.8 10. 6 11. 9 14. 6 mb-20+u 3 3 5.6 7.4 9.1 12 14. 2 cb-10 2. 3 3. 3 5.6 7 9.6 11. 5 13. 9 cb-10+u 2. 8 3. 6 6.3 8.6 10 12 13. 6 cb-20+u 2. 5 3. 2 6 8 9.9 11. 6 11. 9 *mb = mixed biochar, cb = coffee biochar; 10 in dicates biochar applied at 2 t/ha; 20 indicates bi ochar applied at 4 t/ha; u – indicates cattle urin e applied as fertilizer. 0 50 100 150 200 250 cf lhaf ag c s to ck ( t h a -1 ) land use category soc lhg-c bgb-c agb-c a) chitwan soil property bd c-stock ph tn soc -0.77 0.96*** -0.39** 0.75*** bd 0.16 0.24* 0.05 c-stock -0.34** 0.77*** ph -0.14 tn 1 bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 48 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 figure 4. total carbon stocks in biomass and soil for different land uses in the three study districts. note: cf = community forest, lhf = leasehold forest, and ag = agriculture; soc = soil organic carbon, lhg-c = leaf-litter, herbs and grasses carbon, bgb-c = below ground (root) biomass carbon, and agb-c = above ground biomass (tree) carbon. figure 5. coffee plant growth following emergence from 73 days after planting at the panchkhal nursery trial. in a separate field plot trial at saraswatikhel, bhaktapur, the growth rate of coffee plants with mixed grass/weed biochar applied at a rate of 4 t/ha also exhibited a higher growth rate (table 6). although the overall mean height of coffee plants was higher for non-biochar plants, the increase in height was more for the biochar applied plants at 5.4 cm over a 30 day period compared to 4.8 cm increase for non-biochar plants. the higher overall plant height in the latter was due to the transplanting of older and taller coffee plants in the non-biochar treatment as compared to the biochar treatment. table 6. coffee plant growth during a thirty day period for biochar applied and non-biochar treatments at saraswatikhel, bhaktapur. treatment* plant growth (centimeters) height (11/10/14) height (10/12/14) ht. increase (30-day) w/ biochar 36.8 42.2 5.4 std. dev. 2.2 1.9 1.2 no biochar 49.5 54.3 4.8 std. dev. 8.6 9.7 4.7 *biochar applied in two doses of 2 t/ha for a tot al of 4 t/ha. table 7. growth of radish plants in rows between the coffee plants at saraswatikhel, bhaktapur during october to december 2014. plant number plant length in centimeters with biochar without biochar 1 24 15 2 27 25 3 32 17 4 18 24 5 23 20 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 cf lhaf ag c s to ck ( t h a -1 ) land use category soc lhg-c bgb-c agb-c b) gorkha 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 cf lhaf ag c s to ck ( t h a -1 ) land use category soc lhg-c bgb-c agb-c c) rasuwa 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0 100 200 300 p la tn h e ig h t (c m ) days after planting control mb-20 cb-20 mb-20+u bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 49 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 6 30 18 7 18 15 8 28 20 9 23 20 10 17 15 mean* ±s td. dev. 23.9 ± 5.4 19.1 ± 3.7 *means statistically significantly different at p < 0.05. as with the coffee plants, radish planted in rows between the coffee trees showed a positive response to biochar application, as shown in table 7. radish plants that received biochar application (at a rate of 4 t/ha) grew to an average height of nearly 24 cm compared to non-biochar plants, which only reached an average of about 19 cm. this difference in height was statistically significant at the 5% level of probability. apart from plant growth rates, biochar influenced the emissions of greenhouse gases from the agroforestry trial plots at saraswatikhel, bhaktapur. the flux of ghgs measured at weekly intervals during april and may 2014 showed a general trend of lower emissions for the biochar applied treatment (table 8). although the values were not statistically significantly different for carbon dioxide and methane, nitrous oxide flux exhibited significantly (p < 0.05) lower values in the biochar amended soil as compared to soil without biochar. this finding is especially relevant for agricultural soils, which are the main source of n2o emission to the atmosphere, particularly with the application of chemical nitrogen fertilizers. table 8. fluxes of greenhouse gases (µg co2 m-2 h-1) from biochar applied and non-biochar plots at saraswatikhel, bhaktapur. ghg treatment min. max. mean signif. co2 biochar 10.5 432 225.4 ns non-biochar 40.8 589 298.5 n2o biochar 5.12 370 89.0 p<0.05 non-biochar 6.30 523 157.2 ch4 biochar 1.58 22.9 12.1 ns non-biochar 0.86 39.8 16.0 4. discussion the results of the above case studies indicate that various sustainable soil and land management practices could provide multiple benefits and adaptive capacity to local communities to tackle the impending climate change impacts on agriculture. this is in agreement with the findings of numerous other studies around the world [12, 22, 23]. adoption of soil management practices that return organic matter to the soil and minimize the use of chemical fertilizers tend to improve the soil quality and sustainability of crop production. these include practices such as improved composting, residue incorporation, bio-fertilizers, etc.) [24-26]. moreover, such practices can lead to significant carbon accumulation in the terrestrial pool and help to counter global warming caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere bajracharya et al., j. mt. area res. 01 (2016) 40-52 50 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 [15, 19, 24]. in the context of mountain farming on steep slopes and shallow soils, agroforestry and other permaculture practices offer good potential for both enhancing production and livelihood security, as well as, other benefits like slope stabilization, organic matter enrichment, carbon capture and climate change adaptation. this has been also pointed out in other studies, such as, [12, 27, 28]. such integrated and diversified farming systems can reduce the production risks, which become significant under unpredictable climatic conditions. furthermore, in the case of inherently low quality soils, degraded lands, or acidic soil conditions, amendment with biochar (produced from waste biomass) could offer a locally viable means for improving soil quality and increasing productivity. the third study indicated good initial responses by crops, namely, coffee plants and radish, to the application of biochar at low rates. similar results have also been demonstrated in other studies [14, 18]. 5. conclusions sustainable soil management practices can lead to significant c accumulations (4-8 t/ha over 6 yrs) in mid-hill districts of nepal. the soc contents and soil c stocks tend to increase with elevation due to the cooler climate and slow rates of organic matter decomposition. the total carbon stocks for three land use types, namely, community forest, leasehold/agroforestry, and agriculture followed the trend: cf>lh/af>ag. however, agroforestry practices also had high total carbon stocks comparable to community forestry, making them a potentially suitable option for enhanced livelihoods of rural communities while helping to sequester carbon in the hill regions of nepal. application of biochar to soil at low rates (24 t/ha) increased growth of both coffee plants and radish. mixed grass/weed biochar gave the best results for coffee seedlings grown on nursery beds. application of diluted cattle urine did not have a notable effect on coffee seedlings. biochar amended soil generally had reduced emission of ghgs. this 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[28] s.n. sharma and s.k. sharma. role of crop diversification and integrated nutrient management in resilience of soil fertility under rice-wheat cropping system. archives of agronomy and soil science, 50 (2004) 345-352. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 63 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 journal of mountain area research an enhanced wavelet based method for numerical solution of high order boundary value problems s. haq1, and m. sohaib2,3, * 1. faculty of engineering sciences, gik institute, topi 23660, kpk, pakistan. 2. department of mathematics and statistics, bacha khan university, charsadda, 24461, pakistan 3. department of mathematics, comsats university, islamabad abstract the legendre wavelet collocation method (lwcm) is suggested in this study for solving highorder boundary value problems numerically. eighth, tenth, and twelfth-order examples are used as test problems to ensure that the technique is efficient and accurate. in comparison to other approaches, the numerical results obtained using lwcm demonstrate that the method's accuracy is very good. the results indicate that the method requires less computational effort to achieve better results. keywords: wavelet, legendre wavelet, legendre polynomials, collocation points *corresponding author: (email: msohaib@bkuc.edu.pk, phone: 0092-346-9648868) 1. introduction the researchers are targeting ordinary differentials equation because of their importance in different areas of engineering, biomedical science, physics and mathematics. due to their weight ordinary differential equation have been used in hydrodynamic and hydro magnetics stability, fluid mechanics[4], astronomy[1], introduction motors, beam and long wave theory [26]. an infinite layer of fluid with a certain incidence in rotation gives rise to instability/unsteadiness. the sixth order ordinary differential equation is modeled by the instability sets as an ordinary convection whereas eight order is in case of over stability. if heating of the same layer is under the influence magnetic field in direction of gravity the model is tenth order ordinary differential equation when instability sets as an ordinary convection and twelfth order ordinary differential equation in case of over stability [4, 1]. in literature different procedures have been used to achieve the solution of ordinary differential equation of different orders. these techniques include the method of homotopy analysis (ham) [16, 26, 43], variational literation (vim) [15, 20, 24], homotopy perturbation (hpm)[8, 16, 20], modified decomposition (mdm) [34], optimal homotopy asymptotic (oham) [13] , quintic b-spline (qbsm) [33] , non-polynomial spline (npsm) [28] , eleven degree spline (edsm) [29] , finite difference (fdm) [3] , and expfunction (efm) [36 ] etc. for the study of 8𝑡ℎ order boundary value problem (bvp) hpm was used by golbabai and javidi [8] , differential quadrature method (dqm) by liu and wu[18],oham by haq et al. [11], reproducing kernel space by akram and rehman [33, 2] . siddiqi and akram utilized npsm and edsm for the solution of tenth order ordinary differential equation [28, 29], geng and li exercised vim for the solution of tenth order boundary valve problems [6]. i. ullah et el. made use of new iterative method while wazwaz used mdm for the solution od tenth order bvps [34, 31]. the solution of twelfth order bvps using dtm was vol. 6, 2021 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v6i0.109 full length article haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 64 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 computed by islam et el. [13]. approximate solution of twelfth order bvps were obtained via splines and hpm in [30, 19] . wavelet analysis has acquired popularity in recent years for numerical solutions of differential equations. the present study aims to formulate a legendre wavelet collection method (lwcm)for high bvps. the legendre polynomials is used for the approximation of an unknown function and its derivatives. legendre wavelet owes some important properties such as good interpolation, less computational cost, better accuracy with a smaller number of collection points. motivated by these properties of the legendre wavelet, we obtain approximate solutions of eight, tenth and twelfth order ordinary differential equation via lwcm in spectral mode was applied for the study of oscillatory type problems by dizicheh. [5]. delay differential equation [32] , advection problems [10] , and lane-emden equation have been solved by lwcm. authors in [25] have introduce operational matrix method using integration for legendre wavelet. the same methodology has also been applied for solution of partial differential equation, integral and integro-differential equations, and fractional partial differential equations. rest of the paper is organized as follows: in section 2 a short review of wavelet and legendre wavelet is presented. section 3 gives a briefs description of the proposed lwcm. in section 4 error analysis is given. in section 5 the proposed method is used for the approximate solution of same high order bvps. section 6 is devoted to the conclusion. 2. wavelet wavelet arises and different applied sciences such as mathematics, quantum mechanics and engineering. compact support, orthogonality, regularity, orthonormality, symmetry and good accuracy of approximation are the properties of the wavelets. a wavelet is a type of function that is made up of the dilation and translation of a single function known as the mother wavelet. [9]. considered the following family of continuous wavelets ℱ (𝑥; 𝛼, 𝛽) = |𝛼| − 1 2 ℱ(𝛼−1(𝑥 − 𝛽)), 𝛼, 𝛽𝜖ℝ, 𝛼 ≠ 0, (2.1) where α and β are positively dilation and translation parameter which very continuously. let us assume 𝛼 = 𝛼0 −𝛿 , 𝛽 = 𝑚𝛽0𝛼0 𝛿 , 𝛼0 > 1, 𝛽0 > 0, where 𝛿, 𝑚 belong to 𝕫+ then eq. (2.1) takes the form ℱ (𝑥; 𝛿, 𝑚) = 𝛼 𝛿 2 ℱ(2𝛿 𝑥 − 𝑚𝛽0). in above equation ℱ (𝑥; 𝛿, 𝑚) forms a wavelet basis for 𝐿2(ℝ). in orthonormal basis 𝛼0 = 2 and 𝛽0 = 1 and is given by ℱ (𝑥; 𝛿, 𝑚) = 2 𝛿 2 ℱ(2𝛿 𝑥 − 𝑚). if 𝑛 = 0,1, . . ., 𝑁 − 1 and 𝑚 = 1, 2, . . ., 2𝛿−1 then the legendre wavelet are defined on the interval [0,1) as follows [24]: ℱ(𝑥; 𝑚, 𝑛) = { (𝑛 + 1) 1 22 𝛿 2 𝑄𝑛(𝑘) for 2 1−𝛿 (𝑚 − 1) ≤ 𝑥 < 21−𝛿 𝑚 0, otherwise in the above definition 𝑘 = (2𝛿 𝑥 + 1 − 2𝑚), the coefficient (𝑛 + 1 2 ) 1 2 is for orthonormality and 𝑄𝑛 (∗) represent legendre polynomial of degree 𝑛 which can be computed with help of the following recursion relation [37] 𝑄0(𝑥) = 1, 𝑄1(𝑥) = 𝑥, (𝑛 + 1)𝑄𝑛+1(𝑥) − (2𝑛 + 1)𝑥𝑄𝑛 (𝑥) + 𝑛𝑄𝑛−1(𝑥) = 0, 𝑛 = 1,2, . . haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 65 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 3. description of the technique in this section we represent the procedure how the method is applied to ode to find its approximate solution. it should be emphasized that the ode can be transformed into a system of algebraic equations (linear or nonlinear) using collocation points, and the solution can then be found from these equations. for this purpose, let us consider the following nth order initial for boundary value problem. 𝑈(𝑛)(𝑥) = 𝐹 (𝑥, 𝑈(𝑥), 𝑈′(𝑥), … , 𝑈(𝑛−1)(𝑥)) , 𝑎1 ≤ 𝑥 ≤ 𝑎2, (3.1) having the following initial (case i) or boundary (case ii, iii) conditions case i 𝑈(𝐾−1)(𝑎1) = 𝛾𝑘 , 𝑘 = 1, 2, 3, … , 𝑛 (3.2) case ii 𝑈(𝐾−1)(𝑎𝑖 ) = 𝛾𝑘 𝑖 , 𝑖 = 1, 2, 𝑘 = 1, 2, 3, … , 𝑛 2 . (3.3) case iii 𝑈(𝐾−2)(𝑎𝑖 ) = x𝑘 𝑖 , 𝑖 = 1, 2, 𝑘 = 1, 2, 3, … , 𝑛 2 . (3.4) in the above equation 𝛾𝑘, 𝛾𝑘 𝑖 , x𝑘 𝑖 , are known constant and u is known function. now the function 𝑈(𝑥) can be approximated by the legendre wavelet over interval [0, 1) [16] and is given as follows: 𝑈(𝑥) = ∑ ∑ 𝛽𝑖 𝑗 ∞ 𝑗=0 ∞ 𝑖=1 ℱ 𝑖 𝑗 (𝑥), (3.5) where 𝛽𝑖 𝑗 are unknown constants to be calculated. in actual computation eq. (3.5) is written 𝑈(𝑥) = ∑ ∑ 𝛽𝑖 𝑗 𝑀−1 𝑗=0 2𝛿−1 𝑖=1 ℱ 𝑖 𝑗 (𝑥), (3.6) which can be written as 𝑈(𝑥) = 𝐵ℱ (𝑥), (3.7) where 𝐵 and ℱ are respectively row and colum matrices defined as follow: 𝐵 = [𝛽1 0, 𝛽1 1, 𝛽1 1, … , 𝛽1 𝑀−1, 𝛽2 0, 𝛽2 1, … , 𝛽2 𝑀−1, … , 𝛽 2𝑘−1 0 , 𝛽 2𝑘−1 1 , … , 𝛽 2𝑘−1 𝑀−1 ], ℱ(𝑥) = [ℱ1 0(𝑥), ℱ1 1(𝑥), ℱ1 𝑀−1(𝑥), ℱ2 0(𝑥), … , ℱ2 𝑀−1(𝑥), … , ℱ 2𝑘−1 0 (𝑥), … , ℱ 2𝑘−1 𝑀−1(𝑥)] 𝑇 . from eq. (3.7) we can write 𝑈𝑖 (𝑥) = 𝐵ℱ 𝑖 (𝑥), 𝑖 = 1, 2, … , 𝑛. (3.8) using eq. (3.7) and (3.8) in eq. (3.1)-(3.4) implies that 𝐵ℱ 𝑛(𝑥) = ℱ (𝑥, 𝐵ℱ(𝑥), 𝐵ℱ ′(𝑥), … , 𝐵ℱ (𝑛−1)(𝑥)). (3.9) 𝐵ℱ (𝑘−1)(𝑎1) = 𝛾𝑘, 𝑘 = 1, 2, 3, … , 𝑛. (3.10) 𝐵ℱ (𝑘−1)(𝑎𝑖 ) = 𝛾𝑘 𝑖 , 𝑖 = 1, 2, 𝑘 = 1, 2, 3, … , 𝑛 2 . (3.11) 𝐵ℱ (𝑘−1)(𝑎𝑖 ) = x𝑘 𝑖 , 𝑖 = 1, 2, 𝑘 = 1, 2, 3, … , 𝑛 2 . (3.12) from eq. (3.6) there are 𝑀2𝑘−1 constants to be determined. the calculation of these constants needs 𝑀2𝑘−1 equations. now 𝑛 number of equations can be derived from eq. (3.10) or (3.11) or (3.12) and rest of 𝑀2𝑘−1 − 𝑛 equations can be obtained from eq. (3.9) using the collocation points and are given by 𝐵ℱ 𝑛(𝑥𝑗 ) = ℱ (𝑥𝑗 , 𝐵ℱ(𝑥𝑗 ), 𝐵ℱ ′(𝑥𝑗 ), … , 𝐵ℱ 𝑛−1(𝑥𝑗 )), (3.13) where 𝑥𝑗 = 𝑗−0.5 2𝑘𝑀−𝑛 , 𝑗 = 1, 2, … , 2𝑘−1𝑀 − 𝑛. (3.14) therefore eq. (3.13) coupled with eq. (3.10) or (3.11) or (3.12) give system of 2𝑘−1𝑀 equations and one can find the value of the unknown constants 𝛽𝑖 𝑗 . using the value of 𝛽𝑖 𝑗 in eqs. (3.6) will give the required solution. 4. error analysis theorem (sohaib and haq [7]): assume that 𝑈(𝑥) and 𝑈∗(𝑥) be the exact approximate solution of eq. (3.1) respectively. moreover, also assume that |𝑈′(𝑥)| ≤ 𝐵1 and |𝑈′′(𝑥)| ≤ 𝐵2, where 𝐵1 and 𝐵2 are constant than ‖𝐸‖2 ≤ ∑ ∑ 3𝐵2 2 2𝑛5(2𝑚 − 3)4 ∞ 𝑚=𝑀 ∞ 𝑛=2𝑘−1 . 5. numerical examples in this section the proposed method (lwcm) is used to find the approximate solution of linear haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 66 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 and nonlinear eight, tenth, and twelfth order boundary value problems. to determine the technique's efficacy, the results are compared to those obtained using other methods available in the literature. 5.1 eight order odes example 1: let us consider the following linear eight order boundary value problem [26] 𝑈(8)(𝑥) − 𝑈(𝑥) = −8𝑒 𝑥 , 0 < 𝑥 < 1, (5.1) with boundary condition 𝑈(𝑗)(0) = 1 − 𝑗, 𝑈(𝑘)(1) = −𝑘𝑒, 𝑗 = 0, 1, … ,5 and 𝑘 = 1, 2. the exact solution of problem (5.1) is given by 𝑈(𝑥) = (1 − 𝑥)𝑒 𝑥 . solution: taking 𝛿 = 1 and 𝑀 = 17, eq. (3.6) become 𝑈(𝑥) = ∑ 𝛽1 𝑗 16 𝐽=0 ℱ1 𝑗 (𝑥) = 𝐵ℱ(𝑋), (5.2) where 𝐵 and ℱ are 𝐵 = [𝛽1 0 , 𝛽1 1, … , 𝛽1 16] ℱ(𝑥) = [ℱ1 0, ℱ1 1, … , ℱ1 16]𝑇 using eq. (5.1) and boundary conditions we obtain 𝐵ℱ (8)(𝑥) − 𝐵ℱ(𝑥) = −8𝑒 𝑥 (5.3) and 𝐵ℱ (𝑗)(0) = 1 − 𝑗, 𝐵ℱ (𝑘)(1) = −𝐾𝑒, 𝑗 = 0, 1, 2, … , 5 and 𝐾 = 1, 2. at 𝑥 = 𝑥𝑗 (see eq. (3.14) the above equation becomes 𝐵ℱ 8(𝑥𝑗 ) − 𝐵ℱ(𝑥𝑗 ) = −8𝑒 𝑥𝑗 , 𝑗 = 1, 2, … , 9 (5.4) where 𝑥𝑗 are the collection points given by eq. (3.14). eq. (5.4) together with the boundary conditions give system of seventeen equations in seventeen unknowns. solving the system so obtained the unknown is given as follow: 𝛽1 0 = 7.1828 × 10−1, 𝛽1 1 = −2.682 × 10−1, 𝛽1 2 = −9.6049 × 10−2, 𝛽1 3 = −1.3310 × 10−2, 𝛽1 4 = −1.1655 × 10−3, 𝛽1 5 = −7.5008 × 10−5, 𝛽1 6 = −3.82352 × 10−6, 𝛽1 7 = −1.61514 × 10−7, 𝛽1 8 = −5.82777 × 10−9, 𝛽1 9 = −1.83571 × 10−10, 𝛽1 10 = −5.13164 × 1012, 𝛽1 11 = −1.28957 × 10−13, 𝛽1 12 = −2.94351 × 1015, 𝛽1 13 = −6.15476 × 10−17, 𝛽1 14 = −1.18679 × 10−18, 𝛽1 15 = −2.11898 × 10−20, 𝛽1 16 = −3.90587 × 10−22. putting value in 𝛽1 𝑗 in eq. (5.2), the solution of the problem (5.1) is 𝑈(𝑥) = 1 − 2.22 × 10−16𝑥 − 0.5𝑥2 − 0.33𝑥 3 − 0.125𝑥 4 − 0.03𝑥5 −0.007𝑥6 − 0.001𝑥7 − 0.0002𝑥 8 − 0.00002𝑥 9 − 2.84 × 10−6𝑥10 −2.51 × 10−7𝑥11 − 2.3 × 10−8𝑥12 − 1.91 × 10−9𝑥13 −1.54 × 1010𝑥14 − 8.57 × 10−12𝑥15 − 1.23 × 10−12𝑥16. the result obtained and comparison with the method in [2, 8, 12] are given in table 1. from the table it can be observed that the result got using lwcm are more accurate than that other method. as we increase the value of the m the accuracy become better. this show accuracy of the present technique. example 2: let us consider another eight order bvp [33] given as follow: 𝑈(8)(𝑥) + 𝑥𝑈(𝑥) = −𝑒 𝑥 (48 + 15𝑥 + 𝑥 3), 0 < 𝑥 < 1, (5.5) with the following boundary conditions 𝑈𝑘 (0) = 𝑘 − (2 − 𝑘) 𝑈𝑘 (1) = −𝑘2𝑒 for 𝑘 = 0, 1, 2, 3. (5.6) the theoretical solution of problem (5.5) -(5.6) is 𝑈(𝑥) = 𝑥(1 − 𝑥)𝑒 𝑥 . (5.7) solution: as in example 1 when 𝛿 = 1 and 𝑀 = 17 then eq. (3.6) transform to eq. (5.2) the use of eu. (5.2) convert the eq. (5.5) and (5.6) to the following equations 𝐵ℱ 8(𝑥) + 𝑥𝐵ℱ(𝑥) = −𝑒 𝑥 (48 + 15 + 𝑥 3), (5.8) and 𝐵ℱ (𝑘)(0) = 𝑘(2 − 𝑘) 𝐵ℱ (𝑘)(1) = −𝐾2𝑒, 𝑘 = 0,1,3. (5.9) at the collection points 𝑥𝑗 (see eq. (3.14)), the eq. (5.8) yields haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 67 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 𝐵ℱ (8)(𝑋𝐽 ) + 𝑥𝐵ℱ(𝑥𝑗 ) = −𝑒 𝑥𝑗 (48 + 15𝑥𝑗 + 𝑥𝑗 3), 𝑗 = 1,2, … ,9 (5.10) eq. (5.10) together with eq. (5.9) gives seventeen equations. solving these equations gives the constant given by 𝛽1 0 = 2.817 × 10−1, 𝛽1 1 = 4.84503 × 10−2, 𝛽1 2 = −1.20648 × 10−1, 𝛽1 3 = −3.13013 × 10−2, 𝛽1 4 = −3.95534 × 10−3, 𝛽1 5 = −3.31312 × 10−4, 𝛽1 6 = −2.07696 × 10−5, 𝛽1 7 = −1.04055 × 10−6, 𝛽1 8 = −4.34174 × 10−8, 𝛽1 9 = −1.55226 × 10−9, 𝛽1 10 = −4.85482 × 1011, 𝛽1 11 = −1.34945 × 10−12, 𝛽1 12 = −3.37545 × 1014, 𝛽1 13 = −7.67494 × 10−16, 𝛽1 14 = −1.59956 × 10−17, 𝛽1 15 = −3.08249 × 10−19, 𝛽1 16 = −5.50016 × 10−21, substituting the value of the unknown 𝛽1 𝑗 in eq. (5.2) the solution of the problem (5.8) -(5.9) can be obtained. in table 2 the absolute error using the proposed method is compared with those of the method in [2, 27, 14] available in the literature. the results obtained using the proposed method are clearly superior to those obtained using the other methods, as shown in the table. the accuracy is increase as we increase the value of 𝑀 . this show that the lwcm can be applied to the differential equation for better results. example 3: let us consider another eight-order boundary value problem taken from [33] and is given below: 𝑈8(𝑥) + 𝑈7(𝑥) + 2𝑈(6)(𝑥) + 2𝑈(5)(𝑥) + 2𝑈(4)(𝑥) + 2𝑈(3)(𝑥) +2𝑈"(𝑥) + 𝑈′(𝑥) + 𝑈(𝑥) = 14 cos −16 sin −4𝑥 sin 𝑥, 0 < 𝑥 < 1 (5.10) with the boundary condition 𝑈(𝑘)(0) = 2𝑘3 − 3𝑘2 − 2𝑘 3 𝑈(𝑘)(1) = (𝑘 + 2𝑘2 − 𝑘3) sin 1 − (4𝑘 − 5𝑘2 + 𝑘3) cos 1, 𝑘 = 0,1,2,3. (5.11) the exact solution of the problem (5.10) (5.11) is 𝑈(𝑥) = (𝑥 2 − 1) sin 𝑥. using 𝛿 = 1 and 𝑀 = 17 eq. (3.6) takes the form given by eq. (5.4) and plugging the value from eq. (5.4) into eqs. (5.10) -(5.11) the following can be obtained 𝐵{ℱ (8)(𝑥) + ℱ (7)(𝑥) + 2ℱ (6)(𝑥) + 2ℱ (5)(𝑥) + 2ℱ (4)(𝑥) + 2ℱ (3)(𝑥) + 2ℱ (2)(𝑥) + ℱ ′(𝑥) + ℱ(𝑥)} = 14 cos −16 sin −4𝑥 sin 𝑥, (5.12) 𝐵ℱ (𝑘)(0) = 2𝐾3 − 3𝐾2 − 2𝐾 3 , 𝐵ℱ (𝑘)(1) = (𝑘 + 2𝑘2 − 𝑘3) sin 1 − (4𝑘 − 5𝑘2 + 𝑘3) cos 1, 𝑘 = 0,1,2,3. (5.13) utilizing the collection points 𝑥𝑘 (given by eq. (3.14)) in eq. (5.12) we arrived at 𝐵{ℱ (8)(𝑥𝑘 ) + ℱ (7)(𝑥𝑘 ) + 2ℱ (6)(𝑥𝑘 ) + 2ℱ (5)(𝑥𝑘 ) + 2ℱ (4)(𝑥𝑘 ) + 2ℱ (3)(𝑥𝑘 ) + 2ℱ (2)(𝑥𝑘 ) + ℱ (′)(𝑥𝑘 ) + ℱ(𝑥𝑘 )} = 14 cos 𝑥𝑘 − 16 sin 𝑥𝑘 − 4𝑘𝑥 sin 𝑥𝑘, 𝑘 = 0,1,2, … ,8. (5.14) eq. (5.14) and (5.13) generates a system of seventeen equation in seventeen unknowns which can be easily solved for the unknown 𝐵1, 𝐽 j = 0, 1, 2,…,16. the value of these unknowns is computed, and the required solution has been obtained from (5.2). the absolute error has been computed with those of quintic b-spline method (qbsm) [33] available in the literature and are tabulated in table 3. from the table it is straight forward that the result of the present method is very good as compared to other technique. example 4: let us consider the following nonlinear eight order bvp [11] 𝑈(8)(𝑥) = 𝑒−𝑥 𝑈2(𝑥), 0 < 𝑥 < 1 (5.15) subject to the boundary condition 𝑈(𝑘)(0) = 1 𝑈(𝑘) (1) = 𝑒𝑥, 𝑘 = 0,2,4,6. (5.16) exact solution of the problem (5.15) -(5.16) is haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 68 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 𝑈(𝑥) = 𝑒 𝑥 . using 𝛿 = 1 and 𝑀 = 17 in eq. (3.6) which becomes 𝑈(𝑥) = ∑ 𝛽1 𝑗 ℱ1 𝑗 (𝑥) = 𝐵ℱ(𝑥) 16 𝑗=𝑜 (5.17) the use of eq. (5.17) in eq. (5.15) and (5.16) gives 𝐵ℱ (8)(𝑥) = 𝑒 −𝑥 𝐵2ℱ 2(𝑥), (5.18) 𝐵ℱ (𝑘)(0) = 1, 𝐵ℱ (𝑘)(1) = 𝑒 𝑘 = 0, 2, 4, 6. (5.19) eq. (5.18) at 𝑥 = 𝑥𝑗 (see eq. (3.14)) gives the following system 𝐵ℱ (8)(𝑥𝑗 ) = 𝑒 −𝑥𝑗 𝐵2ℱ (2)(𝑥𝑗 ), 𝑗 = 1, 2, … ,9. (5.20) value of seventeen unknown 𝛽1 𝑗 ̕s has been computed from the system of seventeen equations given by eqs. (5.19) and (5.20). the solution of the problem has been obtained from the substitution of 𝛽1 𝑗 ̕in eq. (5.17). the results, absolute error and comparison with the method in [2, 21, 12] are given in table 4. from the table the result of the present method is very good as compared to the other method of literature. the increase in the value of 𝑀 gives us more accurate results. 5.2 tenth order odes in this section the examples of tenth order odes have been chosen for study. the method under consideration is applied to check the applicability and the accuracy of the technique. example 5: taking the linear tenth order odes [23] 𝑈(10)(𝑥) + 5𝑈(𝑥) = 10 cos 𝑥 + 4(1 − 𝑥) sin 𝑥 , 0 < 𝑥 < 1, (5.21) with the boundary conditions 𝑈(2𝑘)(𝜂) = (−1)𝐾+12𝑘 cos 𝜂 , 𝜂 = 0, 1 𝑘 = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. (5.22) exact solution of the problem is given below 𝑈(𝑥) = (𝑥 − 1) sin 𝑥. the problem has been solved using the same methodology as discussed in the previous examples. absolute errors for differential values of 𝑀 have been calculated and are shown in table 5. from table the results obtained are very close to exact solution. furthermore, accuracy can be enhanced by increasing the value of 𝑀. example 6: taking nonlinear bvp of order ten [31] 𝑈(10)(𝑥) = 𝑒 −𝑥 𝑈2(𝑥), 0 < 𝑥 < 1, (5.21) subject to the following boundary condition 𝑈2𝑘 (𝜂) = 𝑒𝜂 , 𝜂 = 0,1, 𝑘 = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. the exact solution is 𝑈(𝑥) = 𝑒 𝑥. for the solution of this problem the proposed technique is applied when δ = 1, m = 19, 17, 15, 13, 11. the obtained results are tabulated in table 6 and are compared with those of new iterative method (nim) [31]. from the table the result of lwcm is better than that of nim. 5.3 twelfth order odes example 7: consider twelfth order ode [17] 𝑈12(𝑥) + 𝑥𝑈(𝑥) = −(120 + 23𝑥 + 𝑥 3)𝑒 𝑥 , 0 < 𝑥 < 1, (5.22) coupled with the following boundary condition 𝑈(𝑘)(𝜂) = 𝑘(2(1 − 𝜂) − 𝑘)𝑒𝜂 , 𝜂 = 0,1, 𝑘 = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. exact solution is 𝑈(𝑥) = 𝑥(1 − 𝑥)𝑒 𝑥 . the same procedure as discussed in previous example with 𝛿 = 1 and 𝑀 = 18, 16, 14 is haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 69 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 implemted here also. the obtained numerical results and comparison of the error with dtm [13] is tabulated in table 7. here again the results are more accurate than those of dtm. example 8: another example of twelfth order bvp of the form [22] 𝑈(12)(𝑥) = 2𝑒 𝑥 𝑈2(𝑥) + 𝑈(3)(𝑥), 0 < 𝑥 < 1, (5.23) subject to the boundary conditions 𝑈(2𝑘)(𝜂) = 𝑒 −𝜂 , 𝜂 = 0,1, 𝑘 = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. the exact solution of the problems is 𝑈(𝑥) = 𝑒 −𝑥 . the solution of the problems has been obtained with the help of the same method taking 𝛿 = 1 and 𝑀 = 18, 16, 14 . the results so obtained are posted in the table 8 and are compared with the results of dtm [13] which are available in literature. again, the results with lwcm are better. table 1: absolute error comparison of lwcm when k=1 𝑥𝑖 lwcm rks [2] hpm [8] vim [12] 𝑀 = 13 𝑀 = 15 𝑀 = 17 𝑛 = 7 𝑛 = 30 𝑁 = 7 0.25 1.38e-13 3.33e-16 2.22e-16 3.03e-10 7.50e-12 2.16e-09 4.58e-09 0.50 4.78e-12 6.77e-15 0.00e-00 7.73e-09 2.35e-10 1.16e-07 9.84e-09 0.75 1.91e-11 2.55e-14 2.22e-16 3.12e-08 1.08e-09 1.05e-06 1.10e-05 1.0 2.63e-11 3.48e-14 4.57e-16 4.40e-08 1.59e-09 4.22e-06 1.86e-04 table 2: absolute error comparison of lwcm when k=1 𝑥𝑖 lwcm rks [2] method in [27] method in [14] 𝑀 = 17 𝑀 = 15 𝑀 = 13 𝑀 = 11 𝑀 = 9 𝑁 = 10 0.1 1.25e-16 8.33e-17 8.13 e-14 8.72 e-11 5.57 e-09 1.63e-10 5.62 e-10 3.73 e-09 0.2 1.67e-16 3.61 e-16 4.33 e-13 6.70 e-10 3.57 e-08 1.63 e-09 4.88 e-09 6.61 e-09 0.3 5.55e-17 4.44 e-16 4.90 e-13 1.24 e-09 4.56 e-08 4.90 e-09 1.37 e-08 2.33 e-08 0.4 5.55e-17 2.78 e-16 1.19 e-13 6.53 e-10 2.79 e-08 8.46 e-09 2.29 e-08 5.17 e-08 0.5 0.00000 0.000000 2.55 e-13 1.16 e-09 1.60 e-07 1.01 e-09 2.71 e-08 9.76 e-08 haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 70 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 0.6 2.22e-16 2.78 e-16 5.89 e-13 2.47 e-09 2.47 e-07 8.68 e-09 2.38 e-08 1.78 e-06 0.7 3.33e-16 3.33 e-16 8.34 e-13 2.31 e-09 2.12 e-07 5.15 e-09 2.38 e-08 4.12 e-06 0.8 3.33e-16 2.78 e-16 5.89 e-13 1.03 e-09 9.44 e-08 1.76 e-09 5.54 e-09 1.83 e-04 table 3: absolute error comparison of lwcm when k=1 𝑥𝑖 lwcm qbsm [33] 𝑀 = 17 𝑀 = 15 𝑀 = 13 𝑀 = 11 𝑀 = 9 0.1 2.25e-15 7.77e-16 4.37e-14 4.94e-11 3.99e-09 2.68e-07 0.2 1.97e-15 1.55e-15 2.31e-13 3.84e-10 2.86e-08 9.24e-07 0.3 1.33e-15 2.11 e-15 2.64e-13 7.45e-10 5.22e-08 1.94e-06 0.4 2.78e-16 2.33e-15 7.77e-14 5.20e-10 3.40e-08 3.52e-06 0.5 1.05e-15 2.44e-15 1.08e-13 3.06e-10 2.37e-08 4.44e-06 0.6 2.28e-15 2.55e-15 2.73e-13 1.02e-09 7.33e-08 4.68e-06 0.7 2.94e-15 3.22e-15 3.94e-13 1.01e-09 7.36e-08 4.26e-06 0.8 3.33e-15 4.11e-15 2.78e-13 4.57e-10 3.49e-08 2.86e-06 0.9 3.16e-15 5.30e-15 4.77e-14 5.46e-11 4.48e-09 1.28e-06 table 4: absolute error comparison of lwcm when k=1 𝑥𝑖 lwcm rks [2] method in [21] method in [14] 𝑀 = 17 𝑀 = 15 𝑀 = 13 𝑀 = 11 𝑀 = 9 𝑛 = 10 𝑛 = 20 0.1 0.000000 0.000000 2.22e-16 3.77e-15 1.58e-13 7.53e-08 1.61e-08 1.27e-05 1.91e-07 0.2 0.000000 2.22e-16 5.11e-15 8.84e-13 3.97e-11 1.43e-07 3.07 e-08 2.43e-05 1.25e-07 0.3 2.22e-16 2.22e-16 1.12e-13 2.04e-11 10.00e-10 1.96e-07 4.23 e-08 3.35e-05 7.25e-08 0.4 0.000000 2.22e-15 9.45e-13 1.84e-10 9.79e-09 2.31e-07 4.97 e-08 3.94e-05 4.85e-08 0.5 0.000000 1.15e-14 4.82e-12 9.93e-10 5.72e-08 2.42e-07 5.23 e-08 4.16e-05 2.91e-07 0.6 4.44e-16 4.31e-14 1.79e-11 3.86e-09 2.41e-07 2.30e-07 4.98 e-08 3.96e-05 7.80e-08 0.7 4.44e-16 1.28e-13 5.40e-11 1.20e-08 8.08e-07 1.95e-07 4.24 e-08 3.38e-05 1.11e-07 0.8 4.44e-16 3.29e-13 1.39e-10 3.17e-08 2.30e-06 1.42e-07 3.08 e-08 2.45e-05 1.71e-07 haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 71 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 0.9 4.44e-16 7.54e-13 3.20e-10 7.41e-08 5.75e-06 7.47e-08 1.62 e-08 1.29e-05 7.93e-08 table 5: absolute error comparison of lwcm when k=1 𝑥𝑖 lwcm 𝑀 = 19 𝑀 = 17 𝑀 = 15 𝑀 = 13 𝑀 = 11 0.1 2.36e-16 1.03e-15 8.77e-13 7.32e-10 1.05e-06 0.2 1.94e-16 1.50e-15 1.68e-12 1.40e-09 2.00e-06 0.3 2.22e-16 1.92e-15 2.34e-12 1.94e-09 2.76e-06 0.4 1.94e-16 2.08e-15 2.78e-12 2.30e-09 3.26e-06 0.5 1.94e-16 2.25e-15 2.97e-12 2.45e-09 3.43e-06 0.6 1.39e-16 2.14e-15 2.86e-12 2.35e-09 3.27e-06 0.7 1.11e-16 1.80e-15 2.46e-12 2.02e-09 2.79e-06 0.8 5.55e-17 1.22e-15 1.81e-12 1.48e-09 2.03e-06 0.9 1.39e-17 4.86e-16 9.57e-13 7.81e-10 1.07e-06 table 6: absolute error comparison of lwcm when k=1 𝑥𝑖 lwcm nim [31] 𝑀 = 19 𝑀 = 17 𝑀 = 15 𝑀 = 13 𝑀 = 11 0.1 6.66e-16 6.66e-16 9.50e-13 9.09e-11 1.62e-07 4.11e-09 0.2 1.78e-15 1.55e-15 1.84e-12 1.75e-10 3.09e-07 7.81e-09 0.3 2.22e-15 1.77e-15 2.59e-12 2.45e-10 4.28e-07 1.08e-08 0.4 3.11e-15 2.89e-15 3.13e-12 2.94e-10 5.06e-07 1.27e-08 0.5 3.11e-15 2.66e-15 3.39e-12 3.17e-10 5.35e-07 1.33e-08 0.6 3.11e-15 2.66e-15 3.32e-12 3.08e-10 5.12e-07 1.27e-08 0.7 2.66e-15 2.22e-15 2.90e-12 2.68e-10 4.38e-07 1.08e-08 0.8 2.66e-15 1.78e-15 2.15e-12 1.97e-10 3.20e-07 7.85e-09 0.9 1.33e-15 4.44e-16 1.15e-13 1.05e-11 1.69e-07 4.12e-09 haq et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021)63-76 72 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 table 7: absolute error comparison of lwcm when k=1 𝑥𝑖 lwcm dtm [13] 𝑀 = 18 𝑀 = 16 𝑀 = 14 0.1 1.25e-16 9.71e-17 7.49e-15 7.51e-14 0.2 1.11e-16 0.000000 2.37e-13 2.77e-12 0.3 5.55e-17 7.77e-16 1.23e-12 1.73e-11 0.4 0.000000 2.05e-15 2.76e-12 5.02e-11 0.5 5.55e-17 2.72e-15 3.54e-12 9.34e-11 0.6 5.55e-17 2.00e-15 2.77e-12 1.28e-10 0.7 5.55e-17 7.77e-16 1.24e-12 1.39e-10 0.8 1.11e-16 1.11e-16 2.39e-13 1.23e-10 0.9 1.67e-16 4.44e-16 8.22e-13 7.50e-11 table 8: absolute error comparison of lwcm when k=1 𝑥𝑖 lwcm dtm [13] 𝑀 = 18 𝑀 = 16 𝑀 = 14 0.1 3.55e-15 3.05e-12 1.94e-09 1.61e-07 0.2 6.77e-15 5.80e-12 3.70e-09 3.07e-07 0.3 9.21e-15 7.99e-12 5.09e-09 4.22e-07 0.4 1.09e-14 9.39e-12 5.98e-09 4.97e-07 0.5 1.15e-14 9.87e-12 6.29e-09 5.22e-07 0.6 1.08e-14 9.39e-12 5.98e-09 4.96e-07 0.7 9.27e-15 7.99e-12 5.09e-09 4.22e-07 0.8 6.77e-15 5.80e-12 3.70e-09 3.07e-07 0.9 3.72e-15 3.05e-12 1.94e-09 1.61e-07 73 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 6. conclusion the legendre wavelet collocation method is used to solve linear and nonlinear boundary value problems of orders eighth, tenth, and twelve in this work. the results obtained are compared with the results of qbsm, nim, dtm and other method in [2, 8, 12, 27] from the available literature. it has been observed that the results of the proposed method are efficient, accurate, easy to apply, and needs less computational cost. the technique can be applied to partial [38], integral [39], and fractional differential equations [40] easily. declarations funding: not applicable conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no conflict of interest data availability: not applicable code availability: not applicable authors’ contributions: siraj ul haq: original draft write up and supervision muhammad sohaib: conceptualization, methodology, reviewing and editing. 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[43] a. m. siddiqui, a. shah, and q. k. ghori, homotopy analysis of slider bearing lubricated with powell-eyring fluid, j. appl. sci., (2006), pp. 2358-2367. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 26 aug. 2021. revised/accepted: 13 dec. 2021. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 14 journal of mountain area research ubi-xgb: identification of ubiquitin proteins using machine learning model rahu sikander1*, ali ghulam2, ali farman3, dhani bux talpur4, mir sajjad hussain talpur2, erum saba2, zulfikar ahmed maher2, saima tunio2 1. school of computer science and technology, xidian university, xi’an 710071, china 2. information technology centre, sindh agriculture university, sindh, pakistan 3. elementary and secondary education, peshawar, khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan 4. department of computer science, university of gwaddar, gwaddar, balochistan abstract a recent line of research has focused on ubiquitination, a pervasive and proteasome -mediated protein degradation that controls apoptosis and is crucial in the breakdown of proteins and the development of cell disorders, is a major factor. the turnover of proteins and ubiquitination are two related processes. we predict ubiquitination sites; these attributes are lastly fed into the extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) classifier. we develop reliable predictors computational tool using experimental identification of protein ubiquitination sites is typically laborand time-intensive. first, we encoded protein sequence features into matrix data using dipeptide deviation from expected mean (dde) features encoding techniques. we also proposed 2nd features extraction model named dipeptide composition (dpc) model. it is vital to develop reliable predictors since experimental identification of protein ubiquitination sites is typically laborand time-intensive. in this paper, we proposed computational method as named ubipro-xgboost, a multi-view feature-based technique for predicting ubiquitination sites. recent developments in proteomic technology have sparked renewed interest in the identification of ubiquitination sites in a number of human disorders, which have be en studied experimentally and clinically. when more experimentally verified ubiquitination sites appear, we developed a predictive algorithm that can locate lysine ubiquitination sites in large -scale proteome data. this paper introduces ubipro-xgboost, a machine learning method. ubipro-xgboost had an auc (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) of 0.914% accuracy, 0.836% sensitivity, 0.992% specificity, and 0.839% mcc on a 5-fold cross validation based on dpc model, and 2nd 0.909% accuracy, 0.839% sensitivity, 0.979% specificity, and 0. 0.829% mcc on a 5 -fold cross validation based on dde model. the findings demonstrate that the suggested technique, ubipro-xgboost, outperforms conventional ubiquitination prediction methods and offers fresh advice for ubiquitination site identification. keywords: ubiquitin proteins; dde; dpc; ubipro-xgboost; machine learning *corresponding author: (email: sikander@stu.xidian.edu.cn) 1. introduction this study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis computational tool, and discovery of ubiquitin [1] that ubiquitin is a tiny, 76-amino acid protein [2]. protein ubiquitination is a common post-translational modification. it is a process that attaches ubiquitin, a protein, to the substrate. an increase in ubiquitin-protein levels can have a variety of effects on how a protein behaves. it can, for example, instruct the proteasome to digest proteins [3, 4]. additionally, this process is connected to inflammation, cell change, vol. 08, 2023 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v8i0.167 full length article sikander et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 14-26 15 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 and the immune response. [5]. a frequent post-translational modification is protein ubiquitination. it is a procedure that assigns the protein ubiquitin to the substrate. numerous factors can change how a protein functions as a result of an increase in ubiquitin-protein levels. [6, 7]. ubiquitination has been linked to cell change, immunological response, and inflammatory response [8]. a tiny regulatory protein called ubiquitin-protein is involved in the ubiquitination modification process and is present in practically all eukaryotic tissues. the three processes of ubiquitination are activation, binding, and connection [9]. ubiquitination is critical to understanding protein regulation and molecular mechanisms and identifying potential ubiquitination sites is essential. it is critically needed to develop computational methods that can detect protein ubiquitination sites more quickly and precisely than traditional methods such as chip-chip analysis and mass spectrometry. the identification of protein ubiquitination sites can be done using computational approaches. a considerable amount [10] of research has focused on comprehending the mechanism of ubiquitination is the identification of ubiquitination sites. ubiquitination is quick and reversible, though high-throughput mass spectrometry (ms) technology ubiquitin antibodies, and ubiquitin-binding proteins [11, 12], in combination with liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry [13], are examples of conventional experimental techniques. ubiprober was developed by chen to combine sequencing information with physico-chemical parameters and amino acid composition in order to build generic models for eukaryotic proteomes and species-specific models for proteomes from a variety of different species. physico-chemical features were added into svm by esa-ubisite [14]. esa was performed to choose the most effective negative dataset from the entire dataset, however. the large-scale protein ubiquitination site prediction, these existing machine learning algorithms perform well on small-scale data, but there are still significant obstacles. first, the artificially designed features have a weakness. there are currently no methods that do not rely on expert knowledge for feature extraction, which results in incomplete and biased feature vectors [15, 16]. second, there is a variety in the features. to boost accuracy, most existing prediction methods converged on a single feature and ignored the inherent heterogeneity among them. third, there is a disparity in the number of positive and negative samples. there are only a limited number of lysine residues that can be ubiquitinated in the entire proteome, making protein ubiquitination site prediction an extremely imbalanced problem [17]. such an imbalanced situation does not lend itself well to existing approaches for discovering probable ubiquitination sites. it's thought that deep learning, a recent trend in machine learning for massive datasets, could be the answer to these issues. to successfully analyses genomic and proteomic data, a number of deep learning networks have been used it is yet to be used in the prediction of protein ubiquitination sites by deep learning techniques. to illustrate the roles of new molecules in huge signal networks, one can use this graphic to depict ubiquitin [18]. the distinctive patterns of molecules from a certain class can be shown by a large number of interconnected proteins. [19, 20]. sikander et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 14-26 16 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 xgboost ubiquitin is based on the xgboost algorithm for protein function. machine learning approaches such as extreme gradient boosting have been used to predict protein structures in the literature (xgboost) [21]. networks that use low-level features as inputs produce high-level features at the next layer. computer vision and natural language processing both use xgboost -based techniques. even in biomedical data analysis, xgboost -based methods have been found to outperform standard predictive methods used in bioinformatics and chem informatics [22] because of recent advancements in processing power [23]. ubiquitin prediction is an area where xgboost ubiquitin performs exceptionally well. other machine learning classifiers like deep neural network (dnn) adaboost (abc) and random forest (rf) classifiers are also compared to this model's prediction performance. in order to find the optimum feature extraction approach, we also use feature extraction protocols that have been successful in tackling diverse biological challenges. we believe that dde and dpc are the most effective approaches for extracting features from a dataset. table 1. collected data as ubiquitin and non-ubiquitin sequences. an approach based on the previously mentioned machine learning classifiers is also on the table 1. 2. materials and methods 2.1 datasets machine learning models can be simplified by employing a quantitative approach that includes the usage of a dataset. the uniportkb and ncbi-databases are where we get our information. eight hundred and twenty-five different protein sequences have been obtained, with the majority 375 being ubiquitin positive and the remainder 450 non-ubiquitin positive. this is a class of proteins used to model subcellular distributions [24]. we've gotten the info from the database above. the obtained datasets are preprocessed based on the protein–pathway and protein–non-pathway interactions. data was stored in csv format and the parameters of our suggested model were established. the sequence of an ubiquitination-precise protein were proposed as a positive test sample. training datasets were imbalanced by a random selection of positive and negative samples [25]. an online database containing proteins from a variety of organisms was used in this study but only human-related proteins that were specifically implicated in human pathways were investigated more than 450 non-ubiquitin proteins were received as part of the cd-hit [26], step for similarity measures. this preprocessing method resulted in the finalization of 775 proteins by removing redundant information. there was a reduction in redundancy, and 775 proteins were received, including 375 ubiquitin proteins and 450 non-ubiquitin proteins. original data similarity <30% cross-validation ubiquitin proteins 550 375 375 non-ubiquitin proteins 650 450 450 total 1200 825 825 sikander et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 14-26 17 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 2.2 features extraction for ubiquitin protein association the process of turning protein sequence information into numerical data, known as feature extraction, is crucial to the classification effort. in order to extract the information from protein sequences, sequence-based features, physicochemical property-based features, and evolutionary-derived features are chosen in this study. first, we encoded protein sequence features into matrix data using dipeptide deviation from expected mean (dde) features encoding techniques. second, we encoded features extraction model named dipeptide composition (dpc) model. a two-dimensional sparse matrices of size 20x20 was obtained and reduced to a one-dimensional vector. with this method of random projection, an effective measurement matrix was used to generate a small functionality set. because of this, a new method of extracting compressive sensing functionality has been developed. the xgboost, dde, and dpc feature profiles were studied, and an essential approach for classifying pathway-specific proteins was devised. data gathering, feature extraction, cnn development, and model evaluation are all part of the system. figure 1 depicts our system's flowchart and provides the following explanation of its specifics. in order to detect and classify proteins that are peculiar to human pathways, a new technique was created. 2.3 features encoded by dde we distinguish between a cell's ubiquitination and nonubiquitination, feature extraction based on amino-acid combination is studied in relation to the (dde). the primary formula used to determine a protein sequence's dipeptide combination (dc). we encoded physicochemical, evolutionary functions from the ubiquitin datasets. it was shown that the dde features profiles vector were more effective than other characteristic representations in boosting the specific linear proteins linked with pathogen protection. according to earlier studies, dipeptide frequency variations were measured using dipeptide composition features in this study. the theoretical mean (tm), theoretical variance (tv), and dipeptide composition (dde) were used to build the dde feature vector (cc). it is determined as follows: the three parameters and dde, and dc an indicator for (cc) is supplied by dc (i). (i) ni d nc  (1) it was possible to extract 400 dipeptide attributes (20 ordinary amino acids 20×20 dipeptide properties), although not all of them followed one another in any particular order. dipeptide i and n are also not found in l-1 (i.e., potential quantity in p). the theoretical mean (tm (i)). 1 1 (i) c c i i t c cm n n   (2) ci1 is the number of codons for the first amino acid, and ci2 is the number of codons for the second amino acid, both for the dipeptide. j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 18 figure 1. the xgboost ubiquitin protein framework model has been proposed. except for the three codons, the total number of codons is cn. in order to avoid having to recalculate the features of tm(i), only features with a length of 400 dipeptides were used. the theoretical variance of tv(i) is provided by dipeptide i. (1 ) (i) (i) v(i) t t m m t n   (3) this equation gives the theoretical average of the number j, or tm(j) (2). again, and peptide p has the same number of l-1-dipeptides as before. finally, dde(i) is identified as (i) t (i) (t) (i) d c m dde t v   (4) we calculate the 400-dimensional features vector was used to calculate dde for each of the 400 dipeptide features. 𝐷𝐷𝐸𝑝 = (𝐷𝐷𝐸(𝑖) … . 𝐷𝐷𝐸𝑝), where 𝑖 = 1,2, … .4) (5) 2.4 features encoded with dpc the dipeptide composition is present in the first two successive residues (dpc). sequences are limited to 400 characters. for the most part, this sequence representation provides information on the amino acid composition and local order. the dpc feature extraction procedure was performed on this model in order to extract the best foundational features. when an amino acid occurs twice in a row in a protein sequence, it is referred to as a double-prefix codon (dpc). to give an example, in the series there are dipeptide frequencies for malmac (two), allm (one), ac (one), as well as cc (one). the total number of feature elements was 400 dipeptides. in order to standardize the dpc features, we divided the frequencies by (n-1) [27]. the frequency of two adjacent amino acids in a dipeptide captures new information about the amino acid makeup. because of this, the dipeptide composition is ideal in situations requiring localized information, such as homologic information. # diseptide × 100 1 of j f j n   (6) 2.5 proposed model we build a novel machine learning model for protein association prediction by using the sikander et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 14-26 19 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 xgboost ubiquitin protein sequence. a two features extractions technique is implemented in order to remove the unnecessary functionalities from the model before the model is constructed. ubipro-xgboost ubiquitin is then compared to two features encoding models, and the results are used as inputs to three machine learning classifiers. we can also develop hybrid features by combining various feature space combinations. for this purpose, 10-fold cross-validation tests are also carried out. as shown figure 1 illustrates our proposed method framework. this section proposed a unique machine learning technique and feature extraction model for predicting ubiquitination sites. as shown in figure 1 shows the suggested method ubipro-xgboost framework model. first step in the green box we collected from the mentioned databases, and then removed similarity redundancy, finalized the ubiquitin positive proteins datasets and ubiquitin negative proteins datasets. second step in the blue box we extracted features by dde and dpc model and then feature normalization. third step in the brown box we proposed xgboost algorithm for the classification on the basis of 10-fold cross-validation. to evaluate the classification model's ability to predict outcomes, by using 10-fold class validation technique. we than our proposed xgboost algorithm performance with other three machine learning classifiers. according to simulation results, the proposed strategy performs reasonably well when compared to some cutting-edge techniques [28, 29]. an ensemble algorithm known as extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) has recently been shown to produce more accurate energy models than artificial neural networks and degree-day ordinary least square regression by chakraborty and elzarka [30] [31]. 3. performance evaluation methods the training dataset is used to tune the parameters of the models using a tenfold cross-validation approach, and the independent set is used to test the model [32]. the underlying models have been evaluated using efficiency metrics such as sensitivity (sn), specificity (sp), accuracy (acc), and mathew's correlation coefficient (mcc). in this study, true positive (tp), false positive (fp), false negative (fn), and true negative (tn) are the four units in the confusion matrix derived following prediction (tn). sensitivity, specificity, precision, accuracy, f-score, and matthew's correlation coefficient (mcc) were some of the metrics used to evaluate the overall prediction performance of different categorization models. previous research have utilized them, with a greater value suggesting better performance (jing and dong, 2017). the following are some examples of performance metrics. tp sensitivity = tp fn (7) tn specificity = tn fp (8) tp tn accuracy = tp fp tn fn     (9) tp* tn fp* fn mcc = ( tp fp )( tp fn )( tn fp )( tn fn )      (10) 4. results and discussion we used positive samples (375 sequences) and negative samples (375 sequences) sikander et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 14-26 20 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 benchmark dataset. in the first phase, we had to compare various matrices in order to get the best dde and dpc matrix for our model. in the end, we found that the dpc matrix (20x20) was the best one for solving the imbalance data. next, we set into the xgboost algorithm with all 400 retrieved feature sets. there are many ways in which experimentation might be developed. according to our two dpc models, we then employed the dde model. 4.1 ubiquitin and nonubiquitin sequence for the aac the number of amino acids in ubiquitin and non-ubiquitin sequences was calculated in order to determine their composition. the 20 amino acids that contribute significantly to two datasets. there are few notable exceptions to the general rule that there are no significant differences between the two categories of data. the highest concentrations of c and p amino acids can be found throughout proteins. so, the finding of ubiquitin proteins in these amino acids is crucial. in light of the various properties of these amino acids, our model is able to accurately predict ubiquitin proteins as shown table 2. table 2. metric performance obtain by xgboost. 4.2 ubiquitin between xgboost and shallow machine learning with a comparable efficiency according to this finding, multiple machine learning algorithms were tested in order to identify proteins derived from ubiquitin. we employee four machine learning classifiers were used in our study (e.g., adaboost [33], random-forest, and dnn). our xgboost[34] was compared to the dnn deep neural network's implementation of perceptions, and the results were compared to our xgboost. table 3 and figure 2 shows that we used the optimum parameters in all of our trials so that we could compare each classifier to the others. we found that our xgboost performed better than other standard machine learning approaches in the same experiment framework. our ubipro-xgboost, in particular, created algorithms based on a distinct dataset. table 3. performance comparison ml classifiers by dde model ml-classifier acc precision sensitivity specificity mcc f1 rf -dpc 0.779% 0.769% 0.783% 0.775% 0.570% 0.758% dnn -dpc 0.841% 0.838% 0.831% 0.852% 0.705% 0.798% adaboost -dpc 0.901% 0.941% 0.852% 0.950% 0.821% 0.861% acc prc sens spec mcc f1 rf-dde 0.752 0.759 0.767 0.738 0.519 0.742 dnn-dde 0.827 0.870 0.805 0.849 0.688 0.779 adaboost dde 0.878 0.874 0.844 0.912 0.767 0.832 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 21 figure. 2. proposed model compare with other classifiers table 4. performance comparison other three ml classifiers by dpc model table.4 shows how the xgboost hybrid features can be used to demonstrate the classifier's predictive power. the random forest classification, on the other hand, performed very well in this mixed-feature comparison. this model classification was more accurate than xgboost, which predicted random forest model classifications with 93.53% accuracy using xgboost data. table 4 and figure 3 shows the results of a comparison with three mlcs. 4.3 roc (auc) comparative performance by dde and dpc the results analysis consists of prior investigations into the binary classification issue that we used in our study. our results were discovered to be accurate and consistent with the majority of machine learning classification algorithms. researchers also employ other metrics in the roc curve plot and the roc (auc), such as the algorithm's accuracy or the confusion matrix. machine learning classifier acc precision sensitivity specificity mcc f1 rf -dpc 0.779% 0.769% 0.783% 0.775% 0.570% 0.758% dnn -dpc 0.841% 0.838% 0.831% 0.852% 0.705% 0.798% adaboost -dpc 0.901% 0.941% 0.852% 0.950% 0.821% 0.861% j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 22 figure. 3. proposed model compare with other classifiers figures 4 show the results of classifying the ubipro-xgboost output using the roc auc curve. the ubipro-xgboost ubiquitin multilink roc auc curve is shown. it appears that our ubipro-xgboost model perform well even with multi-classification, however more data were needed to investigate this discovery in more depth. there were no over fitting issues with our suggested cross-validation ubipro-xgboost model, which had an accuracy rate of 0.914% percent. figure 4. roc (auc) with dde and roc-auc with dpc model roc and acu scores of dpc model cross validation datasets were found to be 0.94% percent, while rco-auc scores of with dde model datasets were found to be 0.94% percent. 4.4 roc (auc) score comparison with other 3 three classifiers by using dde and dpc as can be seen, ubipro-xgboost performs better than the alternatives. we calculated roc (auc) score comparison for several machine learning approaches as shown in figure 5. as can be observed each methods prediction rate is considerably higher than random prediction. additionally, the xgboost classifier performs better than the others. ubipro-xgboost ubiquitin identification as shown figure 5 distinct ubiquitin datasets are represented by different roc–auc curves score. dde model achieved performance such as adaboost roc (auc) generate 0.92%, rf roc (auc) generate 0.86%, dnn roc (auc) generate 0.85%, and our sikander et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 14-26 23 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 proposed model xgboost roc (auc) generate 0.94%, which is better than other classifiers. dpc model achieved performance such as adaboost roc (auc) generate 0.93%, rf roc (auc) generate 0.88%, dnn roc (auc) generate 0.89%, and our proposed model xgboost roc (auc) generate 0.94%, which is better than other classifiers. figure. 5. roc curves of the comparison performance with dde and dpc methods. 5. discussion the ubipro-xgboost predictor is trained on the most comprehensive database of protein ubiquitin modifications. using a machine learning classification model, an xgboost is used to predict ubiquitination. first, ubiquitination is predicted using the machine learning classification models. the best result for the xgboost classification model accuracy, 0.836%. then a dpc precision score 0.892% was achieved in the xgboost model and dde precision score 0.881% was achieved in the xgboost model, and the accuracy score was achieved with the xgboost model, which indicates that our test overall xgboost classification is initially and then secondly the adaboost classification model according to our experimental tests. dnn analysis, the third-best classifier with roc (auc) on the dpc [35] and dde model [36] was achieved in addition to the highest analyses as shown in figure 5. ubiquitin proteins [37]. ubipro-xgboost had an auc (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) of 0.914% accuracy, 0.836% sensitivity, 0.992% specificity, and 0.839% mcc on a 5-fold cross validation based on dpc model, and 2nd 0.909% accuracy, 0.839% sensitivity, 0.979% specificity, and 0. 0.829% mcc on a 5-fold cross validation based on dde model. conclusion the xgboost algorithm was used to produce ubipro-xgboost, a predictor for the correct identification of ubiquitin proteins. as compared to earlier predictors, we have attained state-of-the-art performance on the benchmark dataset. it is possible to infer three main conclusions. to begin, the xgboost algorithm consistently and accurately predicts ubiquitin levels when compared to other algorithms. to further enhance model performance, the dde and dpc feature selection method was used to optimize feature vectors, which extracted the most significant features from a huge number of candidates features and increased the model's accuracy. this is a significant advantage over other sequence-based ubiquitin predictors, which are limited in their ability to provide relevant explanations for samples provided using the shap technique. dpc features contributed to the final prediction direction, which is explained here. also explained is the importance of paying attention to some specific identities, as well as a range of other traits. the end results demonstrated that ubipro-xgboost obtained a satisfactory and promising performance, which is steady and credible. there are still unknowns about sikander et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 14-26 24 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 ubiquitin, such as how many of them there are and what they do. this limits the accuracy of the model. in addition, it is necessary to investigate some possible connections among the features. ubiquitin and non-ubiquitin will be separated in the future by finding and extracting as many features as possible from a vast amount of data. declarations funding: no funding was received for this study. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/competing interests. data availability: not applicable. code availability: not applicable. authors’ contributions: rahu sikander, ali ghulam and farman ali jointly contributed to the design of the study. rahu sikander conceptualized the review and finalized the manuscript. ali ghulam and dhani bux talpur wrote the initial manuscript. farman ali helped to draft the manuscript. ashfaq ahmed revised the manuscript and rahu sikander polished the expression of english. all of the authors have read and approved the final manuscript. references [1] goldstein g, scheid m, hammerling u, schlesinger dh, niall hd, boyse ea. isolation of a polypeptide that has lymphocyte-differentiating properties and is probably represented universally in living cells. proc natl acad sci u s a.72(1)(1975)11–5 [2] wilkinson kd. the discovery of ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis. proc natl acad sci u s a. 2005; 102(43):15280–2. 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[37] sikander, r., arif, m., ghulam, a., worachartcheewan, a., thafar, m. a., & habib, s. identification of the ubiquitin–proteasome pathway domain by hyperparameter optimization based on a 2d convolutional neural network. frontiers in genetics, 13(2022). received: 19 sep. 2022. revised/accepted: 10 nov. 2022. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 30 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 journal of mountain area research behaviour of silty sand reinforced with low density polyethylene (ldpe) strips naveed khan1, irshad ahmad1, muhammad safdar2,*, abdul qudoos khan3 and beenish jehan khan4 1. department of civil engineering, university of engineering and technology, peshawar, pakistan 2. earthquake engineering center, university of engineering and technology, peshawar, pakistan 3. department of civil engineering, military college of engineering, risalpur, pakistan 4. department of civil engineering, cecos university, peshawar, pakistan abstract in this study, silty sand is reinforced with plastic strips to improve the engineering properties of soil. sand and silty sand soils have been used as base materials and low-density polyethylene (ldpe) strips as reinforcement materials. the ldpe strips are used in various dimensions (e.g., width ranging from 6 to 15mm and length ranging from 15 to 30mm). the randomly distributed ldpe strips are added to sand and silty sand specimens at varying percentages (e.g., 0.1% to 0.3%) by weight of dry soil specimen. direct shear tests are performed on sand and silty sand specimens in both unreinforced and reinforced conditions. stress strain, volumetric strain (e.g., compression/dilation behaviour) and strength envelopes are plotted to investigate the improvement in the shear strength parameter (e.g., internal friction angle). the results show that in sand specimens, the maximum improvement in shearing behaviour has been achieved with strips of 6x30mm in dimensions and at 0.3%. for silty sand specimens, the maximum improvement in shearing behaviour has been achieved with strips of 6x25mm in dimensions and at 0.3%. in addition, it has been observed that reinforced soil specimens increased the values of internal frictional angle compared to unreinforced soil specimens. in sand specimens, maximum increase of 19.72% in internal friction angle (φ) has been observed with 6x30mm strips at similar percentage. in case of silty sand specimens, the maximum increase in internal friction angle (φ) has been observed as 19.28% with the addition of strips of 6x25mm and at 0.3%. keywords: soil reinforcement, silty sand, ldpe strips, direct shear test, internal friction angle, dilation *corresponding author: (email: drsafdar@uetpeshawar.edu.pk) 1. introduction soil reinforcement is an ancient technique used to improve the engineering properties of soil. it has shown a major contribution in geotechnical engineering applications. civil engineering structures (e.g., buildings, roads, bridges, dams, tunnels etc.) rest on soil and transfer their load to the soil through foundation. if the underneath soil is soft, then structure failure may take place due to compressibility, differential settlement or shear failure of soil. in such cases, the ground condition and soil properties are not suitable for the proposed structure. in situations like this, geotechnical engineers need to address the potential problems with viable solution. soil reinforcement or stabilization of soil can be considered as an effective technique to achieve the desired objectives. depending upon the available soil characteristic, ground condition and desired objectives, the soil improvement technique and materials may be selected to solve the challenges. in addition, such ground improvement techniques are utilized to make the site suitable for construction at reasonable cost vol. 6, 2021 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 31 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 [1]. the engineering properties of the soil may be improved with the inclusion of reinforcing elements into the soil. the term soil includes sand, silt, clay and gravel of any sizes produced from rock by the process of weathering. and, reinforcement means the natural or synthetic materials capable to withstand the tensile stresses. there are many methods available to reinforce the soil, and different materials may be used for reinforcing soils (e.g., low tensile strength gross roots to high tensile strength steel strips). these reinforcement materials may be added to soil in different shapes such as in the form of fibres, strips, grids, sheets, bars [2, 3, 43, 5]. with the inclusion of such reinforcing elements, the engineering properties of the soil are improved such as density, shear strength, compressibility, and permeability [6], rigidity and tensile strength [7], ductility and material strength [8]. the reinforcement technique has been significantly used in road construction, stabilization of subgrade materials, slope stability analysis, embankment, and earth retaining structures [3]. in soil reinforcement, tensile strength materials have been used in various size and shapes. these elements have different tensile strength ranging from low modular strength fibres to high tensile strength steel strips. in ancient time some natural materials of low tensile strength such as plant roots, straws, jute, sisal and bamboo were added to soil for reinforcement purposes. however, the modern concepts of soil reinforcement were introduced in early 1960s by henri vidal. high tensile strength galvanized steel strips were used as reinforcement element in construction of mechanically stabilized earth (mse) retaining walls to provide resistance against lateral earth pressure [9]. and since 1970s, numerous research studies with regard to soil reinforcement with different external materials have been undertaken by various researcher. different types of materials such as highdensity polyethylene (hdpe), polypropylene (pp), carpet fibre, recycled rubber tire shred etc. [3,10,11,12,13,14] have been reported in the literature to increase the shear strength of soils. in this research study directs shear tests were performed on sand in pure and reinforced condition (fibres and wires) [3]. analysis of test results revealed an increase in shear resistance in direct proportion with fibres oriented at 60o to shear surface. gray [2] conducted research study to analyse the shear behaviour of sand. in this research study, sand was reinforced with woven (fabricated) and nonwoven (natural) fibres. a series of triaxial compression tests were performed. results showed an improvement in shear strength and axial strain and loss in post peak shear strength was reduced. maher [7] studied the stress-strain behaviour of sand reinforced with discrete and randomly distributed fibres. a set of triaxial compression tests were carried out and enhancement in shear strength were observed. reclaimed high-density polyethylene (hdpe) strips were used as reinforcement materials [10] with sand and carried out direct shear, resilient modulus and california bearing ratio (cbr) tests to investigate the shear strength and resistance to deformation behaviour of sand. tests results revealed that reinforcing sand with reclaimed hdpe strips increase both the shear strength and resistance to deformation. consoli [4] used pure sand and sand been stabilized with cement and plastic waste. unconfined compression tests, splitting tests khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 32 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 and triaxial compression tests were performed to analyse the engineering behaviour of both cemented and uncemented soil in pure and reinforced conditions with plastic waste. results revealed an improvement in shear strength and decrease in brittleness of cemented sand when reinforced with plastic fibres. santoni et al., [15] performed research on different types of sand specimens reinforced with different types of discrete fibres at varying fibre contents. laboratory based unconfined compression tests reported a significant improvement in unconfined compressive strength of sand specimens at optimum fibre content between 0.6 to 1.0% by weight of dry sand. in addition, it was reported that the improvement was not affected by addition of up to 8.0% of silt content. analysis based on direct shear test results further revealed an improvement in shear strength of sandy soils reinforced with high-density polyethylene. sand been reinforced with randomly distributed high-density polyethylene (hdpe) strips of various dimensions and concentration and tested in direct shear conditions. results reported increases in the peak friction angle [12]. murray et al., [16] performed laboratory compaction and triaxial compression tests on sandy silt reinforced with randomly distributed carpet and polypropylene fibres. laboratory compaction test results showed a decrease in maximum dry density with increasing fibres content; however, triaxial compression test results revealed improvement in shear strength of sandy silt with both type and fibre content. zornberg [17] investigated the behaviour of fibre-reinforced sand, analysed the data from previous research and also developed a frame work for future research to study the behaviour of fibre-reinforced soils. michalowski [18] performed a set of drained triaxial compression tests on sand specimens reinforced with synthetic fibres. test results showed that a fall in initial stiffness and improvement in failure displacement with fibre addition. with concentration of fibres by volume of up to 2.0%, improvement in failure stress may be as much as 70.0%. in addition, it was reported that grain size of sand specimen and aspect ratio of fibres are also important in increasing the strength of soils. zornberg et al., [11] carried out experimental study using large-scale triaxial testing to evaluate the optimum dosage and aspect ratio of recycled tires shred with sand fills. results revealed that tire shred content and aspect ratio remarkably influence the stress-strain and volumetric strain behaviour of the composite material. the maximum strength was achieved by adding up to 35.0% of tire shred. heineck et al., [19] investigated the behaviour of fibre reinforced soil ranging from very small shear displacements to very large shear displacements. sand, silty sand, bottom ash and polypropylene fibres were used and ring shear and triaxial compression tests were performed. results showed that even at very large shear displacement, there is no loss in shear strength due to fibre-reinforcement, though it has a significant influence on the ultimate strength. ibrahim [20] conducted a study comprised of performing compaction and direct shear tests on very fine sand reinforced with randomly oriented polypropylene fibres. results reported that reinforcement caused a less dense composite packing and direct shear test results indicated that fibres inclusions caused an improvement in peak shear strength. reports of triaxial compression tests carried out by consoli [8] described the effects of cement and fibre khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 33 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 inclusions on stress-dilatancy behaviour of sand. stiffness, peak strength and brittleness of sand increased with the addition of cement. however, fibre inclusions increased the ultimate strength and ductility and decreased the stiffness of cemented sand specimens. results of extensive laboratory based on direct shear testing program using different types of sands reinforced with different types of fibres indicated that addition of fibres having aspect ratio from 40 to 150 and 0.5 to 1.50% increased the shear strength and ductility of sand-fibre composite. the maximum increase in shear strength of 37% was obtained with fibre content ratio of 1.0% and aspect ratio of 150. the fibre-reinforcement also paired with increase in tendency for dilation, the increase in dilation/vertical displacement being more apparent for coarse sand than fine sand [21]. a comprehensive research study carried out by sadek et al., [21] showed that the shear strength (peak and residual) of fibrereinforced sands was significantly dependent on sand fineness, fibre concentration and density state of composite. it was observed that in case of sandy silt soil, the peak shear stress increased up to 59% with the inclusion of fibre up to 0.5%, while in case of silty clay soils, the peak shear stress increased up to 24% with the inclusion of fibre up to 0.9%. eldesouky et al., [22] carried out an investigation to evaluate the influence of fibres on shear strength and volumetric behaviour of sand. a series of direct shear tests were performed, results revealed an increase in shear strength and dilation of sand due to fibre inclusions. ilieş [14] conducted a research study on the application of reusing plastic waste in soil stabilization. the study was based on comparing the improvement of soil mechanical parameters due to plastic waste and cement. results reported that the plastic waste for soil stabilization can be considered an eco-friendly and sustainable method. a series of triaxial compression tests and fibre pullout tests were carried out to assess how tension mobilized in fibres under varying shear strain levels. analysis of results showed that full mobilization of tension in fibres took place at higher strain levels [23]. fibre content and dimensions had a remarkable effect on shear strength and stress-strain behaviour of sand. results revealed an improvement in internal friction angles of sand been reinforced with polypropylene meshed and smooth fibres. however, sand reinforced with meshed fibres resulted more increases compared to smooth fibres [13]. in addition, gray [3] presented theoretical equations based on force equilibrium principles for modeling the enhancement in shear strength of soil due to fibre inclusions. other researchers used discrete formulation [11] and energy dissipation formulation [18] to model shear strength increase due fibre additives. experimental study revealed that addition of silt content significantly affects the shear strength behaviour [24] of pure sand. it was reported that addition of fines influences the void ratio and density of soils. in addition, results further reported that up to 25% of silt content significantly affected the strength characteristics of composite materials. however, limited studies have been reported on the use of ldpe in improving the strength and volumetric behaviour of silty sands. in this study, silty sand is reinforced with plastic strips to improve the engineering properties of soil. sand and silty sand soils are used as base materials and low-density polyethylene (ldpe) strips as reinforcement materials. direct shear tests are performed on sand and silty sand khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 34 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 specimens in both unreinforced and reinforced conditions. stress strain, volumetric strain (e.g., compression/dilation behaviour) and strength envelopes are plotted to investigate the improvement in the shear strength parameter (e.g., internal friction angle). 2. tested materials and methods research materials used in testing program of the current research study are composed of sand, silty-sand and low-density polyethylene (ldpe) strips. in this research study, sand and silty sand soil were used as base materials and lowdensity polyethylene (ldpe) strips as reinforcement materials. according to standard practice for classification of soils for engineering purposes (unified soil classification system-uscs), sand-soil composed of rock particles which will pass no. 4 (4.75 mm) sieve and will retain on a no. 200 (75 µm) u.s standard sieve, and, silt-soil composed of particles that will pass a no. 200 (75 µm) u.s standard sieve. in this research program, the soil samples were collected for preparation of the desired soil specimens from nori-abad site located near karachi, pakistan. according to the uscs, the desired sand sample was obtained through sieve analysis [25]. sand samples were composed of particles passing a no. 4 (4.75 mm) sieve and retained on a no. 200 (75 µm) u.s. standard sieve. hence, particles of sand sample ranging in size from 0.075 mm to 4.75 mm. pure sand and sandldpe composite have been shown in figure.1 and figure.2 respectively. figure.1. pure sand figure.2. sand-ldpe composite similarly, the silty sand sample was obtained through sieve analysis. silty sand sample was composed of 80% sand and 20% silt. according to uscs, silt-soil comprising of particles passing through no. 200 (75 µm) u.s. standard sieve is used. silty sand and silty sand-ldpe composite have been shown in figure.3 and figure.4 respectively. khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 35 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure.3. silty sand figure.4. silty sand – ldpe composite in this research study, low-density polyethylene (ldpe) plastic bags strips have been used as reinforcement materials. for this purpose, ldpe plastic bags were obtained from a commercial market in karachi. from these ldpe plastic bags, strips of desired dimensions such as 6 x 15mm, 6 x 25mm, 6 x 30mm, 12 x 15mm and 18 x 15mm were prepared. further, these strips were added to soil as reinforcement materials at concentration of 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% by weight of dry soil specimen. ldpe strips of dimensions 6 x 25mm and 6 x 30mm, are shown in figure. 5 and figure. 6, respectively. properties of ldpe are presented in table 1. table:1 characteristics of low-density polyethylene (cetin m, 2013) density 910 – 928 kg/m3 (0.910 – 0.928 g/cm3) melting point 120 oc (248 of) melting temperature 125 – 136 oc (257 – 277 of) maximum temperature 80 oc (176 of) minimum temperature 50 oc (58 of) thermal expansion 150 – 200 e-6/k tensile strength 8 – 12 mpa young modulus (e) 200 – 400 mpa shear modulus 100 – 350 mpa figure.5. ldpe strips 6 x 25 mm figure.6. ldpe strips 6 x 30 mm khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 36 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 2.1 sieve analysis – particle size distribution curve sieve analysis consists of shaking soil sample in a set of sieves arranged in such a way that larger opening sieves are placed at the top followed by progressively smaller opening sieves and a pan is placed below the stack. to perform sieve analysis of soil, one has to use oven dry soil [26]. according to astm c136 [27], first dry the sample to constant mass at a temperature of 110 ± 5oc. select sieves with suitable openings to obtain the information required for covering the material to be tested. arrange the sieves in order of decreasing size of opening from top to bottom and place the sample on the top sieve. the soil is then shaken for a sufficient period of time. after the soil is shaken, the necessary steps such as the mass of sand retained on each sieve, total mass, cumulative mass and percent finer are determined. these calculations are plotted on semi-logarithmic graph with percent finer as ordinate on arithmetic scale and sieve opening size as abscissa on logarithmic scale. the plot or graph so obtained is referred to particle/grain size distribution (gsd) curve. grain size distribution curves of sand and silty sand soils are shown in figure. 7 and figure. 8, respectively. the grain size distribution curves can be used for the determination of parameters such as effective and mean diameters d10, d30, d50, d60, coefficient of uniformity (cu) and coefficient of curvature (cc). the granulometric characteristics of both sand and silty sand soils are presented in table 2. figure.7. particle size distribution curve of sand figure.8. particle size distribution curve of silty sand table:2 properties of sand and silty sand soil from particle size distributions. description d10 (mm) d30 (mm) d50 (mm) d60 (mm) cc cu sand 0.206 0.335 0.500 0.618 0.882 3.00 silty sand 0.080 0.251 0.400 0.500 1.58 6.25 in this study, direct shear machine has been used. it consists of shear box (60 x 60 x 30mm), splits horizontally into two halves. soil specimen is accommodated inside and subjected to horizontal shearing. shear loading device having dynamometric ring is used to exert shearing load on soil specimen in horizontal direction. this horizontal shear loading is measured by a dial gauge fixed inside the dynamometric ring. normal/vertical loading system-through which normal load is applied on soil specimen. the normal loading system consists of a horizontal loading frame where a khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 37 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 loading hanger is attached. dead weights are placed in the hanger and the required normal load is applied on soil specimen. touch screen display contains multifunction display options, which are used to set out machine for operating purposes. three dial gauges are used to measure vertical deformation, horizontal displacement and horizontal shear loading. testing program of this study was comprised of performing a set of small direct shear tests on reinforced and unreinforced soils under different normal loading conditions. the soil samples were dried in oven at 110 o c for 24 hours to eliminate moisture effect and obtain a homogenous soil-strips composite. according to [28], sand and silty-sand specimens were prepared for testing. two porous stone were placed, one below and one above the soil specimen to facilitate the drainage of pore water from the specimen. before testing, each specimen was consolidated under the corresponding normal load and then subjected to shear testing in direct shear apparatus. during testing, the vertical deformation, horizontal deformation and shearing load were carefully recorded. in the first phase, direct shear tests were performed on sand specimens in pure/unreinforced conditions under different normal loading conditions, and parameters like compression/dilation behaviour, shear stress behaviour and mohr-coulomb envelopes of the soil were considered. in second phase, ldpe strips of different dimensions were added to sand specimens at different concentrations. reinforced specimens were prepared, consolidated under the corresponding normal loading conditions, then subjected to shear testing in direct shear machine, and same parameters were considered. the maximum increase in shearing behaviour of sand specimens was observed with strips 6 x 30mm and at concentration of 0.3% of the weight of the dry specimen. similar procedure was adopted for silty sand specimens as well. however, the maximum increase in shearing behaviour of silty sand was observed with strips 6 x 25mm and at concentration of 0.3% of the weight of the dry specimen. 3. results and discussions in this study, following parameters of direct shear tests are considered for sand and silty sand in both pure/unreinforced and reinforced conditions.  compression/dilation vs shear strain graphs (compression/dilation behaviour of soil)  shear stress vs shear strain graphs (stressstrain behaviour of soil)  shear stress vs normal stress graphs (mohrcoulomb envelops) for the determination of compression/ dilation behaviour of sand in pure/unreinforced conditions, the unreinforced specimens were subjected to shearing under different normal loading conditions and the corresponding graphs were plotted below (see figure.9). and for investigating the influence of ldpe strips on compression/dilation behaviour of sand, the reinforced sand specimen was subjected to shearing in similar manner and the corresponding graphs were obtained. graphs of reinforced and unreinforced sand specimen have been compared with each other, showing that reinforced sand specimens show more dilative behaviour compared to unreinforced specimens under same normal stress. khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 38 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure.9. comparison of compression/dilation vs shear strain behaviour of pure and reinforced sand. similar procedure was also adopted for analyzing the compression/dilation behaviour of silty sand soils. comparison of compression/dilation behaviours of silty sand soils in reinforced and unreinforced conditions has been presented in figure. 10. figure.10. comparison of compression/dilation vs shear strain behaviour of pure and reinforced silty sand for determining the compression/dilation behaviour of sand and silty sand soil in pure/unreinforced conditions, representative specimens of the sand and silty sand soils in pure conditions were subjected to shearing tests under different normal loading conditions in direct shear machine and their compression/dilation behaviours were observed. similarly, for determining the compression/dilation behaviour of reinforced sand and silty-sand soils, representative specimen of soil in reinforced conditions were subjected to shearing tests and their compression dilation behaviours were observed. as stated, before that sand samples were composed of particles ranging in size from 0.075 to 4.75 millimetres, and silty-sand samples were composed of 80% sand and 20% silt (e.g., silt particles having size less than 0.075mm). due to difference in their particle sizes the rate of dilation of sand specimen is quite different than silty-sand specimen. during shearing, soil particles roll over each other which results dilation, in case of sand specimen there is no fines content, so during shearing the coarse sand particles have a direct collision and rolling over each other which results dilation with high rate up to failure stress, however in case of silty sand specimen there exists 20% fines content which cover up the empty spaces among the coarse particles up to some percentage, so during shearing the coarse particles does not undertake direct collisions and rolling with coarse particles as the fines particles intervene coarse particles and results dilation with a comparatively gradual rate. comparison of compression/dilation graphs of sand and silty sand soil in pure/unreinforced and reinforced conditions under same normal stress of 60 kpa have been presented in figure. 11 and figure. 12, respectively. figure.11. comparison of compression/dilation vs shear strain graphs of pure sand and pure silty sand khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 39 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure.12. comparison of compression/dilation vs shear strain behaviour of reinforced sand and reinforced silty sand the influence of plastic strips parameters such as dimensions and concentrations on soil shear resistance under different applied normal stresses based on peak shear stresses was analysed for each specimen. sand and siltysand specimens both in pure and reinforced conditions were subjected to shearing tests in direct shear machine, in each specimen it was observed that under each normal stress the shear stress behaviour increases with high rate up to failure stress (so called peak shear strength), when the failure stress is attained then it decreases with gradual rate until it reaches a constant value which is called ultimate shear strength. however, reinforced specimens of both sand and silty sand soils resulted more shear stress values than unreinforced specimens. comparison of shear stress behaviours of reinforced and unreinforced specimens of sand and silty sand soils are presented in figure. 13 and figure. 14, respectively. figure.13. comparison of shear stress vs shear strain behaviour of pure and reinforced sand figure.14. comparison of shear stress vs shear strain behaviour of pure and reinforced silty sand for determining the shear stress behaviour of sand and silty-sand soil in pure conditions, representative specimen of sand and silty-sand soil in pure conditions were subjected to shearing tests under different normal loading conditions and the corresponding shear stress behaviour were observed. to investigate the influence of plastic strips parameters like strips size and concentrations on shear stress behaviour of sand and silty-sand soils, the representative specimen of sand and silty-sand soil in reinforced conditions were also subjected to shearing tests and their shear stress behaviour were observed (see, table 3). as mentioned in previous paragraph that during shearing, in both reinforced and unreinforced soil specimen the shear stress values increases with shear strain, initially with high rate up to failure stress khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 40 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 (which is called peak shear strength), once the failure stress is attained, the shear stress starts decreasing with gradual rate until it reaches a constant value which is called ultimate shear strength. however, in both sand and silty-sand specimens, reinforced specimens resulted greater shear stress values than unreinforced specimens (see, table 4). as mentioned before that sand sample and silty-sand sample have difference in their particle sizes, due to which, rate of shear stress of sand specimen is quite different than that of silty-sand specimen in both reinforced and unreinforced conditions. rate of shear stress in sand specimen is comparatively high than silty-sand specimen in both reinforced and unreinforced conditions, so sand specimen attain its peak shear stress value at comparatively shorter shear strain than siltysand specimen as shown in figures given below. comparison of shear stress behaviour of sand and silty-sand specimen in pure and reinforced conditions have been presented in figure. 15 and figure. 16, respectively. figure.15. comparison of shear stress vs shear strain of pure sand and pure silty sand figure.16. comparison of shear stress vs shear strain of reinforced sand and reinforced silty sand internal friction angles of sand and silty-sand specimens in reinforced and unreinforced conditions have been determined from the peak shear stress values at three different applied normal stresses. tests on sand and siltysand specimen in pure/unreinforced conditions resulted friction angles of 33.86o and 34.188o respectively. and, reinforced soil specimen resulted in various values of friction angle depends upon the parameters of ldpe strips such as width, length and concentration. graphs of friction angle of sand and silty sands in reinforced and unreinforced conditions determined from experimental results are shown in figure. 17 and figure. 18 respectively. the impact on the friction angle of sand and siltysand soil due to plastic strips inclusions has been examined to establish a relation with influence of plastic material on the friction angle of sand and silty-sand soil. analysis of the results revealed an enhancement in the peak friction angle of sand and silty-sand soils with inclusions of plastic strips when compared with peak friction angle of sand and silty-sand soil having no strips inclusions. however, the maximum increase in friction angle of sand was found from 33.86o to 40.54o with strips inclusions of width 6 mm, length 30 mm and at concentration of 0.3 % by weight, resulted in a percentage improvement of 19.72 %. similarly, the maximum increase in friction angle of silty-sand was found khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 41 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 from 34.188o to 40.78o, which was achieved with strips inclusions of width 6 mm, length 25 mm and at concentration of 0.3 % by weight, which caused a percentage improvement of 19.28%. it can be seen that the percentage enhancement in internal friction angle of sand specimen is more than silty sand specimen. this type influence has also found in research studies conducted in past. as, in this study direct shear test has been used as indicator test, during shear loading the stresses developed in soil-strips composite leads to mobilization of tensile strength of plastic strips which absorb the shear stresses exceeding the pure/unreinforced soil capacity. figure.17. mohr-coulomb envelops of pure and reinforced sand. pure sand (φ) = 33.86o reinforced sand (φ) = 40.54o increase (φ)= 19.72 % figure.18. mohr-coulomb envelops of pure and reinforced silty sand pure silty-sand (φ) = 34.188o reinforced silty-sand (φ) = 40.78o increase (φ) = 19.28 % table:3 percent addition of strips by weight as well as corresponding size of strip description unreinforced sand reinforced sand unreinforced silty sand reinforced silty sand size of strips used 6mm x 30mm 6mm x 25mm addition by weight 0.3 % 0.3 % khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 42 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 table:4 tabulated values of all results normal stress (kpa) description unreinforced sand reinforced sand unreinforced silty sand reinforced silty sand 60 compression/dilatio n (mm) 0.31 0.39 0.38 0.43 115 0.28 0.34 0.28 0.34 225 0.25 0.31 0.25 0.263 60 shear stresses (kpa) 38.13 46.72 42.90 59.11 115 80.56 100.6 76.27 97.72 225 148.74 190.70 152.55 193.075 angle of internal friction (degree) 33.86 40.54 34.188 40.78 conclusions in this study, a series of small direct shear tests are carried out under different normal loading conditions on pure/unreinforced sand and siltysand specimens. then, discrete randomly oriented ldpe strips of different dimensions were added to the soils at various concentrations. the objectives of the current research study are to examine the influence of ldpe strips on compression/dilation behaviour, shear stress behaviour and internal friction angle of sand and silty-sand soils. based on the data and results obtained in this study, the following conclusions can be drawn;  it has been observed that reinforced specimen of both sand and silty-sand soil exhibits greater dilation than unreinforced specimens. in case of sand, 25.80% increase has been observed under applied the load of 60 kpa by adding ldpe strips. for silty sand, 13.16% increase has been observed by inclusion of ldpe strips.  it has been observed that reinforced specimens of both sand and silty sand soil undertake greater shear stress values than pure/unreinforced specimens. for sand, 28.21% increase has been observed under the normal load of 224 kpa and for silty sand, the increase is 26.56%.  in sand specimens, maximum improvement in friction angle is observed as 19.72% with ldpe strips inclusions having dimensions of 6 x 30 mm and at concentration of 0.3% by weight of dry soil specimen.  in silty sand specimens, maximum improvement in friction angle is observed up to 19.28% with ldpe strips inclusions having dimensions of 6 x 25 mm and at concentration of 0.3 % by the weight of dry soil specimen.  research finding of this study favourably suggest the application of ldpe as reinforcing materials for improving shear strength of sand and silty sand soils. declarations funding: not applicable. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no conflict of interest/competing interests. data availability: not applicable. code availability: not applicable. authors’ contributions: naveed khan: conceptualization, methodology naveed khan and muhammad safdar: data curation, writingoriginal draft khan et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 30-44 43 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 preparation. muhammad safdar: data interpretation, formatting irshad ahmad and benish jehan khan: supervision abdul qudoos khan and muhammad safdar: writingreviewing and editing. references [1] p. g. nicholson, soil improvement and ground modification methods. butterworthheinemann, (2014). 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[23] c. li, and j. g. zornberg, mobilization of reinforcement forces in fibre-reinforced soil. journal of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering 139 (2013) 107-115. [24] c. s. chang, and z. y. yin, micromechanical modeling for behaviour of silty sand with influence of fine content. international journal of solids and structures 48 (2011) 2655-2667. [25] astm d2487, standard practice for classification of soils for engineering purposes (unified soil classification system), astm international, west conshohocken, pa, (2006). [26] b. m. das, principles of geotechnical engineering, 7th edition, (2002). [27] astm c136, standard test method for sieve analysis of fine and coarse aggregates, astm international, west conshohocken, pa, (2006). [28] astm d3080/d3080m, standard test method for direct shear test of soils under consolidated drained conditions, astm international, west conshohocken, pa, (2011). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 22 aug. 2021. revised/accepted: 30 sep. 2021. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 1 journal of mountain area research identification molecular functions of dynein motor proteins using extreme gradient boosting algorithm with machine learning ali ghulam1*, rahu sikander2, dhani bux talpur3, erum saba1, mir sajjad hussain talpur1, zulfikar ahmed maher1, saima tunio1 1. information technology centre, sindh agriculture university, sindh, pakistan 2. school of computer science and technology, xidian university, xi’an 710071, china 3. department of computer science, university of gwaddar, gwaddar, balochistan abstract the majority of cytoplasmic proteins and vesicles move actively primarily to dynein motor proteins, which are the cause of muscle contraction. moreover, identifying how dynein are used in cells will rely on structural knowledge. cytoskeletal motor proteins have different molecular roles and structures, and they belong to three superfamilies of dynamin, actin and myosin. loss of function of specific molecular motor proteins can be attributed to a number of human diseases, such as charcot-charcot-dystrophy and kidney disease. it is crucial to create a precise model to identify dynein motor proteins in order to aid scientists in understanding their molecular role and designing therapeutic targets based on their influence on human disease. therefore, we develop an accurate and efficient computational methodology is highly desired, especially when using cutting-edge machine learning methods. in this article, we proposed a machine learning-based superfamily of cytoskeletal motor protein locations prediction method called extreme gradient boosting (xgboost). we get the initial feature set all by extraction the protein features from the sequence and evolutionary data of the amino acid residues named blousm62. through our successful extreme gradient boosting (xgboost), accuracy score 0.8676%, precision score 0.8768%, sensitivity score 0.760%, specificity score 0.9752% and mcc score 0.7536%. our method has demonstrated substantial improvements in the performance of many of the evaluation parameters compared to other state-of-the-art methods. this study offers an effective model for the classification of dynein proteins and lays a foundation for further research to improve the efficiency of protein functional classification. keywords: dynein motor proteins, machine learning, blousm62, computational methods *corresponding author: (email: garahu@sau.edu.pk) 1. introduction muscle contraction is driven by motor proteins, and proteins and vesicles play an important role in cytoplasmic transport. chemical energy from the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (atp) converts these proteins into mechanical tasks that move along actin filaments or microtubules. adenosine triphosphate (atp) hydrolysis' chemical energy can be converted by these proteins into mechanical work that flows along actin filaments or microtubules. to provide the mechanical forces needed to power biological movement, various methods have developed. mechanochemical enzymes, or "motor proteins," are a highly effective and common method of producing biological force [1, 2]. myosin motors operating on actin filaments cause muscle vol. 8, 2023 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v8i0.166 full length article mailto:garahu@sau.edu.pk ali ghulam et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 1-13 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 2 cell contraction, vesicle movement, cytoplasmic streaming, and other morphological changes. members of the dynein and kinesin microtubule-based motor superfamilies move vesicles and organelles inside of cells, cause the beating of flagella and cilia, and segregate replicated chromosomes to offspring cells in the mitotic and meiotic spindles. [3]. transport of different freight products, including membrane organelles, protein complexes, and mrnas directly involved in the dynein superfamily of proteins [4]. the dynein and kinesin superfamilies of microtubule motors are responsible for vesicle and organelle movement within cells, which causes flagella and cilia to beat. they also work within mitotic and meiotic spindles to identify duplicated chromosomes. [4]. for example, dynamin and cytoplasmic dynamin can be detected in spinal cord spheres associated with motor neuron disease [5]. neurodegenerative diseases are also associated with mutations in dynein proteins and targeted disruption of function [6, 7]. t cell-mediated disease [8] is myosin-induced acute myocarditis. myosin variant ixb increases the risk of celiac disease, leading to primary intestinal barrier defects [9]. many bioinformatics researchers are interested in the important role that motor proteins play in human function. for example, zhu, c et al. [10] have established an overview of the factor superfamily of dynein motor proteins, in which they focus on the structure and function of motor dynein proteins. the bioinformatics system for classifying heavy dynamin chains was subsequently introduced by yagi [11]. khataee and liew [12] projected a computational model for studying forward and reverse dynamics on the basis of the fourstate discrete random motion model. the molecular function of motor dynein protein consists of a double-stranded dimer. the polypeptides associated with each feature (shown in pink) are different and a complex set of intermediary chains, light intermediate chains, and light chains in dynamin). (readers are referred to the online version of this article to explain the color references in this legend.) a process simulation model for dynein [13]. stedman et al. [14] proved the association between dynein gene mutation and human anatomical lineage changes by using bioinformatics method. some previous studies in bioinformatics have also been used to detect dynein activity and dynein phosphatase diversity [15, 16]. we proposed computational protein sequence analysis, we create molecular level biological problems at the level of single molecules, cells, and tissues in this work. we used machine learning algorithm for the prediction of accuracy, sensitivity, specity and then mcc, live-cell imaging in neurons, and computational modelling to analyses the regulation of the beginning of dyneindynactin transport. in some bioinformatics researchers, weka is an automatic learning method for data mining technology [17]. secondly, various problems related to protein functional classification were obtained by using rbf network [18, 19], good results have been obtained. in addition, libsvm [20] the emergence of deep learning means that the field of bioinformatics must become more efficient. machine learning is an advanced computer education method, which uses artificial intelligence to learn representative data with multiple neural network layers [21]. there are many benefits to using machine learning, such as getting the latest results, ali ghulam et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 1-13 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 3 reducing the need for extraction functions, and so on (gpu). in recent years, bioinformatics has shifted from traditional machine learning and protein function learning to in-depth learning strategies. for example, as tried by alipanahi et al., dna and rna proteins learn the sequence properties of the binding in depth. spencer et al. [22] proposed an ab initio deep learning network for protein secondary structure prediction. to solve this problem, [23] create stack-acpred, a brand-new predictor for accurately identifying acps. to construct the stackingbase ensemble model for targeting efficient acps, the best qualities should be chosen. [24] suggested bioinformatics technique thus outperformed all current state-of-the-art sequence based cpp methods. in the current study, [25] developed a novel feature extraction technique that takes into account the influence of residues in the vicinity of the mutation site. to assess the effectiveness of the suggested feature extracting method, rigorous cross-validation and independent tests were run on benchmark datasets. the molecular processes that enable these numerous and varied tasks are the subject of this research. therefore, it is crucial to increase the immunoglobulin classification's accuracy by using efficient illness research techniques. based on the blosum vector score matrix, we extract igg characteristics using the reduced feature dimension features that were chosen. extreme gradient boosting is an ensemble learning technique we've created (xgboost) [26]. cancer peptide therapy is interesting since it offers so many alluring advantages. anticancer peptides (acps), which are essential for the development of innovative cancer therapeutics, have attracted a lot of attention from researchers in recent years. experimental methods are expensive, timeconsuming, and frequently produce unreliable predictions when used to forecast acps [27]. in order to increase the linkages between disease variation and new molecular correlations between genetic mutations, we carried out a pathway-based investigation [28]. on the basis of shared gene interactions among illness-pathways, we created a biological network, and then we used network analysis to try and understand how a disease develops. in this article, we suggested dynein motor proteins with xgboost algorithm to predict effectors using attributes deduced from sequencing. as a result, this study suggests using an xgboost algorithm built from a position-specific scoring matrix. we judiciously summarized the elements addressed in other research and added a few new features to get around the shortcomings of the current methodologies. as shown in a series of recent publications [29], the guidelines under the five-step rule should be followed to create a truly useful sequence-based statistical prediction for a biological or biomedical approach. we would like to explain the five steps here: how i should construct the biological sequence of samples to generate, select, or predict a valid data set that can realistically represent their interactions with the predicted target. how the biological sequence of samples should be formed or built to run a powerful algorithm (or engine), we will explain how these measures are accomplished one by one below. ali ghulam et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 1-13 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 4 table 1. statistics of all retrieved dynein proteins. 2. materials and methods we proposed a novel computational method to analyze the molecular activity of highperformance dynein protein using extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) firstly dataset collection, feature extraction, and model interpretation make up the two stages of the dynein protein-xgb procedure, which is depicted in figure 1. the following sections provide a full description of each stage. 2.1 data collection in our study, we chose secreted effectors and non-effectors to create the benchmark dataset and build the machine learningbased model for dynein protein prediction. our dataset, which included 250 non-dynein proteins and 520 dynein proteins, was directly retrieved from the recently published work (wang, et al., 2019). the cd-hit programmed ran the protein dataset through a filter of >30% sequence identity to cut down on sequence redundancy [30]. a total of 400 dynein proteins and 200 non-dynein proteins made up the final training dataset, and 120 dynein proteins and 50 non-dynein proteins made up the independent test dataset. i i i     (1) the subjects of this study were positive dynein protein 400 examples of good behavior made up the participants of this study's i+ dataset, while 230 examples of negative behavior made up the target population of the i dataset. in conclusion, table 1 shows that the baseline dataset consists of 228 protein sequences. we employed two different data sets for independent validation in order to further highlight the accuracy of the technique discussed in this study. 2.2 feature extraction technique in this work, we identified the coevolution relationship using 3080 dynein motor protein characteristics msas. at least one family will have a structure that has been determined empirically, and each family will include sequences of 100, 400, and 700 lengths. the "no gap" location is the only one the msa will calculate. a "no-gap" position, then, is one that occupies less than 10% of the clearance. we employed mutual information to extract the association between evolutionary coevolution. we extracted features sequence data of the protein is represented by the blosum62 matrix profiles. the matrix with m' l elements, where l is the length and m = 20 is the number of amino acids, serves as a representation for each residue in the training dataset. the 20 frequent amino acids are represented by one row in the normalized blosum62 matrix. equal-length peptides can be encoded with the blosum62 descriptor. the blosum62 matrix profiles, a regularly used tool for determining the alignment of two different protein sequences, was used in this work. by analyzing observed polypeptide alignments on a vast scale, the value of the blosum62 matrix is calculated. in msa, mutual information between two locations is original data similarity <30% crossvalidation dynein protein 4153 721 306 non-dynein protein 4153 721 252 total protein 8306 1442 558 ali ghulam et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 1-13 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 5 described as information like [31] between two sites. f a ,bi ja l = f a ,b logi jij a bi , j f a f bi j                           (2) where, more particularly, we used 21 different types of amino acids, calculating the gap as the 21st amino acid, if q is equal to 21. although there are enough variables in the msa sequence data set, we use frequency to roughly approximation the likelihood. the frequency of a single type a amino acid seen at position i is indicated by f (ai). the frequency f of the two types of amino acids occurring at locations i and j combined f (ai, bj). sequence redundancy must be taken into account when calculating singleand dual-frequency weights. we compute all the mutual information in reference [32]. when assessing coevolution correlations, a false positive can also happen, as was the case in the current study. we used the structural data that was present in the training data set. remainders are only paired together if they are architecturally close to one another. the "adjacent residues" are defined as those residues with tip atoms that are separated by 4.5 angstroms or less. a group of residues are more likely to interact with one another the more dissimilar their sequences are and the closer they are to one another. 2.3 derive a new matrix from contextual substitutions an element in the amino acid substitution matrix that corresponds to the substitution percent was used to categories the target population. how frequently one amino acid gets swapped out for another is indicated by the substitution fractions. coevolution calculations show that there are universal relationships between protein families. instead of happening in isolation, most amino acid changes take place in concert with their structural context. in addition, alternate fractions that are identical to the original blosum vector matrix are produced using the logarithmic odds ratio [33].         f a, b s a, b = λlog f a f b (3) in this section a and b must be substituted for each other in order to determine the joint frequency f (a, b) using the expected frequency for a single amino acid type and the actual joint frequency. is a scalar factor whose objective is to succeed. 2.4 model proposed the goal of the current study was to accurately predict if a protein sequence is that of a dynein protein; this categorization issue is known as a dichotomy problem [34, 35]. three classifiers were used in this paper's analyses in order to choose those that could predict dynein proteins more precisely than the others. svm, adaboost, knn, and random forest (rf) were the three classifiers employed. this observation might be j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 6 figure 1. proposed framework model interpreted as showing that a nuclear's solvent accessibility is determined by the amount of atomic surface that is exposed to solvents. the degree of atomic accessibility in a residue determines its residue availability [36]. similarly, residues are regarded as exposed residues if their solvent accessibility is higher than the threshold. the following diagram illustrates several stages of the dataset processing, function formulation, rf model generation, and novel protein sequence prediction processes. 2.5 model evaluation performance in this work, to evaluate how well the classifiers employed in this work performed, the following metrics were used. accuracy, sensitivity, f-measure, matthew's correlation coefficient (mcc), and area under receiver operating characteristic curve (auc) [37, 38] were used to evaluate the performance of the classifiers utilized in this investigation. as the prediction threshold was changed, a trade-off between sensitivity and specificity was seen. auc offers a single measure of total thresholdindependent accuracy, making it a useful tool for comparing the overall prediction performance of various approaches. perfect prediction accuracy is shown by an auc and mcc of 1. as follows is a definition of these measures: 3. results and discussion in this part, we used the 5-fold cross validation method on the training data set to assess the prediction strength of the various feature categories individually and in combination. the training data set was partitioned into five subsets at random for 5-fold cross validation. four subsets were utilized to train xgboost, and the final one was used to assess the model's effectiveness. five times each of the processes were repeated. acc and dynein proteins, two performance indicators from the training set, were averaged, and the findings are displayed in table 1. on the training data ali ghulam et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 1-13 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 7 set, it can be shown that some specific fasta feature categories have a greater overall prediction power. this finding suggests that, when compared to other types of characteristics, fasta-based features perform better in the prediction of the dynein protein. we perfumed. the combining various features could provide a more thorough representation of protein sequences [39, 40]. the combined characteristics, as shown in table 2, produce the acc of 93.95 percent and the mcc of 0.8346, both of which are greater than other fasta-based features. in conclusion, the combination of all characteristics regularly outperformed single feature-based models in terms of performance. tp sensitivity = tp fn (4) tn specificity = tn fp (5) tp tn accuracy = tp fp tn fn     (6) tp* tn fp* fn mcc = ( tp fp )( tp fn )( tn fp )( tn fn )      (7) information about the amounts of h dynein protein and non-dynein protein in the aforementioned formulations is provided (true negative). we calculated false negative and false positive results are also regarded as nondynein proteins. in addition, utilizing x-axis sensitivity and y-axis accuracy, we discovered an operator receptor curve (roc). when assessing the model effectiveness of different choice values, the significance of the auc is important. horses and metaphors are both equally useful, accurate, and adaptable. the connections between accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity and mcc score have been identified in order to find the correlation of matthew similarities. 3.1 impact of blosum62 extraction algorithm performance building novel protein sequences should take into account the difficulty of obtaining random protein sequences using extreme gradient boosting (xgboost), blossom62, due to the high synthesis of dynein protein . for several categories, the same data set is utilized. this is the only effective method for reducing the function's mixed space (blossom62). the value of the ensuing spaces is shown by the existence of these varied individual and mixed places. analysis using random forests was done. the ideal model growth parameter is discovered via the extreme gradient boosting (xgboost), blossom62 strategy. content analysis is utilized as an indicator for the analysis of parameters impacting the dynein protein and to gauge how well the dynein protein is functioning. the accordance with maintaining consistent precision values between dynein protein structures, and their corresponding dynein protein precision values are displayed in table 2. table 2. extreme gradient boosting (xgboost), identifying optimum parameter for various models the analysis was based on the results of a 5-fold cross-validation of our suggested models using the properties of the blosum vector matrix. fivefold cross-validation was used to evaluate the performance of our proposed model on acc precision sensitivity specificity xgboost 0.8676% 0.8768% 0.760% 0.9752% ali ghulam et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 1-13 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 8 both positive and negative data sets. we trained the model based on training sets we employed in our experiment, we analyses the outcomes. we achieved prediction performance was relatively strong, with an overall accuracy of 0.8676% percent, according to the computational study. figure 2 displays the roc (auc) curve score that we were given. as seen by the predicted score and the roc-auc of 0.91% percent, our model's estimation is quite accurate. the dynein proteins exhibit strong roc curve performance (auc=0.91% percent), and the roc curve also works well, using a blosum -extracting feature model. figure. 2. proposed roc-auc score predictive models 3.2 proposed methods comparison performance with other ml classifiers the objective was to compare the performance of the algorithms adaboost, rf, svm, and k-nn, four widely used techniques in the field, in order to demonstrate extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) superiority in dynein protein sequence prediction. the training technique was created with python 3.8, finished with 5-fold cross-validation, and included relatively extensive parameter tuning. we investigation support as shown figure 3 validity intuitively. processed by dynein proteins the precision of auc values is 0.92 percent when using the roc-auc curve, which employs roc auc curves comparable to those used in other methodologies. three classification systems, including the knn classifier (knn), the svc classifier, and the random forest classifier (rfc), are used to supplement the results for our proposed extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) model [41]. xgboost, a traditional ensemble learning technique, was used to evaluate knn and svm 3.3 comparison performance with other 4 ml classifiers hybrid features our findings can be compared to results of earlier studies that, we compared performance with the reference models (adaboost, rf, svm, and knn) based on accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity and mcc. we obtained the score based on parameters were properly measured, as shown in table 3. excellent results were obtained in this combined comparison with 3080 features length using extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) classification. following, they employed a data set with features from the blosum-62 vector score in an . j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 9 figure 3. proposed roc-auc score predictive models extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) model. with blosum retrieved features, we achieved an accuracy score of 0.8676% percent. it is evident that standard machine learning algorithms are outperformed by extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) techniques in terms of prediction accuracy and auc values. table 3. performance with other 4 ml classifiers hybrid features 3.4 roc (auc) comparison of combined 4 ml classifiers the data provide convincing evidence the previous article described how this experiment compared the efficacy of four classifiers: adaboost, rf, svm, and knn. the parameters for the four methods were taken from the classifiers' default settings. the linear svm kernel by default had consequence coefficient values of c = 1.0. in comparison to the findings of earlier studies, we evaluated the accuracy, precision, sensitivity, specificity and mcc of the classification of the dynein protein dataset utilization. the results and the 3080 best feature subsets from the blosum62 technique are displayed in table 3. in specific, based on blosum62 profiles score with (xgboost 0.91% roc (auc) curves score obtained. dynein motor proteins that contain rocs matching to one feature extraction approaches. figure 4 illustrates how extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) rocauc projected outputs performed better than those of other machine learning models. 3.5 comparison metric performance of various machine learning classifiers the blosum62 matrix profiles score is a component of the results analysis. the blosum62 matrix profiles with extreme mlclassifiers acc precision sensitivity specificity adaboost 0.8030% 0.7810% 0.775% 0.8311% knn 0.5666% 0.5601% 0.6066% 0.5266% rf 0.8004% 0.7855% 0.775% 0.8259% svm 0.6079% 0.6460% 0.4976% 0.7183% xgboost 0.8676% 0.8768% 0.76% 0.9752% ali ghulam et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 1-13 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 10 gradient boosting (xgboost) obtained accuracy score better than other four classification models—adaboost and rf, knn, figure. 4. proposed model roc-auc score result and svm—were each regarded to have significant results. the blosum62 model then recorded a precision score, indicating that the overall performance of our test's extreme gradient boosting (xgboost) classification is good. second, based on our experimental testing, the knn classification was obtained, along with the highest analyses, as shown in figure 5, and the third-best classifier with precision on the svm model. figure. 5. parameter metric performance evaluation of dynein protein. conclusion an interesting side finding was that machine learning integrating with computational biology is a major concern for biological researchers in light of its outstanding results in a variety of fields. in this study, we introduced dynein-xgb, a predictor model built on the xgboost algorithm for precise identification of dynein proteins. specifically, when compared to earlier predictors on the benchmark dataset, we have attained state-of-the-art performance. there are three key inferences that can be made. first off, as compared to other algorithms, the xgboost method performs dynein prediction with a higher level of stability and accuracy. second, feature vectors were optimized using the feature selection technique known as relief, which helped to extract key features from a wide pool of candidate features and enhance the model's functionality. additionally, dyneinxgb, in contrast to previous sequence-based dynein predictors, can offer relevant explanation based on samples supplied utilizing the feature importance and the shap technique. when compared to conventional machine learning methods, our methodology improved on the majority of the analyzed metrics. in this paper, we established a reliable approach for accurately identifying novel proteins that are members of motor superfamilies, which can be exploited to develop therapeutic targets. the contributions of this study may serve as a foundation for future research that might tackle numerous bioinformatics issues. declarations funding: no funding was received for this study. 0.00% 0.50% 1.00% 1.50% performance comparison with four classifiers adaboost knn rf svm xgboost ali ghulam et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 1-13 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 11 conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/competing interests. data availability: not applicable code availability: not applicable authors’ contributions: ali ghulam and rahu sikander designed the concepts write-up, dhani bux talpur, sajjad hussain talpur and erum saba carried out the experiments and analyses and produced the manuscript. the method's development and the manuscript's revision were helped by ali ghulam. zulfikar ahmed maher and saima tunio oversaw the project, offered helpful advice on how to execute it better, and revised the document. the article was read and approved by all writers. references [1] s.a. burgess, m.l. walker, h. sakakibara, p.j. knight, k. oiwa, dynein structure and power stroke, nature 421 (2003) 715–718. 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[41] murugan, a.; nair, s.a.h.; kumar, k.p.s. detection of skin cancer using svm, random forest and knn classifiers. j. med. syst. 2019, 43, 269. received: 15 sep. 2022. revised/accepted: 10 nov. 2022. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 23 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 journal of mountain area research petrographic and sem-edx characterization of mafic-felsic plutonic rocks of washapi kaur western raskoh arc, pakistan jafer iqbal1, inayat ullah1,*, razzaq abdul manan1, abdul ghaffar1, fida murad1, jalil ahmed2 1. centre of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan, quetta 87550, pakistan 2. department of geology, university of balochistan, quetta 87550, pakistan abstract the washapi kaur plutonic rocks is located at the western part of the ras-koh arc, pakistan, and intruded in the cretaceous to paleocene rock sequences. this complex consists of two main magma series, mafic to intermediate, forming small gabbro and diorite intrusions and felsic comprising granitic rock units. gabbro consists of clinopyroxene, plagioclase, amphibole, and biotite and displays in-equigranular poikilitic texture. diorites present porphyritic texture and mainly composed of plagioclase, k-feldspar, amphibole, quartz, and biotite with minor constituents of clinopyroxene. granites are comprised of quartz, k-feldspar, plagioclase, biotite and muscovite. the field features, petrographic and sem (scanning electron microscopy) suggest that the magmatic activity in the washapi kaur formed as the initial mantle-melt magma derived from mafic to the intermediate source. later, the melt interacted with slab-derived hydrous fluids in a continental arc setting. keywords: igneous intrusions, calc-alkaline, ras-koh arc, pakistan *corresponding author: (email: inayat.cem@um.uob.edu.pk) 1. introduction igneous intrusions with mafic to silicic composition composed of gabbro, diorite, granodiorite and granite are formed by the mantle magma and partial melting of continental crust (1, 2, 3). these igneous complexes tectonically occur in the crustal extension, rifting zone, hot spot within the plate, along the subduction zone and orogenic belt. the petrological and geochemical characteristics of felsic igneous intrusions are conclusively described by mixing mafic magma with the crustal melt. therefore, the diorite and granitic rock units are predominant in the maficsilicic layer intrusion, indicating the evidence of upward fractional crystallization of the episodic variation of gabbroic intrusion (4, 5, 6, 7). granitic intrusion formed by the partially melting of continental crust is a basic process that physically stabilizes and chemically discriminates the continental crust. evaluating the temperature and pressure of the partially melt of continental crust plays a key role in understanding the genesis of granitic intrusion (8, 9). according to clemens et al. (2020), the granitic intrusions are formed by the residual melting of granulitic rock units, and emplacements form the shallow continental crust (10). the chagai and raskoh magmatic arcs are jurassic to paleocene in age and are theolitic, which developed in response to neo-tethyan intra-oceanic subduction to continent-arc collision in western pakistan. whereas postpaleocene intrusive rocks generated in an andean-arc system (12). raskoh intrusions are, well developed composed of mafic to felsic rock units (13). these intrusive formed batholiths (raskoh and koh-i-kambran batholiths), several laccoliths, small intrusive stocks, dikes and sills. these intrusive structures intruded older (cretaceous) rock sequences, i.e., kuchaki and vol. 7, 2022 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.152 full length article iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 24 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 rakshani formations in the raskoh range. previously, there were no detailed petrographic or geochemical studies on these intrusive bodies. this situation hinders understanding the magmatic and petrographic evolution of raskoh intrusions and more specifically washapi kaur plutonic rocks. this article is focused on the geological field features, petrography, and major geochemical characteristics of the washapi kaur intrusions. 2. regional geology the raskoh arc strikes from north-east to southwest direction about 250 km long, and 50 km wide zone mainly consist of accretionary complex mélange, ophiolitic rock unit, volcanicsedimentary sequence, intra-oceanic arc unit associated with granodioritic intrusion covered by the tertiary to quaternary sedimentary rock units (fig.1; 14). this arc is well-known as the frontal arc of the chagai arc (12, 15). regionally, the ras-koh arc is part of the makran-trench arc system. both chagai and ras-koh formed a double-arc (chagai-raskoh arc) system, which is separated by dalbandin trough (13, 11). ras-koh arc develops south of the chagai arc, whereas its eastern boundary ends at the noshki-chaman transform fault system. the northward subduction of the neotethyan ocean extensively develops the raskoh arc underneath the southern part of the afghan block (16, 17, 18), whereas, considered as the accreted mass of an oceanic island arc (19, 20, 21, 14). figure1. regional geology and tectonic map of raskoh arc, representing the various lithological units and ras-koh ophiolite in the region (13). the bunap mélange is the oldest rock unit (late jurassic to early cretaceous) in the ras-koh arc, which has thrusted contact with the overlying ras-koh ophiolite (bunap massif in bunap area), an early to middle jurassic radiolarian chart unit and late jurassic sedimentary complex (22). this mélange unit was emplaced on the neotethyan oceanic floor between the passive northern margins of gondwana landmass and the southern part of the afghan block (22). the overlying bunap massif of raskoh ophiolite is comprised of metamorphic sole rock, peridotite, dunite, pyroxenite, gabbro cumulates, and pillow lava basalt with minor chert (21, 14). the late cretaceous kuchaki formation is most exposed lithological unit in the study area, mainly consisting of basaltic to andesitic lava flows and their pyroclastic equivalents, with thin-bedded limestone, sandstone, mudstone, and chert (13). the paleocene rakshani formation is comprised of sandstone and shale, with minor basalts. the lower and of rakshani formation is disconformable with the ras-koh ophiolite. the raskoh intrusion was dated 40ar-39ar, the dating results of biotite and hornblende indicated the ras-koh intrusions were cooled about ~48 – 46 ma (21). the eocene kharan limestone predominantly consists of thickbedded to massive bioclastic limestone intercalated with argillaceous limestone and has conformable contact with overlying oligocene nouroz formation (13). 3. geology of the washapi kaur 3.1. plutonic complex the washapi kaur plutonic complex is located in the western part of the ras-koh arc, approximately 15 to 20 km southwest of dalbandin town. these intrusions are widely dispersed as a small stock and have intrusive contact with the late cretaceous kuchaki formation (fig.2. the washapi kaur intrusion is composed of gabbro, diorite, and granitic. gabbro and diorite are formed in the central part of the intrusion, whereas granitic units are formed as dyke and lenticular sills (fig.3). iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 25 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 2. geological map of the study area. granitic intrusions are present in small stock, dyke and sill in the study area (fig.3). granite has coarse grain texture; the fresh color is light reddish weather’s reddish-brown to dark brown. the granitic unit is mainly in contact with the dioritic, basaltic unit and the biotite pegmatite (fig.3). these units display intense fractures with the spheroidal type of weathered surface (fig. 4a, b). biotite pegmatite in the study area intruded within the granitic intrusion (fig. 4c, d). figure 3. generalized cross-section showing the mafic-felsic intrusive rocks of washapi kaur are. biotite pegmatite in the study area intruded within the granitic intrusion (fig. 4c, d). the shape of biotite pegmatite in the study area looks like a dome shape (fig.4c, d). gabbro and dioritic intrusion mainly consist of ferromagnesian minerals like pyroxene, amphibole and biotite. very coarse grains of biotite and plagioclase with laths crystal structure visible with a naked eye are mainly predominant in these intrusions. the peripheral part of these intrusions shows a significant variation in texture and composition because of intense weathering; the chlorite and epidote alteration is pervasive (fig.4e, f). figure 4 (a – f). the field photographs represent the different intrusions with numerous features. (a and b) spheroidal weathering of granitic intrusions with the intensely light and dark brown color weathered surface of granite and fresh surface of granite is a light color with a coarse grain texture. (c and d) the dome shape of biotite pegmatite intruded within the granitic rock units, the biotite pegmatite has coarse grain well developed flaky or sheet-like crystal structure. (e) light color dioritic intrusion has a coarse grain texture with black biotite and amphibole welldeveloped grain cut across the green epidote vein. (f) dark grey to grey color weathered surface of gabbro to gabbro diorite intrusion has coarse grain texture with green color intense chlorite alteration. 4. analytical methods thin sections were prepared and examined with an optical (leica dm 500) binocular microscope, which was further refined with scanning electron microscope at the centre of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan cem-uob, quetta. a scanning electron microscope – energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer (sem-edx) equipped with a back scattered electron (bse) imaging unit were used to study the major mineralogical composition and texture of the samples at the laboratory of cem-uob, quetta. the sem analysis of ten least iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 26 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 altered samples were selected and performed in a sem model: jsmit 200 coupled with eds for major oxides. small chips were taken out from the rock, subsequently polished and coated with gold to obtain bse imaging and edx results. for the operational conditions we used an electron current = 90 µa, a constant acceleration voltage = 18 kv, and a work distance = 15 mm. we analyzed seven spots on feldspar, seven spots on clinopyroxene, ten spots on amphibole and ten spots on biotite. the result of major oxides are presented in table.1 and mineral analysis in table. 2. 5. petrography gabbro rock units are mainly composed of essential minerals calcium-rich plagioclase (anorthite) (44.03 vol. %), clinopyroxene (21.12 vol. %), amphibole (11.02 vol. %), biotite (10.03 vol. %) and the presence of minor constituents of k-feldspar (2.58 vol. %). the accessory minerals comprised of zoisite, rutile, chromespinal and opaque, whereas low-grade metamorphic minerals include prehnite and pumphilite. the secondary minerals are predominantly enriched with chlorite, epidote and sericite, these are alteration product of clinopyroxene, amphibole, biotite, plagioclase and k-feldspar. the gabbro-diorites have subophitic to interlocking texture among the clinopyroxene and plagioclase grains. in wk-04, wk-11-1 and wk-13-2 the plagioclase, biotite and clinopyroxene have coarse grain texture with laths crystal structure bounded by the chlorite and sericite. some samples display inequigranular, poikilitic texture. (figs. 5a – f and 9a – h). figure 5. (a – d); a and c xpl, b and d ppl; 2.5x) photomicrograph showing the petrographic feature of the gabbro rock unit is chiefly composed of clinopyroxene, calcium-rich plagioclase (anorthite), amphibole and biotite with equigranular and poikilitic texture. (e – f) bse images illustrate the texture and compositional variation of gabbro. abbreviations: cpx, clinopyroxene; plg, plagioclase; amp, amphibole; bi, biotite; ap, apatite; opq; opaque; mag, magnetite; cross polarized light; ppl, plane polarized light. diorites are predominantly composed of quartz (44 vol. %), plagioclase (26 vol. %), k-feldspar (12 vol. %), biotite (11 vol. %) and amphibole (8 vol. %) with minor clinopyroxene (4 vol. %) constituents and accessory apatite, zircon, ilmenite, sphene and opaque minerals. this rock unit has a porphyritic texture with phenocrysts of quartz, plagioclase, k-feldspar, clinopyroxene having groundmass of the same minerals (fig. 6 a – f). iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 27 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 6. (a – d); a and c xpl, b and d ppl; 2.5x) photomicrograph showing the petrographic feature of the diorite rock unit is chiefly composed of clinopyroxene, calcium rich plagioclase (anorthite), amphibole, biotite and accessory minerals apatite with inequigranular and ophitic texture. (e – f) bse image illustrate the texture and compositional variation of diorite. abbreviations: zr, zircon; other abriviations in fig. 5. figure 7. (a – d); a and c xpl, b and d ppl; 2.5x) photomicrograph showing the petrographic feature of the granitic rock unit consists of quartz, k-feldspar, albite plagioclase, biotite and muscovite with fine to medium grain texture because of micro-granular texture indicated the micro-granite. (e – f) bse image illustrates the texture and compositional variation of granite. abbreviations: kfs, k-feldspar; mu, muscovite; qtz, quartz, other abriviations in figs.5 and 6. granite consist of quartz (69 vol. %), k-feldspar (13 vol. %), albite plagioclase (8 vol. %), biotite (7 vol. %) and muscovite (3 vol. %) associated with accessory minerals, apatite, zircon and opaque minerals. this rock unit has medium grain texture of quartz, plagioclase, k-feldspar, biotite and muscovite because of fine to medium grain texture, the granitic rock is called micro-granite (figs. 7a – f and 8 i – p). figure 8. (a – b) plagioclase has a type of calciumrich anorthite plagioclase, thin lamella coarse grain texture, and euhedral well developed elongated laths crystal structure. (c – d) clinopyroxene has pale brown, brown, pale green and pink color, medium to coarse grain texture with sample and a lamellar twin along the composition plane and moderate to high relief. (e – f) amphibole has high order interference figure with pale green to pale brown color, medium to coarse grain texture and double set perfect cleavages. (g – h) biotite has pale brown to green color, medium to coarse grain texture, flaky crystal structure with highly perfect cleavages and highly pleochoric and moderate relief. (i and j) k-feldspar has white interference color, medium to coarse grain texture, euhedral to subhedral crystal shape with sample twining. (k – l) muscovite has pale green to iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 28 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 pink color, a medium to coarse grain texture, and a flaky crystal structure with perfect cleavage. (m – n) plagioclase has medium to coarse grain texture, subhedral to euhedral crystal shape and polysynthetic albite twining with medium to thick lamellas. (o – p) quartz has coarse grain inequigranular texture, subhedral to euhedral prismatic crystal structure with undulose extinction. abbreviations: an, anorthite; alb, albite, other abriviations in figs.5, 6 and 7. 5.1 petrographic/textural variations in washapi kaur intrusions the significant constituents of gabbro are calcium-rich anorthite plagioclase and clinopyroxene. therefore, the calcium-rich plagioclase (anorthite) is characterized by the thin lamella that occurred along the twining plane and section no wk-11-1 consists of thin percales-albite type polysynthetic twinning. anorthite plagioclase has characterized by coarse grain texture, euhedral well developed elongated laths crystal structure with white to first-order interference color in cross-polarized light and plane-polarized light anorthite plagioclase has colorless interference figure with moderate to low relief (fig.9 a, b). clinopyroxene has second to third order high interference figure with pale brown and brown, pale green and pink color, medium to coarse grain texture, subhedral to euhedral crystal shape with sample and a lamellar twin along the composition plane, perfect cleavage and irregular fracture with incline extinction along the cleavage plane in cross-polar light. clinopyroxene has high interference color greenish to light brownish pleochroic image with moderate to high relief (fig. 8c, d). the diorite units are highly dominant amphibole, biotite and sodium rich plagioclase. amphibole has second to third-order interference figure with pale green to pale brown color, medium to coarse grain texture, double set perfect cleavage with subhedral to euhedral well developed prismatic crystal structure. amphibole grains look like a biotite grain elsewhere the major difference is cleavage angle, the amphibole has double set perfect cleavage and biotite has single set parallel cleavage (fig.7. e and f). biotite has pale brown to green interference color, medium to coarse grain texture, and a flaky crystal structure with perfect cleavages. lath crystals of biotite have bird eye extinction with highly pleochroic and moderate relief in the plane-polarized light (fig. 8g, h). the granitic rock unit mainly consists of quartz, kfeldspar, sodium rich plagioclase albite, biotite and muscovite. muscovite has pale green to pink interference color, medium to coarse grain texture, and a flaky crystal structure with perfect cleavages. the orthoclase type of k-feldspar is chiefly dominant in this rock units. frist order to white interference color, medium to coarse grain texture, euhedral to subhedral crystal shape with sample twining in cross-polarized light, colorless interference figure, and low moderate relief in plane-polarized light. sericitization is more common in wk 02-1 and wk 05-3, therefore, the sericitization is an alteration product of orthoclase feldspar (fig.8 i, j). lath crystals of muscovite is highly pleochroic and moderate relief in the plane polarized light. muscovite is commonly altered into chlorite in wk 12 and wk 05-3 section (fig.8 k, l). plagioclase has medium to coarse grain texture, subhedral to euhedral crystal shape, polysynthetic albite twinning with medium to thick lamellas and laths crystal structures with low interference color in cross-polarized light. in wk 03-2, wk 10-2 and wk 19-2, the core of plagioclase grains are partly altered into sericite and epidote. the fine grain sphene and apatite grains are included within the plagioclase grains (fig.8 m, n). quartz is highly dominant in the granitic rock unit. quartz has fine to coarse grain inequigranular texture, subhedral to euhedral prismatic crystal structure with undulose extinction and colorless to low interference color with negative relief. (fig.8 o, p). 6. results 6.1 major elements geochemistry sem-edx results for major oxides of intrusive rocks of washapi kaur intrusions are slight variant in sio2 (51.19-77.75 wt%), al2o3 (14.2118.9 wt %), k2o (0.56 – 1.67 wt%), na2o (2.03 – 4.4. wt %), iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 29 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 cao (0.2 – 12.97 wt%), mgo (0.2 – 6.98 wt%), feo (0.45 – 9.89 wt%), mno (0.03 – 0.23 wt%), p2o5 (0.24 wt% 0.93 wt%) and tio2 (0.06 – 0.95 wt%) (table.1). in the discrimination diagram, the intrusive rocks are classified as gabbro-diorite, diorite, and granite in the silica versus total alkalis diagram (fig. 9; 24). in the sio2 versus k2o (25), both mafic and felsic intrusion of washapi kaur complex fall in the calc-alkaline field, which indicates calc-alkaline type magmatism for washapi kaur complex (fig. 9). figure 9. discrimination binary diagram illustrate the total alkali versus sio2 of studied rocks in the study area (24; 25). 7. discussion 7.1 petrographyical evidence for magma evolution petrographically the washapi kaur the intrusive rocks are composed of mafic to felsic and identified as gabbro, diorite and granite. the plutonic contact between dioritic and granitic rock units are intensively sharp with visible effects of chilling (fig. 4), which is indicate the late phase of magmatic intrusion of granite within the dioritic intrusion. the gabbro to gabbro-diorite and diorites are consist of high constituents of hydrous minerals such as amphibole and biotite, tectonically which is indicated that the starting of early phase of oceanic plate subduction beneath the continental plate with high contamination of the oceanic plate and the granitic rock units having dominant felsic phases such as quartz, alkali feldspar and plagioclase, tectonically that is indicate the genesis of granitic rock units are linked with high involments of continental plate. 7.1.1 feldspar: types and origin the plagioclase grains change from calciumrich plagioclase (an) to sodium-rich plagioclase (alb) in gabbro-diorite to granites (table. 2). the plagioclase grains core in gabbro-diorite and diorite rock mainly consists of calcium-rich plagioclase (anorthite-bytownite), while rims with andesine compositions. these compositional changes represents hybrids mafic to felsic magma types; typically, the patchy zone anorthite and bytownite core are resorbed and overgrowth by the ca-na rich plagioclase andesine rims. the ca-rich core plagioclase (an) is crystallized from the mafic type magma and the early phase of felsic magma feeds from the acidic magma chamber (26, 27). strong undercooling in the mafic magma infiltrated the more acidic magma may have led to the formation of unusual dendritic and boxy-cellular calcic plagioclase crystals with patchy zoning (5, 28, 29). rare crystals of andesine (early-formed crystals acquired from the acidic magma) would have been melted and partially resorbed in the hybrid dioritic magma before being overtaken by a limited zone of ca-rich plagioclase. crystallization would have evolved slowly after mixing and thermal readjustment, changing the plagioclase from thin calcic zones to broad zoned andesine rims. at the same time, the comparatively sodic core would have overgrown the more typical calcic cores, while tiny, unzoned plagioclase of similar composition nucleated and formed in the groundmass (30, 31). the ca-rich, ca-na rich and na rich plagioclase were observed in the gabbrodiorite, diorite and granitic rock units in washapi kaur intrusive complex (fig. 10 a, b). therefore, the compositional variation of plagioclase feldspar generally describes the feeding of the magma chamber with new pulses of magma in washapi kaur intrusion. 30 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 table 1. major oxides of mafic-felsic rocks from washapi kaur complex, ras-koh arc. elements major elements geochemistry results granite diorite gabbro diorite wk21 wk53 wk54 wk12-1 wk03-2 wk19-1 wk03-1 wk15-2 wk10-1 wk15-1 wk19-2 wk00-2 wk01-1 wk13-1 wk11-1 wk41 sio2% 77.75 76.51 75.06 74.54 62.98 61.28 60.88 57.95 57.45 57.3 57.23 52.63 52.06 51.3 51.23 51.19 al2o3% 14.21 16.79 15.91 17.82 14.85 16.24 18.9 15.65 15.24 14.85 15.84 15.62 17.74 14.36 17.6 17.16 k2o% 1.5 1.2 1.67 1.54 1.19 1.61 1.11 1.2 1.16 1.13 1.16 0.87 0.73 0.56 0.9 0.86 na2o% 3.03 3.72 3.92 3.02 4.1 4.23 4.42 4.4 4.27 4.14 4.1 2.03 2.23 2.13 2.16 2.42 cao% 0.9 0.2 1.08 1.13 4.57 5.84 4.13 8.7 7.35 8.88 6.42 12.97 11.85 12.29 11.97 11.86 mgo% 0.5 0.2 0.9 0.42 3.5 3.92 3.14 3.91 4.19 5.11 5.44 5.83 5.95 6.98 6.94 5.63 feo% 0.65 0.48 0.45 0.37 6.85 5.27 6.03 5.74 8.25 7.01 8.19 8.02 7.17 9.89 6.74 9.04 mno% 0.21 0.03 0.06 0.05 0.18 0.08 0.03 0.11 0.23 0.08 0.15 0.21 0.27 0.09 0.21 0.21 p2o5% 0.26 0.24 0.35 0.36 0.45 0.41 0.53 0.56 0.66 0.46 0.43 0.77 0.64 0.93 0.67 0.66 tio2% 0.08 0.16 0.06 0.07 0.59 0.56 0.34 0.79 0.9 0.74 0.46 0.95 0.73 0.71 0.58 0.76 total 99.09 99.53 99.46 99.32 99.26 99.44 99.51 99.01 99.7 99.7 99.42 99.9 99.37 99.24 99 99.79 iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 31 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 7.1.2 pyroxene: types and origin ca-rich (di-fs-hd) pyroxene series is identified by the sem-edx analysis in the gabbro-diorite and dioritic rock units in washapi kaur intrusion (fig. 10 c, e, table. 2). the complete solid solution between camgsi2o6-camgfesi2o6cafe2si2o6 forms the ca-rich diopsideferosalite-hedenbergite pyroxene series. aluminum is poor constituent in diopsides and ferosalite type pyroxene (camgsi2o6), and typically, aluminum is enriched in the hedenbergite type of pyroxene (cafe2si2o6). the crystallization temperature ca-rich pyroxene series (di-fs-hd) is 1200 to 900 ˚c in binary system (34, 35). ca-rich pyroxene series is chiefly crystalized with ca-rich plagioclase (an) with approximately same temperature. paragenesis of ca-rich pyroxene series crystalized in the early stage of mafic type of magma, elsewhere the disposed type pyroxene is crystalized in strongly alkaline-rich magma and hedenbergite type pyroxene is formed by the high aluminum and silica rich basic to intermediate type of magma (36, 37). 7.1.3 amphibole the sem-edx study of amphibole predominantly consists of na constituents with fe, mg, k, al, and ti elements in gabbro and dioritic rock units in washapi kaur intrusion (fig. 10 f, table.2). the amphibole is highly pleochroic with brown color (fig. 8 e, f). amphibole from mafic magma, crystalized in shallow depth with high temperature about 900 ˚c (38, 39). high temperature is theoretically possible because they fall within the magmatic amphibole stability field, and their effect would explain the cores consistently higher ti and al (40). the constituents of ti content in amphiboles group minerals increases with temperature and is the minute consequence of pressure. the presence of ti element could be indicate the primary source of brown color amphiboles (41, 42). the brown color amphibole typically crystalized in the gabbro-diorite and dioritic rock units in washapi kaur intrusion suggest that mafic magma crystallized before the infuse pulses of acidic magma in the magma chamber. continuously magma quenching and cooling in the acidic type magma, green type of amphiboles common in granites. 7.1.4 biotite in petrographic study identified the two types of biotite (green biotite and brown biotite) concerning their physical properties; furthermore, in sem-edx compositional variation from the gabbro-diorite, diorite and granite rock units in the washapi kaur intrusion. the green biotite chiefly consists of magnesium (mg), and the brown biotite mainly consists of iron (fe) (fig. 8 g, h and fig. 9 g, table. 2). magnesium (mg) rich biotite associated with gabbro-diorite and iron (fe) rich biotite is with diorite and granites. the mg enrichment in mafic-intermediate magmas indicates these rocks formed from early mafic rocks, while the fe-rich biotite indicates the substantial subduction inputs and subsequent felsic magmatism in washapi kaur enriched the fe-contents in magma. 32 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 table 2. elements mass % of rock forming minerals from washapi kaur complex, ras-koh arc. sample# minerals o (mass %) si (mass %) al (mass %) k (mass %) na (mass %) fe (mass %) mg (mass %) ca (mass %) ti (mass %) mn (mass %) wk01.2 amphibole 56.34 16.26 5.55 1.09 1.45 8.31 4.84 5.34 0.52 0.28 wk01.3 55.6 17.81 12.24 0.49 2.13 2.9 1.44 6.88 0.18 wk01.4 56.34 16.26 5.55 1.09 1.45 8.31 4.84 5.34 0.52 0.28 wk03.2 40.9 18.88 9.64 7.76 0.97 11.78 7.31 0.99 wk03.3 44.94 11.95 6.8 3.055 2.37 4.87 2.84 1.68 0.4 wk10.4 48.63 17.65 8.37 6.43 1.53 7.56 8.19 1.65 wk11.3 37.53 18.95 8.33 8.62 4.15 12.93 7.38 1.84 wk11.4 51.58 14.68 8.88 1.47 3.25 8.76 9.3 1.53 0.55 wk15.6 51.09 21.15 6.4 4.87 1.02 5.86 7.51 1.55 0.55 wk19.1 18.79 8.64 3.68 0.47 1.43 45.77 1.5 10.36 7.95 wk03.1 biotite 37.82 16.42 4.31 1.55 1.38 35.09 1.45 0.97 wk03.4 43.28 14.14 7.95 3.32 1.96 21.42 7.47 wk10.4 48.63 17.65 8.37 6.43 1.53 7.56 8.19 wk11.3 37.53 18.95 8.33 8.62 4.15 12.93 7.38 wk15.2 59.69 27.19 0.35 0.52 0.84 0.26 wk15.3 51.84 12.66 10.57 15.52 9.41 wk15.5 51.98 13.7 10.48 1.47 1.69 11.23 9.28 wk19.2 52.96 20.41 15.11 6.59 1.82 2.09 1.03 wk19.3 50.58 20.71 17.35 7.87 0.46 2.03 0.21 wk19.4 53.48 20.48 14.95 6.45 1.87 2.2 0.57 wk10.2 clinopyroxene 52.28 21.08 1.32 0.63 4.99 6.86 12.49 wk10.5 32.34 3.87 1.13 0.55 1.9 55.81 1.56 2.85 wk11.2 52.16 20.26 2.04 0.45 5.91 7.61 11.56 wk11.4 51.58 14.68 8.88 1.47 3.25 8.76 9.3 1.53 wk13.2 56.73 19.95 0.84 0.64 4.05 7.22 10.57 wk13.3 48.56 23.19 1.3 0.47 4.72 7.29 14.25 wk13.4 49.6 22.74 0.85 5.57 6.76 14.19 wk10.8 plagioc lase 54.73 21.82 13.39 4.05 6.01 wk10.11 27.35 39.05 16.46 3.62 2.15 0.13 11.24 wk10.9 57.16 20.86 12.31 0.26 4.91 4.49 wk15.1 48.86 25.6 15.01 2.33 4.15 0.49 0.22 3.34 wk10.8 54.73 21.82 13.39 4.05 6.01 wk10.6 61.02 19.72 10.64 6.15 2.48 wk01.5 59.87 19.81 10.99 0.35 5.19 3.48 iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 33 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 10. (a-h) sem-edx and bse image showing the numerous rock forming mineral elemental composition of gabbro-diorite, diorite and granite rock units in washapi kaur intrusions. (a – c) plagioclase series (an – alb kfs); (d – f) pyroxene series (di – hd); (g) biotite; (h) hornblende. iqbal et al., j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 23-36 34 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 conclusions 1. washapi kaur intrusion intruded within the older cretaceous kuchaki formation sequences are composed of gabbro-diorite, diorite, and granite. 2. the mineralogical composition of gabbrodiorites is clinopyroxene, calcium-rich plagioclase (anorthite), amphibole, and biotite. major constituents of diorite rock units are predominantly composed of quartz, plagioclase, k-feldspar, biotite and amphibole with minor constituents of clinopyroxene. granitic rocks consist of quartz, k-feldspar, albite plagioclase, biotite and muscovite. 3. the compositional variations in feldspar, clinopyroxene, and biotite depict the magma evolution from the oceanic-arc environment to the island arc setting. 4. the gabbro-diorite and diorite rock represent oceanic island arc and granitic rock are continental calc-alkaline arc origin. conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/competing interests. authors’ contributions: jafer iqbal: field investigation, sampling, data processing, map drawing and draft writing. inayat ullah: program designing, draft writing, revision. razzaq abdul manan: conceptualization, revision and editing. abdul ghaffar: field investigation, draft writing, revision and editing. fida murad: laboratory analysis, draft writing, raw data acquisition and data processing. jalil ahmed: field investigation and sampling, draft writing. references [1] lehmann, b. metallogeny of tin. springer (vol. 32) (2006). 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"paleoproterozoic high-mg low-ti gabbrogranite series in eastern sarmatia: geochemistry and formation conditions." russian geology and geophysics 57.6 (2016): 907-932. received: 17 feb. 2022. revised/accepted: 24 march 2022. 1 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 journal of mountain area research full length article mapping apple trees future land use potential as a means of climate change adaptation in east-mediterranean mountains: mount-lebanon charbel mahfoud1, * and jocelyne adjizian-gerard1 1centre de recherche en environnement espace méditerranée orientale (creemo), department of geography, saint joseph university, human sciences campus (csh), rue de damas, b.p. 17-5208, mar michael, beirut, lebanon. abstract agricultural zonal migrations and altitudinal shifts of high chill requirements fruit trees such as apple trees is considered a way of adaptation to climate change in mountain agriculture. this study examines near and far future options (2050-2070) of this local adaptation method in four village clusters in mount-lebanon, involving the expansion of agricultural lands to suitable regions under different degrees of climate change scenarios of temperature increase and precipitations regime fluctuation. a geographic information system (gis) mapping calculation model was established for agricultural land evaluation which aims to locate spaces where the agriculture development indicators such as soil type, slope, future temperatures, and future precipitations will be suitable for cultivation under different climate change scenarios and models. the model does not seek the exact delineation of plots as much as the location of areas with a trend of agricultural relevance in the next 30 to 50 years. this classification is a tool to help mount-lebanon farmers and apple growers in adapting locally to climate change by choosing the best future spots to migrate their crops to. results showed that most lands in which agricultural development is viable, are already in use for apple production (mainly) in the 4 clusters, leaving small parcels of land with variable agro-potentials to be developed in the future under favorable climate conditions. the agriculture potential of plots of altitude exceeding 2000 meters is to be validated in the studied area, especially since the climatic and irrigation conditions of there can present serious challenges. keywords: mountain agriculture, climate change, development of agricultural land, local adaptation, gis, mount-lebanon. *corresponding author: charbel.mahfoud@net.usj.edu.lb 1. introduction in agriculture, a climate intimate sector, continual adaptation is an unavoidable path. agriculture adaptation strategies are not only affected by natural factors such as temperature, water, location etc. but also by social, economic, and political readiness of the concerned locality [1, 2]. the main categories of adaptation in agriculture involve planning for climate change and variability, use and management of water resources, soil management, crop management, farming systems, capacity building with organization of stakeholders and financial management [3]. the possibility of movements towards higher altitudes is a natural behavior in plants biodiversity and can be an adaptation method in agriculture too. it is an adjustment of agriculture to climate change, that normally takes hundreds of years and which man is applying during a short time on the coastlines and at low altitudes near the sea level, temperature conditions may become inconvenient for some crops with climate change. in mountainous regions, where agriculture is already heavily exposed to extreme climatic conditions, the altitudinal shift may also be a way of adaptation, but not without risks, mainly of extreme weather conditions, soil and water availability [4]. lately, moving to both higher altitudes and latitudes to maintain a certain amount of agricultural productivity and quality has vol. 7, 2022 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.145 mailto:charbel.mahfoud@net.usj.edu.lb mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 2 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 become more frequent in different parts of the world. for example, in europe, wine producers are shifting their vineyards towards higher latitudes [4,5]. however, the choice of higher altitude shift of crops is not always ideal due to many limitations such as the extreme weather conditions, the availability of favorable soils for agriculture, the socio-economic considerations as well as the difficulty of accessing water resources for irrigation [6]. therefore, expanding the agriculture surface in mountainous areas by finding the suitable parcels of land with convenient conditions and at the right altitude remains a challenge for farmers. the main two objectives of this study are: i) defining the land plots of the study area of mount-lebanon with the highest potential of use under the current climatic conditions for agricultural purposes of fruit tree growing mainly apples; and ii) determining under future climatic conditions of 2 rcps (4.5 and 8.5) new possible lands that can serve for agriculture purposes in the years 2050 and 2070 relatively to temperature and precipitations. 2. overview and literature review 2.1. agricultural land development in mountains in mountain areas, the harsh restrictions of the existing natural environment and climate have led agro-pastoral communities to carry out strict land use planning for centuries, where the persistence of these organizational features of the past landscape such as terracing and hill lakes seems common, especially in the mediterranean region, and continues to influence the general land use dynamics [7]. in mount-lebanon, a mediterranean mountainous area, ancient agriculture systems dating from the time of the phoenicians, evolved slowly until the mid-20th century, shaping the landscapes and land uses of the hills. in the second half of the 20th century, significant changes in mountain land use have occurred due to rural depopulation and unvalorization of agriculture. remoteness and physical disadvantages have continuously limited the structural and technical adaptation of mountain agro-systems in this area. the terraced cultivation is the main agricultural exploitation system of these mountainous environments with aggressive climate (extreme temperatures, winds, hail, snow). terraces can be found on steep terrains whereas parcels are present on weak slops, where small areas of agriculture exist. the number of cultivation terraces in mountlebanon decreased during the last century due to demographic, economic and environmental changes. for instance, as landholdings are divided into smaller plots with each generation, apples are now produced on increasingly fragmented plots with new generations inheriting the property. in consequence, agriculture parcels in the study area became fragmented into small plots due to the steepness of the hills and the lack of large adequate areas and limited accessibility. more easily accessed parcels are already invested and managed. exploring and establishing new plots is not of an easy task especially with the impacts which current land use transformations and climate change are imposing. 2.2. apples: a climate vulnerable tree apple trees, such as most mountain deciduous fruit trees, have a specific affinity to low winter temperatures to initiate buds flowering. these trees accumulate during the cold season a certain amount of coldness calculated in chill units which help begin bud break. this is called the chilling requirement [8]. if winter chill is below the amount required (generally for quality apples between 1000 to 1500 hours below 7°c), bud break is delayed and flowering will occur over a longer period, leading to lesser production as well as extended harvesting date [9]. on the other hand, high summer temperatures can cause direct damages to the apple fruits leaving brownish traces on burnt fruits[10]. apple cultivation is ranked third in terms of production area in lebanon with approximately 14,000 ha planted and a total annual production of 153,000 tons (23% of total lebanese fruit production) reaching 3 to 6% of the country’s gross domestic product, depending on the quantity and quality of the production. geographical location and climate suitability have direct influence on the quantity and quality of the apples produced. therefore, due to the tree climatic requirements, apple growers mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 3 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 in mount lebanon tend to be present in the mountainous regions which altitudes are above 1000 m. at the same time, and due to the winter high chilling requirements requested for a quality production, vulnerability of apple trees to climate change is very high, perhaps one of the highest in lebanese agriculture. as a result, climate change is forcing a shift of apple growers from their “comfort zone” to a dynamic status that involves more climate awareness, readiness, and willingness to take good and planned adaptations decisions at the right time [11]. 2.3. mountain agriculture shift in altitudes and latitudes with the increase of mean temperatures around the globe, chilling requirements of specific varieties of fruit trees such as apples can be compromised, leading to a decrease in production and quality. in this situation, increasing the altitude of crops turns out to be a nature-based adaptation option that is worth investigating [5]. for example, in india, apple growing conditions are generally available at an elevation of 1,500 –2,700 m above sea level in the himalaya ranges. researchers showed that the total cumulative chill units of the coldest months have dropped during the last 20 years by 9.1 to 19.0 units per year in himachal pradesh, an indian state in the himalayas, thus directly affecting apple productivity. it is expected that the temperature rise will promote the apple orchards to be grown in higher altitude, above 2,300 m from sea level in this area [12,13]. while it may present a way of maintaining good quality apples, shifting up agriculture land parcels in altitudes is not an option without risks especially with limited soil and water resources. some suitable agricultural conditions, such as chilling requirements, may be met at higher altitudes but the high frequency of severe weather conditions is not to be dismissed such as extreme winter cold and intensive summer solar radiations [14]. 2.4. local adaptation and agriculture nowadays, climate change poses an additional substantial adaptation challenge for agriculture, which will likely stimulate further transformations and changes in production locations, techniques, management and research requirements [15–17]. what can be applicable and appropriate in terms of climatic adaptation policies at the global or national level is not necessarily applicable at the local level and vice versa. in fact, climate change impacts vary from a place to another, imposing variations on adaptation strategies and policies depending on the scale of their application [18]. there are several typologies and classifications of adaptation in agriculture, summarized by smit and skinner according to their purpose, their mode of execution or the institutional form they take [16,17,18]. exploring and developing new agricultural land potential is a nature-based option which can increase the biodiversity of marginalized areas and help enlarging their ecosystems [22]. the current study aims to present its findings as a local agro-adaptation on an ecosystem-based approach for helping producers adapt to climate change in a nature-friendly way[20,21]. 3. methodology the following section describes the methodology used in this study starting from the geoclimatic features of the 4 clusters of the study area, to the climatic data sources, gis data treatment and applied calculation criteria and models. 3.1. study area lebanon is a small mediterranean country on the east coast, reputed for its mountain range. mount-lebanon stretches on 169 km and peaks on an altitude over 3000 meters towards its northern part (qornet el sawda 3088m). the presence of numerous corridors and valleys generates several microclimate zones in this mediterranean mountain range, imprinting it with the nearly all bioclimatic zones of the mediterranean vegetation making lebanon the highest biodiverse country in the east mediterranean region [25]. with climate change, lebanon is expected to witness a rise in average temperatures at the end of the 21st century up to 2 to 4°c (according to the different scenarios) compared to the 90’s of the 20th century and a disturb in the rainfall regime [26]. the study area consists of 4 village clusters in mount-lebanon, grouping a total of 24 villages of different sizes, forming roughly the biggest region of apple orchard surface and production of the mountain chain of lebanon. mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 4 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 agricultural lands which are dedicated for apple production are distributed between 1200 and 1750 m in these clusters. the most northern is bcharreh zone (cluster b) which includes 6 villages, then aqoura zone (cluster a) which includes 11 villages, then mayrouba zone (cluster m) grouping 4 villages and finally the most southerly zone is jouar el hoz zone (cluster j) grouping 3 villages (figure 1). figure1: extent of the study areas comprising the 4 clusters of villages (b, a, m and j), each belonging to a unique river watershed. in the study area, an increase in temperature has already begun and is expected to range between 16% and 25% of the actual mean temperatures in 2070 (table 1). this will induce the search for cooler lands to grow fruit trees of high chilling requirements. altitudinal shifting is possible to a certain extent in 3 of the 4 studied clusters (a, b and m). in one cluster (j), apple orchards are already on the highest altitude of the region, limiting the altitudinal shift as shown on figure 2. 3.2. climatic data due to the complexity of climate models, we focused in this study on 2 climate indicators for future forecasts: the average annual temperature and precipitation. future projections were downloaded and retrieved from the worldclim platform [27] which provides gridded climate data for the entire world for the 2050s and 2070s and for the 4 most common rcps (2.6 – 4.5 – 6.0 – 8.5). figure 2: elevation profile of mount-lebanon western chain from the ne to sw following the highest point peaks near the studied clusters. apple trees plantation of the 4 studied clusters are marked by colored circles. worldclim offers future projections based on small-scale data from the cmip5 global climate model / global circulation model (gcm). the climatic conditions simulated by these models depend in part on the assumed atmospheric concentration of ghgs. among the 19 models worldclim 2.0 offers, 3 different models were selected: cnrm-cm5, miroc5 and noresm1-m. according to several comparative studies [28], these 3 models ranked well among the available global models. the data extracted allowed to determine the level of potential future temperature and precipitation changes due to climate change in the study areas of this research. they are presented in table 1 according to two scenarios (rcp4.5 and rcp8.5) for the years 2050 and 2070. 3.3. geographical and climatic data treatment and calculation models the geographical data treatment was performed in arcmap 10 for the current and forecasted mean temperatures and precipitations parameters for the 2050s and 2070s. models cnrm-cm5, miroc5 and noresm1-m were used based on the 2 scenarios rcp4.5 and rcp8.5. the current temperatures and precipitation were extracted from worldclim and from the lebanese national center for scientific research (ncsr). the current study encompasses two complementary phases; the first phase targets the mapping of new unexploited areas with agricultural potential (phase1) and the second phase determining whether these areas will mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 5 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 have suitable climatic conditions in the future for fruit trees growing (phases2). table 1: precipitation and temperature variations in the study area precipitation (mm) actual 2050 2070 cluster rcp4.5 rcp8.5 rcp4.5 rcp8.5 a 1157 1099 1090 1059 1016 b 1007 935 927 902 865 j 1102 1070 1060 1026 987 m 1179 1172 1167 1136 1092 temperature (°c) actual 2050 2070 cluster rcp4.5 rcp8.5 rcp4.5 rcp8.5 a 13 14.5 15 15 16 b 12 13.7 14 14 15 j 13 15 15.5 15.5 16.5 m 13 14 15 15 16 3.4. phase 1: mapping agricultural potential of unexploited lands in this phase a model of layer filtering and score calculation is applied to the 4 clusters of villages included in the study zone, involving geographical, land use and soil parameters. the model is based on selected criteria for agricultural land development, applied by the green plan, a governmental institution assisting the development and planning of agricultural parcels and hill lakes on the nation level. the criteria used during this phase are the occupancy of the land or land cover, the slope, and the soil stoniness. land cover pre-existing agricultural lands were excluded from the model by land cover cartographic filtering performed on the national land use map [29]. the map was used to exclude any existing agricultural land, bare rocks, built environments, and any other land not suitable for agriculture such as natural reserves or water bodies. only plots with herbaceous or shrubby vegetation were retained. the classification of land cover was made on 3 classes, each assigned by a coefficient (0 to 2). slope the slope percentage is used to describe a terrain by expressing the ratio between the difference in level and the horizontal distance. for example, a slope of 10% corresponds to a drop of 10 m over a horizontal distance of 100 m. the lower the slope, the less work the plot will require for landscaping and will have easy access and work for heavy machinery. according to the development criteria for new agricultural lands of the green plan, the slope of the land is preferable to be less than 40% to be adequate for agriculture. in this study the slope range is pushed to the 50% since agricultural land based on plots of similar slopes have been identified during site visits to the study area. the slopes of the terrain of the 4 clusters were calculated on arcmap from the contour lines map (10 m) provided by the green plan. the slopes were classified into 6 classes, each assigned a coefficient (0 to 5). soil stoniness the stoniness of a soil is determined by the quantity of coarse elements in that soil. even at high coarse elements, reaching 80%, the soil remains satisfactory for agricultural development according to the criteria of the green plan and this soil stoniness limit was adopted by our study. the lower this percentage is, the easier the manual work in the field will be and will take less time. the stoniness was calculated from the soil map of lebanon at 1:50 000, extracted from the “soil map of lebanon” [30]. the classification of soil pity was made on 5 classes, each assigned a coefficient (0 to 4). the classes of land cover, slopes and stoniness of the model are presented in table 2. 3.1. phase 2: mapping the identified new lands under future climate change conditions the purpose of phase 2 of the model is to identify the clusters, among those already potentiated in phase 1, which have the enabling characteristics or elements to offer favorable climatic conditions (temperature or precipitation) in the 30 and 50 years to come, presenting a possible means of adaptation by migration towards new grounds [31]. to the above methodology, phase 2 of the model incorporates future temperature and precipitation parameters from worldclim each separately into the outcomes of the first phase. scores of the classes of parameters were multiplied using the tools of the raster calculator in arcmap. mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 6 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 scores varying between 0 and 120 are obtained for each parameter (figure 3). table 2: classification criteria and score ranges for the various land characteristics, future temperatures and future precipitation considered in both phases of the model (herbaceous vegetation = herb. veg.). slope (%) 0-15% 15-22% 22-31% 31-40% 4050% 50% slope classes 5 4 3 2 1 0 stoniness (%) 0-5% very low 5-15% low 15-40% medium 40-80% strong 80% very strong stoniness classes 4 3 2 1 0 land cover herbaceous vegetation shrub vegetation other land cover classes 2 1 0 scores phase 1 – agro potential 31 – 40 very high 20 – 30 high 8 – 19 medium 1– 7 low very low 0 null future temp. classes 3 (6-12 °c) 2 (13-18 °c) 1 (18-26 °c) future precipitation classes 3 (850 mm) 2 (600-850 mm) 1 (600 mm) scores phase 2 – future suitability 101-120 very strong 81-100 strong 51-80 medium 26-50 low 1-25 very low 0 null figure 3: illustrative examples of phase 1 and phase 2 of the model; product of the stoniness x slope x land cover factors and those of future temperatures or future precipitations. the future temperatures of the cnrmcm5, miroc5 and noresm1-m circulation models were merged to obtain an average value for the 4 climate change scenarios rcp4.5-2050, rcp 8.5-2050, rcp4.5-2070 and rcp8.52070 and that for the 4 cluster zones. likewise for precipitation, the data of the three models were merged and the values of the above scenarios calculated. the product of the second phase of the model is a raster format where each pixel has a value according to the products of the factors shown in the example of figure 3. the result is a score varying between 0 and 120 indicating areas with agricultural potential where temperature and precipitation conditions could be suitable for agriculture in the future 30 and 50 years (2050 and 2070), according to the rcp4.5 and rcp8.5 scenarios. in the classification of the scores of the second phase, scores close to "0" indicate a null potential for the development of the plot for agricultural uses in the future, whereas “120" indicate a very high potential, even with the extreme scenarios of climate change. 4. results and discussion 4.1. results of phase1 the outcomes of phase 1 show different results from one cluster to another. thus, the areas of future potential agricultural land in relation to the study area differed greatly between cluster a which had the highest relative percentage (relative to the existing agricultural lands) of 27% and cluster j with the lowest percentage of 9%. clusters b and m scored 19% and 16% respectively of land with non-zero agricultural potential. these ratios indicate the fraction of land produced by the model and whose score varies between 1 and 40 compared to the total area of the cluster. the above results can be observed on the maps of figure 5, by comparing the density of the different colored squares or dots on the map of each cluster. white areas on the map are parcels with score “0”. in fact, almost all spaces which have any type of potential are relatively small due to the prior occupation of the land by agricultural land or hill lakes. the limited availability of agriculture land in high mountains is well reflected in the results. mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 7 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 although being relatively low (18% of the land with potential) the "very high" potential is most prominent in cluster b considering the very high altitudes which can exceed 2000 m. while cluster j does not have any fraction of its land with “very high” potential (0%). on another hand, cluster a includes 7% of future land with “very high” agricultural potential, cluster m has only 2% of the future land which may be of “very high” potential. the land with “high” potential varies for the 4 clusters between 18 and 32%, cluster j having the highest fraction. cluster m contains the largest relative percentage of “low” potential land with 50% and cluster b contains the smallest fraction in this category with 12%. in all areas, land with “medium” potential formed around 40%. the cartographic analysis shows that for the 3 clusters a, j and m, most of the non-zero score regions generated by the model are located below 2000 m while cluster b has most of the potential terrains at higher altitudes (>2000 m). according to site visits, multiple areas of cluster b, currently are attempting to develop agricultural lands at higher than usual elevations. this model affirms the suitability of these observations. being the most northernly among the studied clusters, this area has the greatest potential for high-altitude migration of agricultural land. while in cluster j the potential for altitudinal migration is nearly zero. regarding the future agricultural potential scores of the generated maps, the strongest general trend of potential land for all 4 clusters presents a score of “medium” potential for development (1.66 / 4) followed by the “low” potential (1.11 / 4) followed by the “high” potential (0.95 / 4) and finally the “very high” potential (0.27 / 4). in addition, the combination of “low” and “medium” potentials is dominant over the “high” and “very high” one. thus, the study area’s agricultural potential lands which can be explored in the future and be suitable for growing crops, will require big mechanical efforts and financial investments in most lands figure 6. figure 4: current precipitations and temperature values in (mm/year) and (°c) for the models cnrmcm5, miroc5 and noresm1-m for 2050 rcp4.5 and 2070 rcp8.5 in the clusters a and b. mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 8 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 figure 5: results for phase 1 of the model current mapping of agricultural potential of unexploited lands. regions above 2000 m generally, at altitudes above 2000 m, agriculture becomes difficult for the considered mediterranean region as water resources become very limited and root temperatures unsuitable. the highest elevation where agricultural land was spotted was in cluster b at around 2060 m above sea level. the current model did take into consideration terrains with an altitude above 2000 m, mainly in clusters a and b. for clusters j and m the maximum altitude does not reach the 2000 m. indeed, and according to the criteria of the model, sites with “very high” potential have been identified at an altitude of 2130 m in cluster a and 2920 m in cluster b. in these plots which belong to the cenomanian plateau, the potential water supply appears to be limited to precipitation, runoff, and snowmelt. in fact, the area greater than 2000 m is upstream of watercourses and springs and there are no sources or watercourses higher in altitude and sufficiently close to supply the plots. electrical water pumps from the nearest continuous source or water cisterns are the only expensive means of irrigation at these altitudes. despite having great agricultural potential, these very high-altitude lands may never be used as actual agricultural lands. in brief, the lands which agricultural development is easy and economically viable have already been taken in the 4 clusters, leaving a small margin of lands with varying agro-potential to be developed in the future. clusters j and m have less potential land than clusters a and b, given the factor of altitude and the greater surface area of the latter. the potential of land in altitude exceeding 2000 meters can be questionable in terms of agriculture, especially since the climatic and irrigation conditions of these plots can present serious challenges. figure 6: ratio of land with future potential / land with non-zero potential grouped by score and by cluster. 4.2. results of phase 2 the importance of temperature and precipitation parameters on agriculture and 0.41 0.37 0.19 0.02 0.26 0.41 0.32 0.00 0.12 0.45 0.26 0.18 0.32 0.43 0.18 0.07 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 v e ry l o w m e d iu m h ig h v e ry h ig h a g ri cu lt u re p o te n ti a l cluster a cluster b cluster j cluster m 0.07 0.18 0.00 0.02 0.18 0.26 0.32 0.19 0.43 0.45 0.41 0.37 0.32 0.12 0.26 0.41 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 a b j m c lu st e rs very low medium high very high mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 9 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 their synergy can be dissimilar depending on the apple variety. for this reason, the model scores of these two parameters were kept separated to be evaluated according to the requested need of the cultivation and the producer. this phase revealed the trend of future temperatures in the studied clusters where it is clearly rising and can reach +27% compared to current temperatures while the model trend of future precipitation is in decrease reaching -14% relatively to current precipitations quantities and regime. types of land superposition obtained despite the difference in resolution between the potentials' map and that of the scores, (climate scenario maps were coarser than land use maps) it was remarkable that the superposition of the potential lands and their score for future temperature and precipitation formed 4 types: type 1 superposition of “very high” to “high” potential land with high scores of temperatures or precipitations. these are the “super terrains” of the future. however, land greater than 2000 m even with the highest scores will be subject to future investigations for apple trees viability and water resources. type 2 superposition of “very high” to “high” potential land with medium to low scores of temperatures or precipitations. these lands are easy to develop from an agricultural point of view, but future climatic conditions may be unfavorable for certain varieties which require low average temperatures. type 3 superposition of “medium” to “very low” potential land with high scores of temperatures or precipitations. these are the areas that will be suitable from a climatic point of view for crops that require low average temperatures. but the agricultural development of these lands poses challenges from a technical and economic point of view. type 4 superposition of “medium” to “very low” potential land with medium to low scores of temperatures or precipitations. these are the areas to be avoided due to their low agriculture potential as well as the unfavorable climatic conditions for apple trees requiring a great need for low chilling temperatures. in each cluster, the type of superposition can change between temperatures and precipitations scores for the same squares, depending on the scenario considered. for instance, areas with a good temperature score may not have a good precipitation score and vice versa. future temperatures the comparison between the 3 gcm models for the same cluster, shows that the temperature curves differ from one model to another, but the general trend of isotherms calculated from worldclim 2.0 data is the same: the trend is an increase in temperatures in the 4 clusters ranging from 7.7% to 19.2% for the year 2050 and 15.4% to 26.9% for the year 2070 for rcp4.5 and rcp8.5 respectively. according to the 3 models cnrm-cm5, miroc5 and noresm1-m, the trend of annual temperature averages is increasing because of the increase in temperatures of the warmer months and those of the colder months. the changes in seasonal thermal averages affect mountain agriculture directly and in ways distinctly in winter than in summer. the general results show a rise in temperatures (isotherms) towards higher altitudinal stages, thus changing the conditions currently existing and which may be limiting for some crops that require cold winter temperatures such as apple trees and cherries. thermal changes are different from area to area. they are most pronounced in cluster j with +15.4% and +19.2% change for rcp4.5 in 2050 and 2070 and +19.2% and +26.9% for rcp8.5 for the years 2050 and 2070, respectively. the changes are less pronounced in cluster b by 1.9% compared to cluster j while clusters a and m are both at -3.8% compared to cluster j. cluster a affected with future temperatures: according to the lands score maps and with the consideration of temperatures for the rcp4.5 scenario in 2050, the northwestern regions of cluster a, between laqlouq and aaqoura, have great potential in the future given several overlaps of type 1, as well as their suitable altitude (1720-1870m). there is also an area to the west (mazraeet el siyad) whose altitude is 1600m and which also carries a good potential. other type 1 areas are not always viable areas for agriculture. for advanced warming scenario (rcp8.5 2070), this western area which was type 1 is transformed into a type 2 area, where climatological conditions will not be ideal for some crops in this region (figure 7). mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 10 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 cluster b affected with future temperatures: for the rcp8.5 2070 scenario, cluster b presents small type 1 plots at altitudes below 2000m. type 1 lands exist towards the east of the area at altitudes of 2840 to 2990 m (cenomanian plateau), where agriculture is almost impossible. the only areas to be considered will be those located to the south of the area, at the boundary of bcharré beqaa kafra, located at altitudes of 2300 m. cluster j affected with future temperatures: this area is the poorest in terms of altitude, land with agricultural potential and future temperatures when compared to the 3 other clusters. for the rcp8.5 2070 scenario, there is only one type 2 plot at the limit of tarchich at an altitude of 1710 – 1820 m. cluster m affected with future temperatures: the plots with potential are very limited in cluster m as the best plots have already been agriculturally developed. the high potential lands do not have good scores for future temperatures thus resulting towards the centers of the cluster of plots of type 2 for the rcp8.5 2070 scenario. future precipitations the rainfall trend is in general regressive in the study area for rcp4.5 and rcp8.5 in the 2050s and 2070s. the isohyets of the future scenarios of the 3 models are presented in figure 5. similarly, and although minor, differences exist between the models but the trend of change in precipitation is the same: a decrease in precipitation in the 2050s and 2070s ranging from -0.6% to -14.1%. table 1 shows the rate of change in precipitation by area, rcp and year. phase 2 revealed that in the 2050s and 2070s (medium to long term) the change rate will be almost doubled for temperature compared to precipitation. thus, for the same cluster (for example cluster a) the temperatures could increase by 23% while the precipitations could decrease by 12%. in addition, and according to the classifications of the proposed model, precipitation reductions of up to -14% compared to the current rate do not change much in the square score in the future. while for 27% of change (the case of temperatures), the scores have significantly changed and even the plots have moved from one category to another. cluster a affected with future precipitation: concerning the rainfall of the rcp8.5 2070 scenario, very low are the type 1 terrains in cluster a. most of the type 1 is found at low altitudes (1500 m in lassa and 1700 m in mazraeet el siyad). figure 7: sample result from cluster a showing the change in the type of plot according to the scores of future temperatures, agricultural potentials, rcp and years. mahfoud and adjizian-gerard, j. mt. area res. 07 (2022) 1-13 11 j. mt. area res., vol. 7, 2022 cluster b affected with future precipitation: from a precipitation perspective, the areas with the highest scores are at elevations not viable for agriculture. areas with good potential are also rare in cluster b under the rcp8.5 2070 scenario. cluster j affected with future precipitation: a single type 1 plot in cluster j could be explored from the precipitations point of view in 2070 for the rcp8.5 radiative forcing scenario. cluster m affected with future precipitation: cluster m presents in its central part (mayrouba village) type 3 lands, considered suitable in their future precipitations as per the model. a type 2 area is located to the east on hrajel village side, offering plots that are easy to develop but where rainfall conditions will not be favorable in 2070. for some areas, the type of superposition does not change for the parameter considered between the different rcps and years. this does not mean that no change will take place in terms of temperatures and precipitations in these places, but it is due to the margins of the phase 2 scores of the concerned plots which are not exceeded by the category limits for the scenario and year considered. the complete mapping results of the potential overlays with the future temperature and precipitation scores can be found in the annex of this article. conclusion in mediterranean mountains, adaptation of agriculture to climate change has become inevitable. where possible, land expansion and migration can be applied as a way of adaptation of the sector to the harsh expected conditions of climate change. in brief, the lands in which agricultural development is easy and economically viable have already been in use for agriculture production of apples (mainly) in the 4 clusters, leaving a small margin of lands with variable agro-potentials to be developed in the future. clusters j and m have less potential land than clusters a and b, given the factor of altitude and the greater surface area of the latter. the agriculture potential of land in altitude exceeding 2000 meters can be questionable, especially since the climatic and irrigation conditions of these plots can present serious challenges. the impacts of changing temperature and precipitation parameters on agriculture and their synergy can be dissimilar depending on the cultivated apple variety. thus, the presented model scores of these two parameters were kept separated in this study, to be evaluated according to the requested need of the cultivation and the producer. taking crop migration decision as an adaptation option on the local level does not come without risks. getting irrigation water to reach high altitudes at acceptable prices and low energy consumption is a challenge that needs to be tackled in case altitudinal shift adaptation are opted for with altitudes higher than the water sources. research on increasing the productivity of apple trees on their existing agriculture lands under future climate change scenario is also a challenge to be addressed due to the low quantities of potential lands suitable for a good production especially in areas where altitudinal migration is not possible. acknowledgements authors would like to thank dr. elise abou najem for providing language assistance help, dr. antoine el samrani and eng. georges chemaly for their valuable contribution to make this article. this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. declarations conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors reported no potential conflicts of interest. authors’ contributions: mahfoud: concept, methodology, gis software and writing adjizian-gerard: supervision, reviewing, editing and validation. references [1] d. hillel and c. rosenzweig, handbook of climate change and agro-ecosystems : impacts, adaptation and mitigation, imperial college press (2011). 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[31] c. mahfoud and j. adjizian-gerard, local adaptive capacity to climate change in mountainous agricultural areas in the eastern mediterranean (lebanon), clim. risk manag. 33 (2021), pp. 100345. received: 29 nov. 2021. revised/accepted: 08 feb. 2022. sample paper manuscript preparation 91 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 journal of mountain area research relationship between metrological parameters and vector borne dengue disease using oncological fractal treatment m. ilyas1, s. abbas1, *, a. ali1, s. hussain2 and s. a. raza3 1.laboratory for applied mathematics and data analysis, mathematical sciences research centre, federal urdu university of arts, sciences and technology, karachi, pakistan. 2.department of mathematics, university of baltistan, skardu, pakistan. 3.department of computer sciences, federal urdu university of arts, sciences and technology, karachi, pakistan. abstract dengue is the most vital arboviral disease in humans, which is occurring in tropical and subtropical areas around the world. dengue fever is itemized as an urban human disease as it spreads easily to urban environmental/morphological contexts, because of the uneven increase of urban population and infectious diseases as a result of climate change. dengue epidemic cases related to climatic parameters are helpful to monitor and prevent the transmission of dengue fever. many studies have focused on describing the clinical aspects of dengue outbreak. we bring out the epidemiological study to investigate the dengue fever development and prediction in the karachi city. this study described the oncological treatment by statistical analysis and fractal rescaled range (r/s) method of the dengue epidemics from january 2001 to december 2020, based on the urban morphological patterns, and climatic variables including temperature and enso respectively. the r/s method in oncologists has been carried in two ways, basic oncological/statistical analysis and fractal dimension adapt to the study the nature of the subtleties of dengue epidemic data, another showing the dynamics of oncological process. climate parameters are shown that the fractal dimension value revealed a persistency behavior i.e. time series is an increasing, fractal analysis also confirmed the anti-persistent behavior of dengue for months of september to november and the normality tests specified the robust indication of the intricacy of data. this study will be useful for future researchers working on epidemiology and urban environmental oncological fields to improve and rectify the urban infectious diseases. keywords:dengue epidemic, urban human arboviral disease, urban morphology, fractal dimension, climatic parameters *corresponding author: (email: shaheen.abbas@fuuuast.edu.pk, 03333239969) 1. introduction the vector-borne dengue disease is the most significant arboviral disease in the world, according to morbidity and mortality, which estimates that fifty (50) to hundred (100) million cases and twelve thousand to twentyfour thousand deaths per year [11, 15]. the vector borne, aedes aegypti mosquito, live in a handy urban and suburban areas secure to humans, where lavas are usually prepared in water vessel for example barrels, buckets, tires and blossom pots [3, 22]. overall, global factors around dengue viruses and ae. aegypti have been affected by such factors as population growth or development and unplanned areas such as slums as well as unplanned urban morphology with respect to urban climate [31]. dengue fever is recorded as an urban disease as it facilitates urban contexts because an unprecedented increase in urban population. vol. 6, 2021 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v6i0.116 full length article mailto:shaheen.abbas@fuuuast.edu.pk ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 92 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 dengue fever epidemic in southern asia, including in pakistan, since 1996 has increased dengue transmission. in recent decades, dengue has become tropical countries in a growing urban health problem [2]. the disease is assumed to be spread mostly as an outcome of in effectible vector and disease surveillance; insufficient human health infrastructure; population growth; unplanned and uncontrolled urban morphological structures and urban climate variation. the association of climate parameters and the dengue fever epidemic in the first decay of the 20th century, in that time, some researchers have tried to connect the relation between these climate parameters and the dengue fever. the climate parameters precipitation, temperature and el niñosouthern oscillation index are helping outs is reduced to the time interval for the imitation of the dengue fever virus [33]. in the high temperature mosquito grows to infectious rapidly and high probability to human beings before its impact on the effect of the risk. climatic revolution and climate factors are being used to serve dengue vector but there are many other factors also co-operating a vital role for the dengue outbreak [16, 17, 18]. the spread of dengue fever and expansion can help connect among urban morphology, climate and public health [39]. the vectorborne dengue diseases (vbdds) epidemics and spreading in urban population is apparently multi-factorial, about the biological, metrological and social factors for climate change is long since smeared as significant in figure 1.1. figure 1.1. vector borne dengue disease transmission related to urban morphology and climatic parameters. urban morphology is defined in various settle countries that categorize and organizes the distribution of urban functions. in urban planning, it is supported and detect evolving problems and solve urban disorders [12, 33, 37, 39, 46] as figure 1.1 is also clearly mention the dynamics of the dengue disease is obscured because its transition process depends on urban morphological functions such as urban environmental/ ecological and climate change. in epidemiology, a typical example of infectious dynamic is complex behavior [35]. there are some standard approaches about the distribution of predictor and resultant variables (weaver and vasilakis 2009; gubler et al. 1984; balmaseda et al. 2005) in the standard modes of data epidemiology. we generally understand that invisible, random noise in epidemiology study, which can be determined and corrected in statistical data. to study these types of systems, the basic mathematical oncological approaches are to apply fractal theory. however, biological sciences, including epidemiologists, are considered as biological concepts, according to the most valuable values for most biology [13, 21, 22]. the aim of this study are to assess whether or not the fractal method can be used in some field of ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 93 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 epidemiology, and the practical analysis approach to studying where a revelry view can be rummage-sale and more linear areas where the outmoded viewpoint is correct [19]. this study demonstrates, the use of fractal theory in oncologists are bring out up to now in two methods: by statistical analyzing of the dengue transmission in the influence of urban climate parameters, however, other hand determined the persistency behavior of the time series by using self-affine fractal dimension (rescaled range method). the use of the fractal method range performing the dynamics of the oncological process. the fractal theory is a unified concept of scale dependence and complexity, both of whom think of both biological patterns and practices [20]. the fractal dimension is also a numeric interpreter that determines the morphological structural complexity of the biological elements of its symptoms. this study is distributed the various parts, in section ii, articulate the data description and briefly converse all techniques, section iii, obtain the results and detail in discussions and last section iv, conclude all outcomes. 2. data description and method of analysis karachi city is the most populated city of pakistan and has the most important port and financial center. the population of 23.5 million people is estimated in april 2020 and a population density approximately 6,000 per square kilometers (15,500 per square miles) and the world's third largest city is population [3]. the city of karachi has faced many problems with uncontrollable urbanization (urban morphogenesis), urban management and planning. rapid urbanization has caused the increase of built-up coverage with disordered typologies, incomplete infrastructure, and urban-peripheral instability. the city of karachi is located to the subtropical climate region. karachi and its suburbs lie in semi-arid zone. rainfall in the region is very uncertain and irregular. karachi has two important seasons; summer and winter, while spring and autumn are very short. during the summer the summer continues for the long run. karachi has a moderate climate, which occasionally becomes dry, otherwise, intensely humid. the average monthly wind speed during the year varies from 3.2 to10.7 knot per hours. the hottest months are may, june, september and october. the mean daily maximum temperature ranges between 33.33 ℃ to 46.6 ℃ lowest temperature recorded being 5℃. an enso index, which has led to increasing the risk of dengue spread. this is a marked effect on the dengue disease when values range from 27℃ to 28℃, but a sharp decline when the el nino is less than 27℃ [27]. the city of karachi is distributed in high population city of sindh province. the size of a city also exhibits certain spatial population density distribution patterns. for the administrative purposes before the year 2000 karachi are distributed in five districts. in the year 2000 karachi are divided into subunits [41, 42]. in 2001, five districts of karachi were found together with a three-level structure to make district of karachi. the two most local buildings consist of sixteen towns. this changeover greatly disturbed the population distribution pattern of karachi. we have collected the population census data of subunits (districts and towns) of the karachi city for the period of 2002 respectively. ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 94 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 according to our constructed spatial population density map (figure 1.1) illustrates, the morphogenesis pattern of the urban density in proportion to urban population of karachi region according to 2002 census records. the gis population map of subunits (districts and towns) are created from the visualize esri shape files of karachi city available on the internet. population data for each district and towns are then encoded and finally joined with the karachi boundary shape files. for purpose of distance measurement, pivot of each polygon was derived with “feature to point” option in arc gis. dengue fever has one of the most seasonal viral diseases. on the basis of our constructed gis map (figure 1.1) we have found that the city is facing the morphological structural changing due to unplanned and uncontrolled population of the city. urban uncontrolled population and urban climate changing is main cause of the seasonal vector-borne viral diseases such as dengue fever, chicken gunia in the duration of 2001 and 2020. more density areas and unplanned and undeveloped slums areas are more effected for dengue epidemic. the tropical vector-borne seasonal disease which have caused of climatic change extreme land surface temperature and ei nino southern oscillation (enso) index over recent decades. due to urbanization, incomplete infrastructure and an unprecedented population of urban morphology has reshaped. in the context of seasonal vectorborne disease such as dengue epidemics, these problems have increased more seriously issue in the influence of dengue epidemics to the approaching of absurd planning and management in the city. figure1.2. the spatial population density map is indicated spatial structure of local government areas of the karachi city. data on monthly dengue counts duration from january 2001 to december 2020 are obtained from the dengue survival cells, climate data are collected from karachi metrological department, the karachi city weather station (23◦n, 68◦e), which records temperature on an hourly basis. in tropical pacific, ocean conditions are the main drivers of rotation in the atmosphere and can have significant impact on the global climate. (enso) is an important element of the climate system and its variations are necessary to understand the possible changes, which may be due to natural process, such as environmental or orthopedic effects [9]. these data are summarized on mean monthly temperature (from 2001to 2020). we have also collected the monthly enso 3.4 index in the analysis. the monthly enso index (from 2001 to 2020) are obtained from the global climate observing system, which is supported by the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/enso/). the data are explored using statistical software e-view and package 3.2.5 distributed by r-software. this study described the urban environmental issues that influence of dengue disease in the http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/enso/ ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 95 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 future of urban climatic parameters, on urban activities and to develop adaptive solutions for dengue-adaptation for karachi city. the methods in this study are based on applying oncological statistical treatment, fractal dimension with rescaled range hurst exponent for epidemical dengue fever impact of urban climate on the urban morphology. the significant techniques carried out in this research may be classified into following parts. in section 2.1, our mathematical oncological diagnostic treatment methods for the epidemiology of dengue fever. 2.1 basic descriptive oncological analysis in this section, we present basic oncological statistical analysis for the vector borne dengue disease with influence of climate parameters. the analysis for this study concludes oncological descriptive statistic and fractal dimension by hurst exponent rescaled range analysis. the basic statistic is obtained to analyze the relationship between the climatic variables and vector borne dengue epidemics. in firstly, we have conduct to auto correlation analysis for the better judgment of the dengue epidemic and climatic parameters, auto correlation. the acf is used for the ensuing two persistence, to detect non-randomness data. if data is not random, then identify the appropriate time series techniques, also to check the linearity of the time series data xt. acf = ℵ(𝑠) = 𝐶𝑜𝑣 (𝑋𝑡,𝑋𝑡−𝑠 ) √𝑉𝑎𝑟(𝑋𝑡)𝑉𝑎𝑟(𝑋𝑡−𝑠) −1 ≤ ℵ(𝑠) ≤ 1 (1)for stationary var (xt) = var (xt-s). we examine the appropriate probability distribution function (pdf), normal distribution is one, resulting in a random interaction of physical parameters studying [42]. mathematically, is described as a general distribution. normal distribution formula the normal probability distribution function is defined as 𝑓(𝑥; 𝜇, 𝛿)= 1 √2𝜋.𝜎 𝑒 − 1 2𝜎2 (𝑥−𝜇)2 (2) where, mean (𝜇) and standard deviation (𝜎) of data set. 2.2 fractal rescaled range method in dengue epidemics this second section intended to examine the dengue epidemics. the main concerned of fractal dimension with hurst exponent rescaled range method is of enormous consequence for the human disease [38]. fractal dimensions are normally assessment of various numbers that are related to fractals [4, 25, 36, 40]. in urban analysis, batty, longley and xie were study fractal dimensions of planar urban form and urban dynamics [5, 6, 7, 14]. box-counting or box dimension is one of the most widely employed dimensions [25, 30]. the box dimension of urban form ranges from 0 to 2. conversely, the box dimension range of urban fractal dimension (d) is 1<d<2 [5, 7, 25, 28]. although, these studies have presented some exciting hypothetical formulations and observed results revealing the fractal nature of urban form and growth, they are not systematic in the sense that cities were not selected according to a spatial scheme (e.g. city or population size hierarchy) and an ordinary set of parameters (i.e. map coverage, resolution, scale) the fractal dimension d, can be state mathematically as 𝐵(𝑝, 𝑟) = {𝑥: 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡(𝑥, 𝑝) < 𝑟} (3) where , b(p, r) is hausdorff dimension with radius r and center p , where dist.(x,p) is the distance between point x and point suppose x be a subset of rn covered by n(r) open covers of radius reduced or else equal to r. ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 96 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 when r tends to 0, n(r) increments is approximately 1/r conferring to power, 𝐷 = lim 𝑟→0 (− 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑁(𝑟) 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑟 ) (4) where d is called hausdorff dimension meanwhile, log r → ∞ the negative sign is necessary so that d is positive) 𝑁(𝑟) ≈ 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝐷 (5) n(r) is increments of asymptotically by𝑟𝐷 .                1 1 log log n n n n r r n n d (6) where n n is the number of units required to navigate a curve with a scale n r . there exist other more simplified dimensions such as capability of dimension (entropies and exploiting), renyi and correlation dimension [ 7, 23, 43, 48]. similarly, self-affinity (self-affine) may be stated as several power law e.g. hurst exponent h . these powers are possibly nonintegers and collectively called as fractal dimensions as several of these can be associated by a quantity of law e.g. dh  2 . the hurst exponent can even be applied in urban environmental studies, where it is used to population models. it is usually used as a measure of the fractal (geometric) scaling in the data series, providing an assess for short and long-term memory of a time series of significance and has widely applicability for time series analysis [25, 41, 42, 48]. the hurst exponent is commonly calculated for the test of obtained data sets to describe noisy data set. it is also utilized in differentiate stochastic processes. hurst exponent series between 0 and 1, a time series can be classified into three categories. if h = 0.5 then it shows a random series (brownian process) is a self-affine fractal. if 0 < h < 0.5 then it designates an antipersistent series (random walk) can be considered as having h= 0. in case of 0.5 <h < 1 it indicates a persistent series [42]. the rescaled range analysis (r/s) algorithm is one of the most commonly used methods for estimation of exponent estimates. the r / s algorithms are estimated that the value of the hurst exponent is based on an empirical data for the range of dependency based data set 33-35. in this technique, the ratio of two main variables, the range of time series data (the maximum value is subtracted by minimum value) and the standard deviation is known as hurst exponent [42]. if there is a trend exists, hurst exponent can deduce an imminent value. it has initiated that time series and hurst exponent are correlated. it is created by a dynamic system that has a strong statistically significant degree when a segment is automatically interrupted by a correlated signal. the rescaled range r/s is defined as the average of a given sequence of observation (xt) as 〈x〉t = 1 τ ∑ xt τ−1 t=0 (7a) y = (𝑡, 𝜏) = ∑ [𝑋𝑡 − 〈𝑋〉𝑡 ] 𝜏−1 𝑡=0 (7b) r (𝜏) = max 0≤𝑡≤𝜏−1 𝑌(𝑡, 𝜏) min 0≤𝑡≤𝜏−1 𝑌(𝑡, 𝜏) (8) s (𝜏) = ( 1 𝜏 ∑ ( 𝑋𝑡 − 〈𝑋〉𝑡 ) 2𝜏−1 𝑡=0 ) 1 2 (8a) r / s (𝜏) = 𝑅 (𝜏) 𝑆 (𝜏) (8b) we can now apply r s ∝ τh (8c) ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 97 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 where h is the hurst exponent. 2.3 normality test for epidemiological dengue disease in our case study, we have selected parametric normality test for verification of dengue epidemic seasonal months and all over data intervals are linear or nonlinear by using the anderson-darling test. to assess the nature of the distribution of the data (histogram with probability density function) and the deviation from normality using kolmogorov-smirnov test and anderson-darling test. the kolmogorov-smirnov test is based on the empirical distribution function (ecdf). given n ordered points x1……. xn. the ecdf is defined as: 𝐸 𝑛 = 𝑛(𝑖) 𝑁 (9) where, n(i) is the number of points less than xi and the xi are ordered from the smallest to the largest value. the kolmogorov-smirnov statistic is defined as.d max 0≤𝑖≤𝑁 |𝐹(𝑥𝑖 ) − 𝑛(𝑖) 𝑁 | (10) where, f is the theoretical cumulative distribution of the continuous distribution to be tested. in case the distribution is normal, the null hypothesis is rejected if the test statistic d is greater than the critical value obtained from the table. the value of probability > d is the pvalue. the null hypothesis that the data are normally distributed is rejected [29, 45]. the adt differs from the k-s test on the influence given to the tails of the distributions. in fact, it was designed to detect discrepancies in the tails [10, 32, 43]. all though the adt is similar to the kolmogorov-smirnov test, but it gives more insight information related to the tails of the distribution. the strength of this test is that it does not depend on the number of intervals. the anderson-darling test can only be used for the input data sample which is a weakness of the test [26, 45]. we apply the adt [andersondarling test], where the hypothesis testing is based on comparing the parameter in question with the large values of the statistic [1, 29, 44]. anderson-darling test statistic is defined 𝐴2 = 𝑁 − 𝑆(11) where, s=∑ (2𝑖−1) 𝑁 𝑁 𝑖=1 [𝑙𝑛𝐹(𝑥𝑖 ) + (1 − 𝐹(𝑥𝑁+1−𝑖 ))](12) here, f is the cumulative distribution function of the distribution being tested and xiare ordered. the test is one sided and we reject the null hypothesis if the value of a is greater than the critical value. also, the value of probability > a 2 is the p-value. if the p-value is less than the level of significance a then the null hypothesis is rejected. the anderson-darling test are specifically intending to identify inconsistency in the tails of the distribution [24, 29, 45]. 3. results and discussions the research strategy overdue this study is to give consideration in the complex dynamics of vector borne dengue infectious epidemic with respect to climatic influence over to the city of karachi region of pakistan. we have chosen the basis statistical oncological analysis to examine the linear and non-linear dependency and non-stationarity of data by applying the ar(p) correlation acf residuals plots before calculating fractal dimension with hurst exponent (rescaled range) analysis. now here, firstly we initiated brief narrative of the monthly and yearly dengue epidemic with dynamical change of climatic parameters by statistical test from january 2001to december 2020. the yearly time variation of dengue epidemics in the city of karachi has displayed in fig. 1.3. it has shown a vibrant disparity for the yearly, the maximum dengue fever counts 6043 ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 98 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 occurred in 2013, indicated enormous number of dengue epidemic transmission and seasonal pattern is displayed in fig.1.4 that exposed the seasonal peak for outbreaks of dengue from august to november (table1). figure 1.3. the monthly time series plot of dengue epidemic at karachi region from 2001 to 2020. figure 1.4. the monthly seasonal (august to november) time series pattern of dengue epidemic at karachi region from 2001 to 2020. the autocorrelation described as the correlation among the unbiased data points. this technique is established as lag function in equation (1) related to dengue and temperature, dengue and enso time series are depicted in figure 1.5. it indicates that the climatic data set has linear robust short range depends clearly on the series of time series (figure 1.5. correlation function of dengue incidence and climatic parameters indicate the 95% c.i (figure 1.5 (a)). the temperature plot indicated delay positive correlation with dengue epidemic (figure 1.5 (b), enso index plot exhibits negative associate with dengue epidemic (figure 1.5(c)). figure 1.5 (a). the monthly time series plot of cross autocorrelation function (5% significance limit) of dengue epidemic data at karachi region from 2001 to 2020. figure 1.5. (b). the monthly time series plot of cross autocorrelation function (5% significance limit) of mean temperature (℃) data at karachi region from 2001 to 2020. 0 1000 2000 3000 ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l ja n ju l 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 dengue 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 5 2 0 1 6 2 0 1 7 2 0 1 8 2 0 1 9 ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 99 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 1.5. (c). the monthly time series plot of cross autocorrelation function (5% significance limit) of enso 3.4 index data at karachi region from 2001 to 2020. we have chosen two statistical approaches, which are classified into two factions, descriptive statistical test and hypothesis acquired technique, and these methods are helpful to statistical analysis / oncological treatments of the time series data. thus, test of the skewness, kurtosis and standard deviation values are judged as descriptive test while other approach consist the normality test such as adt and kst, as well as the preceding test for check the level stationary of the time series data, test name is augmented dickeyfuller (adf) critical statistical test for different level (1%,5% and 10%). from table 1, peak seasonal and total months(yearly) oncological statistical results summary are described that the skewness coefficient value for dengue and enso is positive except land temperature is negative skewness, the positive skewness for dengue epidemic indicated the right skew, irregularity and deviation of the normal distribution, kurtosis exemplify the peaked affirmed a quite smooth distribution and positive value of kurtosis confirmed a peaked distribution in exhibited in fig 1.6,we examine that the histogram for normal distribution is positive skewed to the right which is depiction of total dengue epidemic. total yearly and peak seasonal month high dengue incidences with temperature and enso index are detected in the months of september, october and november depicts in figure 1.6. figure 1.6. (a). the monthly seasonal plots of histograms of dengue for (a) august (b) september (c) october (d) november and (e) total months for 2001 to 2020. table1. summary basic statistics total monthly and seasonal months for dengue epidemic with temperature and enso 3.4 index for 2001 to 2020. statistics parameters august september october november total months mean dengue 85.5 92.1 503 346 127.3 temp 29.642 29.876 29.435 25.595 27.273 enso -0.18 0.22 0.423 0.293 0.279 minimum dengue 3 4 8 5 0 temp 28.639 minimum 28.116 23.74 16.39 enso -2.4 -2.7 -2.8 -1.5 -5.2 maximum dengue 284 1225 2510 1902 2510 temp 30.406 30.73 30.555 26.673 33.79 enso 3 3.7 2.9 2.2 4.8 median dengue 52 107 193 204 26.5 ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 100 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 temp 29.645 30.16 29.5 25.64 29.211 enso -0.3 0.3 -0.1 0.1 0.1 range dengue 281 1221 2502 1897 2510 temp 1.768 2.663 2.439 2.933 17.4 enso 5.4 6.4 5.7 3.7 10 iqr dengue 97 221 386 250 97 temp 0.803 0.973 1.332 1.11 6.612 enso 1.9 1.6 2.2 2.2 2.175 st. deviation dengue 98.4 356.5 774 450 326.6 temp 0.535 0.748 0.785 0.738 4.403 enso 1.374 1.516 1.637 1.251 1.566 skewness dengue 1.33 2.2 1.89 2.37 4.87 temp -0.54 -1.09 -0.22 -0.93 -0.74 enso 0.69 0.45 -0.07 0.22 0.37 kurtosis dengue 0.52 4.36 2.54 5.09 26.33 temp -0.18 0.89 -1.09 1.51 -0.72 enso 0.88 1.29 -0.58 -1.46 0.61 ks-statistic dengue 0.264 0.327 0.364 0.362 0.348 temp 0.166 0.181 0.108 0.149 0.19 enso 0.135 0.201 0.124 1.149 1.081 before applying the fractal, range scaled r/s analysis, we have checked the dickey-fuller unit root test for dengue epidemic with climatic parameters temperature and enso for stationarity at level (1%, 5% and 10%), are depicted in table 1.2. the pvalue of all of three datasets was less than 0.05 (p< 0.05), these results are shown that the level statistic value is greater than critical values, time series indicated stationary. in our situation, we have selected adt and kst to find the normality ofdengue epidemic peak seasonal in monthly data series. table 1.2(a). summary of the adf test statistic for different significance fordengue epidemic t-statistic prob.* augmented dickeyfuller test statistic -7.275562 0.0000 test critical values 1% level -4.007084 5% level -3.433651 10% level -3.140697 table 1.2(b). summary of the adf test statistic for different significance for temperature (℃) t-statistic prob.* augmented dickeyfuller test statistic -12.05558 0.0000 test critical values 1% level -3.466994 5% level -2.877544 10% level -2.575381 ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 101 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 table 1.2(c).summary of the adf test statistic for different significance forenso t-statistic prob.* augmented dickey-fuller test statistic -15.08680 0.0000 test critical values 1% level -3.465014 5% level -2.876677 10% level -2.574917 3.1 analysis of self affine fractal dimension (r/s) consequences this section, first we have determined complexity of the vector-borne dengue fever transmission by using the persistency analysis with rescaled range method. as well, hurst exponent are assessed by ar(1) correlation residual of the entire monthly dengue epidemic with climatic parameters land temperature and enso to remove the linearity of the data set, we obtain the total annual dengue outbreaks and the months, which has dengue transmission frequency ≥ 12 in 16 years as detailed in § 2.1.therefore, we have total annual dengue disease occurrence, and the occurrences of the peak seasonal months of the year (september, october and november) are enchanting for applying analysis on. after applying the trend analysis method, we get some appropriate results(α=0.05 level), which has helpful for further persistency scrutinizing, the total annual trend equation y(t)= 65.81d30.327 and seasonal peaked months august is y(t) =15.015d-33.825 , september trend is y(t) = 40.438d-120.6, october is y(t)= 71.379d-107.23, and november is y(t)= 38.15d+17.1. based on our oncological statistical treatment, we are getting that the slope line of total annual trend is become the highest, correspondingly, months of september and october are indicated more frequent months for dengue epidemic. consequently, the output of normal probability distribution function(pdf) of dengue total months shown peak seasonal months data series exciting, indicated that month of september to november did not untilled normal distribution (figure 1.7).exceeding, the land surface temperature and enso normal probability histogram of the total annual months and seasonal months (august to november) exposed an increasing right tail appropriate distribution(figure 1.6 (b-c)).the positive kurtosis value for dengue seasonal months are suggested an increasing nature in fig1.6 (c), for normal distribution histogram. it is suggested that the role of climatic influence is also relevant for dengue transmission. figure 1.6.(b). the monthly seasonal plots of histograms of mean temperature (℃) for (a) august (b) september (c) october (d) november and (e) total months for 2001 to 2020. figure 1.6.(c). the monthly seasonal plots of histograms of enso for (a) august (b) september (c) october (d) november and (e) total months for 2001 to 2020. ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 102 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 1.7. the monthly time series plot of fitted distribution normal probability density function (pdf) of dengue epidemic from 2001 to 2020. to further investigation the fluctuating behavior of total annual and month’s dengue fever epidemic, the estimated values of the fractal dimension has been tabulated in table 1.3. table 1.3.the detail procedure of rescaled range analysis and fractal dimension for dengue epidemic, climate temperature and enso 3.4 index over karachi region to estimate hurst for year 2001 to 2020. months r/s log2(r/s) d h nature correlation jan dengue 2.824)092 1.4977 1.467 0.533 persistence positive enso 3.405797 1.7679 1.022 0.978 persistence positive temp 3.612069 1.8528 1.013 0.987 persistence positive feb dengue 3.694836 1.8855 1.474 0.526 persistence positive enso 4.052468 2.0188 1.018 0.982 persistence positive temp 4.434032 2.1486 1.029 0.971 persistence positive mar dengue 4.763689 2.252 1.481 0.519 persistence positive enso 3.457946 1.7899 1.044 0.956 persistence positive temp 4.145946 2.0517 1.058 0.942 persistence positive april dengue 3.962779 1.9865 1.437 0.503 persistence positive enso 4.183058 2.0645 1.041 0.959 persistence positive temp 3.948609 1.9813 1.023 0.977 persistence positive may dengue 2.442341 1.2882 1.419 0.581 persistence positive enso 3.164955 1.6621 1.008 0.992 persistence positive temp 4.27065 2.0944 1.011 0.989 persistence positive jun dengue 2.90625 1.5391 1.488 0.512 persistence positive enso 3.994066 1.9978 1.01 0.99 persistence positive temp 4.085614 2.0305 1.007 0.993 persistence positive jul dengue 8.433962 3.0762 1.788 0.212 anti-persistence negative enso 4.178971 2.0631 1.039 0.961 persistence positive temp 4.305465 2.1061 1.027 0.973 persistence positive aug dengue 1.911208 0.9344 1.313 0.687 persistence positive enso 3.926016 1.973 1.045 0.955 persistence positive temp 3.347506 1.743 1.002 0.998 persistence positive sep dengue 9.869565 3.3029 1.816 0.184 anti-persistence negative enso 4.38557 2.1327 1.056 0.944 persistence positive temp 3.507872 1.8105 1.018 0.982 persistence positive oct dengue 3.494382 1.805 1.555 0.445 anti-persistence negative enso 3.670295 1.8758 1.027 0.973 persistence positive ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 103 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 temp 3.785166 1.9203 1.018 0.982 persistence positive nov dengue 15.94915 3.9954 1.882 0.118 anti-persistence negative enso 2.964487 1.5677 1.037 0.963 persistence positive temp 4.245527 2.0859 1.007 0.993 persistence positive dec dengue 32.89831 5.0399 1.941 0.059 anti-persistence negative enso 3.285036 1.7159 1.057 0.943 persistence positive temp 4.822924 2.2699 1.014 0.986 persistence positive total dengue 7.938716 2.9889 1.184 0.816 persistence positive enso 6.402647 2.6786 1 1 persistence positive temp 3.961964 1.9862 1.001 0.999 persistence positive the dengue epidemic fractal dimension results are shown the trend of anti-persistency in the months of september to december, nonetheless the total annual(months) for dengue , temperature and enso time series data sets are shown persistent (increasing positive trend correlation),the fractal actions of the seasonal pattern of dengue epidemic with respect to climate land surface temperature and enso index (months of september to november) indicated the anti-persistency (negative correlated) peak months for dengue epidemic data series , climate parameters time series for every months are shown persistency , all over climatic time series are increasing trend and positive correlated . the slope of the appropriate seasonal pattern (september to november) for dengue epidemic and climate parameters fitted lines calculated log r/s verse seasonal months as specify table 1.3. the fractal dimension d of dengue epidemic for annual and peak months values are displayed in figure 1.8 and 1.9. figure 1.8. the time series plot of fractal r/s analysis, the least square procedure for total annual dengue epidemic for karachi region where the slope of fitted line estimates the hurst exponent for the year 2001 to 2020. figure 1.9. the time series plot of fractal r/s analysis, the least square procedure for seasonal peak monthly dengue epidemic for karachi region where the slope of fitted line estimates the hurst exponent for the year 2001 to 2020. the hurst exponent attained for individual months including seasonal peak months for dengue epidemic thru temperature and enso index time series during the month of january to december (from 2001 to 2020).the results for self-affine fractal dimension values correlated to hurst exponent values exposed in table 1.3, dengue transition seasonal peak months for september to november indicated antiy = 0.0366x + 1.3635 r² = 0.4219 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 j a n f e b m a r a p r m a y j u n j u l a u g s e p o c t n o v d e c d months 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 aug sep oct nov d seasonal months ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 104 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 persistence of time series for all other months except december and july which confirmed persistent, temperature and enso index all months are shown persistent as the fractal dimension value d< 1.5 and the value of h is greater than 0.5, moreover, we have selected anderson-darling test that associates whether epidemiological dengue disease seasonal months data is nonlinear or linear , evidence found here has confirmed the nonlinearity and anti-persistency behavior of dengue peak season (september to november)monthly data time series that reduces the linearity from dengue series data, the adt statistics values for the month of september is a=2.156, october is a=2.351 and november is a=2.365(null of hypothesis h0 rejected), we have concluded that the peak season of the dengue epidemics is detached the linearity because the non-linearity are occurred. 4.conclusion in this study we have performed to time series study to investigate the epidemiological aspects by using mathematical oncological treatment, also conclude influence of climatic variability on dengue transmission in the city of karachi for eighteen years monthly (from 2001 to 2020) time series data. in the urban environment of greater puntarenas, it was possible to discern relationships between dengue incidence and local weather data. by the intention of investigation of the linear and nonlinear variations in the dengue epidemic, basic oncological statistical analysis and fractal dimension related to the range scaled dimension hurst exponent methodology, are found that the scarce seasonal jagged months september to november for high arboviral dengue disease of humans and robust linear interdependence obviously survive in seasonal epidemic of dengue in karachi region. moreover, this research/statement strength contain that fractal analysis to study the epidemiological changing aspects of vectorborne dengue diseases with climate parameters (land surface temperature and enso index). the results achieved that entirely total months and seasonal peak months on climatic parameters (temperature and enso index) attentiveness strong persistency behavior (positive correlation),hurst exponent values is very closed to 1.meanwhile peak seasonal data set for dengue epidemics shown anti-persistent behavior (negative correlation) excluding the august, further months january, february , april, may and june that revealed persistence i.e. positive correlation, our r/s results has highlighted that r/s fractal analysis was more appropriate for humans health disease (dengue fever) evolution through temperate and enso to recognize the fractal nature of data sets. finally, the normality statistical test for epidemiological treatment of dengue disease also inveterate the non-linear performance for seasonal months of dengue influence at karachi region. the normality test is found that the linearity for peak season is rejected (null of hypothesis) through the adt. definitely, the results allowed that the dengue transmission in seasonal periods should be rejected on the basis of non-linear dependence and evidence suggested that the non-linear inherent structure is contemporary in epidemic dengue data, the unbiased of this research are in the fractal nature of it. to identify karachi’s area of stability. in the future, this research will be extended to include dengue outbreaks in urban morphological structure, in which our developed urban population density map for sixteen towns (7-districts) will be more ilyas et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 91-107 105 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 helpful for individual investigate the dengue influence in different towns of city .in addition, the new multivariate analysis approach will be employed to increase the perception of data analysis, thus providing scientists more efficiently to the urban environment in the karachi region. acknowledgment we are thankful to the dengue survival cells, karachi metrological department and national oceanic and atmospheric (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/enso/) for providing dengue fever outbreaks data, climatic and weather data. the content is the part of first author’s doctoral thesis to be submitted mathematical sciences research center federal urdu university karachi. declarations conflicts of interest/competing interests:there is no conflict of interest. authors’ contributions:shaheen abbas and muhammad ilyas conceptualization, methodology and reviewing, muhammad ilyas and afzal ali data collection and analysis,shaheen abbas, muhammad ilyas and afzal ali write up the paper and proof reading by sadaqat hussain and syed akhter raza. references [1] a. rizk, m. simaan, w. d. 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[48] wiens, brian l, when log-normal and gamma models give different results: a case study. am stat, 53(1999) 89-93 received: 31 aug. 2021. revised/accepted: 05 dec. 2021. sample paper manuscript preparation 29 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 journal of mountain area research assessment of farmers’ knowledge regarding child labor in agriculture: a case study of cotton growers in district bahawalpur m. zeeshan*, u. tariq, a. h. makhdoom, a. imran, l. a. khan and nawabudin sustainable agriculture program, world wide fund for nature – pakistan (wwf-pakistan) abstract the work which affects the education, dignity and health of a child is known as child labor. it exists in agriculture sector of pakistan mostly in the form of hazardous work. the main objective of the study was to investigate the degree of knowledge of cotton growers on child labor issue with special reference to decent work of international labor organization (ilo). the study was conducted in bahawalpur district where decent work has been implemented by world wide fund for nature (wwf)-pakistan since 2013 as a part of its sustainable agriculture program. three categories of farmers were identified among a total of 388 selected cotton growers i.e. farmers having high level of awareness, farmers having basic level of awareness and farmers having no awareness of child labor. farmers were also categorized into three groups on the basis of their land holding i.e. (category ‘a’) 1-7 acres, (b) >7-20 acres and (c) >20-50 acres. the data was analyzed through descriptive statistical method. among category ‘a’ 7.5%, 88.7% and 3.7% of the farmers had advance, basic and no awareness, respectively. among category ‘b’ 7.2%, 88.5% and4.2% farmers had advance, basic and no awareness, respectively. among category ‘c’ 5.8%, 90.2% and 3.9% farmers had advance, basic and no awareness, respectively. since there was a large proportion of those farmers who have only basic level of awareness on child labor among all the three land holding categories, therefore, there is a need to educate farmers on preventing child labor at their farms to promote sustainable cotton. keywords: child labor, cotton farming, hazardous work, education, pesticide hazards *corresponding author: (email: zeeshanqureshi1986@gmail.com) 1. introduction according to international labor organization (ilo) “child labor is any activity other than play or study, paid or unpaid which is performed by child of the age of 15 or 14 in some countries” [1]. rana [2] defines child labor as “the participation of school age children (515 years) in the labor force i.e. work for wage or in house hold enterprises to earn a living for themselves or to support household income. “child labor, is, generally speaking, work that harms them or exploits them in some way (physically, mentally, morally or by blocking access to education and normal health growth)” [3]. ilo reported under the international program on elimination of child labor that about 300 million children between the age 5-17 are engaged in some kind of child labor worldwide i.e. more than 200 million are laborers and 125 million are involved in hazardous work [4]. one of the most dangerous sections involving child labor and under regulated economic sector worldwide for all workers is in agriculture; about vol. 2, 2017 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article zeeshan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 29-36 30 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 70% of child labor happened in agriculture sector i.e. children of 5-14 years. child labour in agriculture sector creates many problems; some of them are mentioned below [5]: i. muscle injuries due to carrying heavy loads ii. poisoning, allergy and other health problems due to exposure to pesticides and pesticides application as well. iii. injuries from handling heavy machinery globally pakistan stands at 3rd position in the world about occurrence of child labor [6]. according to report of international programme on the elimination of child labor, scenario about child labor in agriculture sector of pakistan showed that about 90% children working in crops performing different tasks, and about 84% of children are directly or indirectly involved in cotton sector although these children were dropped out or not attended school that fall directly under school [7]. the main objective of the study was to assess the knowledge of cotton growers because prevalence of child labor is highest in cotton farming amongst all agricultural crops. the present study provided deep insight of current scenario of child labor in main cotton growing belt of pakistan (district bahawalpur). 2. methodology the research was conducted with the registered farmers of wwf-pakistan in the year 2014 at district bahawalpur, pakistan. the farmers were categories in three groups according to their land holding .i.e. category ‘a’ (1-7 acres), category ‘b’ (7-20 acres) and category ‘c’ (20-50) acres. a total of 388 farmers were assessed about their knowledge regarding child labor. for this purpose a survey, using 10 different pictorial tools elaborating different forms of child labor in cotton farming was conducted which are  spraying pesticides  carrying cotton loads  children working with dangerous tools  children tackling animals for agriculture utility  hard field work  seed treatment  general good practice  importance of education for children  weeding  children working around machines the farmers of three categories were asked whether they have knowledge about the child labor or not, and then evaluate the level of awareness which was categorize as 1. advance level: farmers having good knowledge and adopting procedure 2. basic level: farmers having knowledge about the practices 3. low level: farmers having no or low level of awareness a scale is given in table 1 to categorize the level of the farmers based on the pictorial form. 2.1 statistical analysis the data was analyzed through descriptive method to find out the percentages. 31 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 table 1: evaluation scale. evaluation scale sr. no. pictogram advance basic low 1 spraying pesticide spraying pesticide is hazardous giving wrong reasons. work is acceptable 2 carrying cotton load carrying load is hazardous. according to farmer work is hazardous but reason provided is wrong child is working too hard. farmer does not identify it as hazardous task 3 children working with dangerous tools farmer identify that working with sharp tools as hazardous. farmer give reason that the sharp tools may not be hazardous and that they may be under some conditions. farmer does not think that it is hazardous. 4 children tackling animals for agriculture utility farmer answer that it is dangerous for children. farmer give the reason that the child is handling animal in wrong way. farmer does not think that it is hazardous. 5 hard field work farmer emphasizing the need to limit intensity of work for children. farmer give wrong reason for this. farmer does not think that it is hazardous. 6 seed treatment farmer identify it as hazardous task because it is of inappropriate to handle by children. farmer identify this as hazardous task but does not reason properly as the child is handling pesticides. farmer does not think that it is hazardous. 7 general good practices farmer does not identify any task as hazardous and identifies the identifies the importance of supervision. farmer incorrectly identify the working of children as hazardous. zeeshan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 29-36 32 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 importance of the supervision. 8 importance of education for children farmer identifies it as good practice that children are not working during school hours. farm just identify it as the good practice. farmer disagrees and take is as the wrong to attend the school whither there is work on farm. 9 weeding bending during work could damage his back. work is too hard for the child task is not hazardous. 10 children working around machines working with and around the machines is hazardous for children. according to farmers work is hazardous but giving wrong reason farmer does not think that machines are hazardous for children. 3. results and discussions the present research revealed the following results: table 2: farmers’ knowledge regarding child labor for “spraying pesticide”. spraying pesticides sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awareness (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 18.2 77.9 3.8 2 ‘category b’(7-20) 15.0 81.9 3.0 3 ‘category c’(20-50) 24.3 72.9 2.7 table 2 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding the children dealing with spraying pesticides. the results reveal that 18.2%, 77.9% and 3.8% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. whereas 15.0%, 81.9% and 3.0% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively while 18.0%, 54.0% and 2.7% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 3: farmers’ knowledge regarding child labor for “carrying cotton loads”. carrying cotton loads sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awareness (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 4.9 91.7 3.3 2 ‘category b’(7-20) 6.0 91.7 2.2 3 ‘category c’(20-50) 5.4 89.1 5.4 zeeshan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 29-36 33 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 table 3 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding the children in carrying cotton loads. the results indicate that 4.9%, 91.7% and 3.3% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. whereas 6.0%, 91.7% and 2.2% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively while 5.4%, 89.1% and 5.4% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 4: farmers’ knowledge regarding “children working with dangerous tools”. dangerous tools sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awaren ess (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 4.9 89.5 5.5 2 ‘category b’(7-20) 7.5 87.9 4.5 3 ‘category c’(20-50) 1.3 97.2 1.3 table 4 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding the children working with dangerous tools. the results indicate that 4.9%, 89.5% and 5.5% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge of respectively. whereas 7.5%, 87.9% and 4.5% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively, while 1.3%, 97.2% and 1.3% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 5: farmers’ knowledge regarding “children tackling animals for agriculture utility”. tackling animals for agriculture utility sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awarene ss (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 3.3 91.7 4.9 2 ‘category b’(7-20) 5.2 90.2 4.5 3 ‘category c’(20-50) 2.7 95.9 1.3 table 5 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding children tackling animals for agriculture utility. the results indicate that 3.3%, 91.7% and 4.9% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge of respectively. whereas 5.2%, 90.2% and 4.5% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively, while 2.7%, 95.9% and 1.3% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 6: farmers’ knowledge regarding child labor for working with “hard field work”. hard field work sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awarene ss (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 3.3 95.5 1.1 2 ‘category b’(7-20) 4.5 91.7 3.7 zeeshan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 29-36 34 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 3 ‘category c’(20-50) 1.3 97.2 1.3 table 6 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding the children dealing with hard field work. the results reveal that 3.3%, 95.5% and 1.1% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. whereas 4.5%, 91.7% and 3.7% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively, while 1.3%, 97.2% and 1.3% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 7: farmers’ knowledge regarding child labor in “seed treatment”. seed treatment sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awareness (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 8.8 85.6 5.5 2 ‘category b’ (7-20) 6.0 83.4 10.5 3 ‘category c’ (20-50) 5.4 83.7 10.8 the table 7 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding the children doing seed treatment. the results reveal that 8.8%, 85.6% and 5.5% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. whereas 6.0%, 83.4% and 10.5% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively, while 5.4%, 83.7% and 10.8% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 8: farmers’ knowledge regarding child labor in “general good practice”. general good practice sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awareness (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 10.4 85.0 4.4 2 ‘category b’ (7-20) 6.0 89.4 4.5 3 ‘category c’ (20-50) 2.7 89.1 8.1 table 8 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding the child labor in general good practice. the results reveal that 10.49%, 85.08% and 4.41% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. whereas 6.01%, 89.47% and 4.51% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively, while 2.7%, 89.18% and 8.10% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 9: farmers’ knowledge regarding importance of “education” for children. importance of “education” for children sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awareness (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 8.2 91.7 0.0 2 ‘category b’(7-20) 8.2 91.7 0.0 zeeshan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 29-36 35 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 3 ‘category c’(20-50) 4.0 95.9 0.0 the table 9 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding importance of education of children. the results reveal that 8.2%, 91.7% and 0.0% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. whereas 8.2%, 91.7% and 0.0% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively, while 4.0%, 95.9% and 0.0% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 10: farmers’ knowledge regarding child labor in “weeding”. weeding sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awareness (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 4.4 92.8 2.7 2 ‘category b’(7-20) 6.0 88.7 5.2 3 ‘category c’(20-50) 5.4 93.2 1.3 table 10 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding child labor in weeding. the results reveal that 4.41%, 92.81% and 2.76% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. whereas 6.01%, 88.72% and 5.26% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively, while 5.40%, 93.24% and 1.35% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 11: farmers’ knowledge regarding “children working around machines”. children working around machines sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness (%age) basic level of awareness (%age) low level of awareness (%age) 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 8.2 86.1 5.5 2 ‘category b’(7-20) 7.5 88.7 3.7 3 ‘category c’(20-50) 5.4 87.8 6.7 table 11 shows the data collected for the knowledge of farmer regarding children working around machines. the results reveal that 8.2%, 86.1% and 5.5% of total famers of ‘category a’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. whereas 7.5%, 88.7% and 3.7% of total famers of ‘category b’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively, while 5.4%, 87.8% and 6.7% of total famers of ‘category c’ having advance, basic and low level of knowledge respectively. table 12: cumulative data about farmers’ knowledge regarding child labor in cotton farming. cumulative data sr. no. land holding (acres) advance level of awareness %age basic level of awareness %age low level of awareness %age 1 ‘category a’ (1-7) 7.5 88.7 3.7 2 ‘category b’ (7-20) 7.2 88.5 4.2 3 ‘category c’ (20-50) 5.8 90.2 3.9 zeeshan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 29-36 36 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 table 12 shows the cumulative data farmer’s knowledge regarding child labor in cotton farming. the data reveal that among the category ‘a’ 7.5%, 88.7% and 3.7% of the farmers had advance, basic and low level of awareness, respectively. among category ‘b’ 7.2%, 88.5% and 4.2% farmers had advance, basic and low level of awareness, respectively. among category ‘c’ 5.8%, 90.2% and 3.9% farmers had advance, basic and low level of awareness, respectively. since the large proportion of farmers having only the basic level of awareness on child labor. the research reveals that very small proportion of farmers are having advance and low level of knowledge. but the farmers with advance level of knowledge are those farmers small in number or percentages who are adopting good practices about child labor elimination or eradication. whereas, for the farmers with low level of knowledge of good practices in this regard question arises about adopting good practices. the possible reason behind the current scenario could be lack of interest in education and poverty as reported by ameen et al. [8]. 4. conclusion there is a deep concern to educate farmers efficiently; the main focus must be on those farmers who fall under the category of low level of knowledge. the task could be done through spreading decent work of ilo working in country like pakistan where there is immense occurrence of child labor in agriculture sector. references [1] a. k. malik, n. a. bhutto, d. shaikh, e. akhter, f. butt, another real fact about child labor: a comparative study between districts of two provinces of pakistan. proceedings of 2nd international conference on business management. [2] e. rana, gender analysis of children‘s activities in pakistan, pak. dev. rev. 47 (2008) 169-195. [3] a. k kiani, a significant impact of child labor on pakistan’s economy. 8th international conference on making innovation work for society: linking, leveraging and learning, november 1-3, (2010). [4] hagemann, f. y. diallo, a. etienne, f. mehran, ipec: global child labour trends 2000 to 2004. ilo, statistical information and monitoring programme on child labour (simpoc), geneva, (2006). [5] ilo, “ilo statement on child labor in agriculture at the 494th meeting of the standing committee of the international cotton advisory committee”, washington dc, (2008). [6] a. hussain, slaves to inaction. the news international. print. 2 february 2014. [7] the effect of work on children’s health: report of research on ten occupational sectors in pakistan / international labor office, international programme on the elimination of child labor (ipec).geneva: ilo, 2013. [8] ameen, f. a. sajjad, a. h. makhdum, a. imran, m. asif, s. akbar, decent work trends and work life quality among rural communities of district jhang, pakistan, acad. res. int. 6 (2015) 214-221. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 23 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 journal of mountain area research an efficient and cost-effective mathematical model to analyze big data ubaidullah*, w. akram, i. a. memon sukkur institute of business administration, sindh pakistan. abstract an efficient and cost-effective piecewise mathematical model is presented to represent a descriptive huge data mathematically. the techniques of function lines as decision boundaries are applied to incorporate the big data of the organization into slope intercept form. which may be very helpful for a better understanding of discrete data to obtain sustainable and accurate results. based on the boundaries limitation results of the collected data of the federal board of revenue, the income tax against the income is studied. and finally the reliability of piecewise function to optimize the role of strategic management in any organization is investigated. the results showed that, the slope rate measured in the boundaries of income in percentage or increased slope rate is in good agreement with that predicted by the organization in descriptive form. keywords: big data; mathematical model; boundaries; tools; computational technique * corresponding author: (e-mail: ubaidullah@iba-suk.edu.pk) 1. introduction the software engineering and computer science characterized big data as the large data set that become hard to do work. due to the size and complexity of big data it is difficult to obtain the required results using on-hand database management devices or traditional data processing techniques. scientist, business executives and technocrats hypothesize that the phenomena of big data is difficult to explain due to the unequal growth rate and huge volume. the term big is not big in volume if we go back ten years ago a hard derive of 30 mb was big but nowadays a 2tb derives are common. one historically important distinction between the collected data from dawn of civilization to 2003 is 5 exabytes, now we are creating 5 exabytes every two days. today we are not only creating the size that is volume of data but we are also creating variety of data with a faster rate, this is called three vs of big data, volume, variety and velocity. in the era 1440s and by 1500s, the printed data were 10 vol. 2, 2017 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 23-28 24 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 million texts including 2 million books, while in the 6th and 7th centuries only 120 books were produced annually in western europe. the international data corporation stated that discovery and analysis of data economically with high velocity from very huge volumes of data by using new technologies and architecture designs is big data. viktor mayer-schönberger and kenneth cukier described that big data is a way to take out new insights or make new forms of value in traditions that change markets, organizations etc. to collect, store and analyze the data sets from unstructured data we have need advance techniques, software’s and systems. in advance laboratories and advance engineering research centers big data provided significant advances. whether we are in technology or business the term big data is absolutely different than the past things. martin hilbert and priscilla lopez stated that in 1996 digital data was one percent and by 2007 almost ninety four percent data was digital. around 2000 each things became digital while in the 20th century the digital data was only texts and numbers. andrew whit stated that big data has the potential to open up stirring new opportunities in social research, it while it is difficult to access. hall [1] stated that curiosity, litheness and motivation to learn by doing assortment and job experience. lorenz [2] described that data is like an assembly of facts, but it is not necessarily the facts always truth. the weakly interpretation causes the wrong conclusions so we have needed to understand the big data. jeanne harris described that the importance to understand the mathematical reasoning and statistical models is not only need for technical experts but it is also need for managers to meet the challenges of big data. harris [4] stated that sixty percent of respondent on a survey feel the need to develop new skills for their employees to translate big data into insight and business value. to reduce large raw data sets into small dimensions the topology technique is a flexible technique for different systems. big data has the potential not only to update research, but it has the potential also transform education [8]. hamann [9] described the technique of data discretization for resembling the curve by line segments. discretization technique is a first step making the data suitable for numerical assessment and execution on digital computers. mcmaster in 1987 provided a scheme of data reduction of piecewise linear curves. gar in 2011 stated that the industry analysis companies are not facing challenges only in volume but also in velocity and variety. big data is a data which is recorded from a data generating source. one challenge is the collection of required data from these sources without losing the exact required information. another challenge is to automatically collect the right data from the data source. we have need also an information extraction method to take out the associated data from the data source and express it in an ordered form for analysis. data analysis is also a challenge, so to overcome this challenge we need domain analysis scientist to create effective data base design. the piecewise defined function is a welldefined mathematical technique to formulate and interpret the big data. the federal board of revenue is a supreme federal agency of pakistan for auditing, enforcing and collecting revenue for the government of pakistan. the data of collection federal taxes is a big data. in our paper we have used the piecewise function to formulate and interpret the collected data. we formulated the income tax slabs for salaried class in pakistan for financial year 2014-15 into ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 23-28 25 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 piecewise defined form that is limitations. our developed mathematical model is a cost effective and time efficient. 2. mathematical and graphical representation of data 2.1 mathematical model the general mathematical form for n dimensional piecewise continuous and convex linear functions is rrf n : . like ))(( 1  n rpp so that: bxaxf ba              .maxmin ),( if the function is convex and continuous then, )( 1  n rp so that: bxaxf ba             .max ),( here bxa   . is a linear polynomial such that 𝑎 ≠ 0 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎, 𝑏 ∈ 𝑅. the piecewise linear function effectively reduced the problem size and enhanced the computational efficiency. 2.2 data collection and processing according to the finance act passed by the government of pakistan, these below mentioned income tax rates will be followed for salaries in the year 2014-2015. suppose 𝑥 represents the income and 𝑇(𝑥) represents the income tax. the tax slabs are as follows: s# taxable income rate of tax 1 where the taxable income does not exceed rs.400,000 0% 2 where the taxable income exceed rs.400,000 but does not exceed rs.750,000 5% of the amount exceeding rs.400,000 3 where the taxable income exceed rs.750,000 but does not exceed rs.1,400,000 rs.17,500+10% of the amount exceeding rs.750,000 4 where the taxable income exceed rs.1,400,000 but does not exceed rs.1,500,000 rs.82,500 +12.5% of the amount exceeding rs.1,400,000 5 where the taxable income exceed rs.1,500,000 but does not exceed rs.1,800,000 rs.95,000+15% of the amount exceeding rs.1,500,000 7 where the taxable income exceed rs.1,800,000 but does not exceed rs.2,500,000 rs.140,000+17.5% of the amount exceeding rs.1,800,000 8 where the taxable income exceed rs.2,500,000 but does not exceed rs.3,000,000 rs.262,000+20% of the amount exceeding rs.2,500,000 ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 23-28 26 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 9 where the taxable income exceed rs.3,000,000 but does not exceed rs.3,500,000 rs.362,500+22.5% of the amount exceeding rs.2,500,000 10 where the taxable income exceed rs.3,500,000 but does not exceed rs.4,000,000 rs.475,000+25% of the amount exceeding rs.3,500,000 11 where the taxable income exceed rs.4,000,000 but does not exceed rs.7,000,000 rs.600,000+27.5% of the amount exceeding rs.4,000,000 12 where the taxable income exceed rs.7,000,000 rs.1,425,000+30% of the amount exceeding rs.7,000,000  the rate of income tax is zero 0% if the taxable salary income does not exceed rs. 400,000 i.e. 0)( xt .  the rate of income tax is 5% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 400,000 but does not exceed rs 750,000 i.e. 2000005.0)( )000,4000(05.0)(   xxt xxt .  the rate of income tax is 10% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 750,000 but does not exceed rs. 1,400,000  i.e. 5750010.0)( )000,750(10.017500)( 20000)000,750(05.0)(    xxt xxt xt  the rate of income tax is 12.5% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 1,400,000 but does not exceed rs. 1,500,000  i.e. 92500125.0)( )000,400,1(125.082500)(   xxt xxt  the rate of income tax is 15% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 1,500,000 but does not exceed rs. 1,800,000  i.e. 13000015.0)( )000,500,1(15.095000)(   xxt xxt  the rate of income tax is 17.5% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 1,800,000 but does not exceed rs. 2,500,000   i.e. 000,175175.0)( )000,800,1(175.0140000)(   xxt xxt  the rate of income tax is 20% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 2,500,000 but does not exceed rs. 3,000,000  i.e. 500,2372.0)( )000,500,2(2.0262500)(   xxt xxt  the rate of income tax is 22.5% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 3,000,000 but does not exceed rs. 3,500,000  i.e. 500,312225.0)( )000,000,3(225.0362500)(   xxt xxt  the rate of income tax is 25% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 3,500,000 but does not exceed rs. 4,000,000  i.e. 000,40025.0)( )000,500,3(25.0475000)(   xxt xxt  the rate of income tax is 27.5% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 4,000,000 but does not exceed rs. 7,000,000 ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 23-28 27 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017  i.e. 000,500275.0)( )000,000,4(275.0000,600)(   xxt xxt  the rate of income tax is 30% if the taxable salary income exceed rs. 7,000,000  i.e. 000,6753.0)( )000,000,7(3.0000,425,1)(   xxt xxt                                    000,000,7000,6753.0 000,000,7000,000,4000,500275.0 000,000,4000,500,3000,40025.0 000,500,3000,000,3500,312225.0 000,000,3000,500,2500,2372.0 000,500,2000,800,1000,175175.0 000,800,1000,500,1000,13015.0 000,500,1000,400,1500,92125.0 000,400,1000,750500,571.0 000,750000,400000,2005.0 000,40000 )( xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx x xt 2.3 graphical representation figure 1. represents the income in million on x-axis and income tax in million on y-axis in standard form. figure 2. represents the income in million on x-axis and income tax in million on y-axis in scientific notation. 3. results and discussion from the derived mathematical model and the graphical representation we can conclude that the data we have collected of the fiscal year 2014-2015 of federal budget of pakistan is big in term of volume. to manage, share, analyze and visualize the data in a timeframe it is difficult without advanced tools, software, and systems. the used mathematical model summarized the big data into a small form such that we can calculate with a faster rate easily and efficiently. the income tax depends on the income so we have taken income on x-axis and income tax on y-axis. scaling on the axis is as; on x-axis income is in millions and on y-axis income tax is in hundred thousand. the graph shows as income increase the income tax is also increase. figure 1and figure 2 indicate the increase of income tax due to increase of income. if the income of a pair is 750,000 the income tax is 17500. this showed the reliability of the piecewise linear mathematical model. from the above model of t(x), the slope of the intervals are as: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 income tax of federal budget 2013-2014 income i n c o m e t a x in c o m e t a x income ubaidullah et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 23-28 28 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.125, 0.15, 0.175, 0.2, 0.225, 0.25, 0.27 and 0.3. these are the mathematical indicators which are efficient and cost effective to analyze and interpret the big data into small one. these indicator indicates that as income increase the income tax is also increase. 4. conclusion we presented a piecewise mathematical model which converts a descriptive data into a single model based on the linear coefficients, assigned variables and tax slab’s percentage into a single model. we used the high level language software ‘matlab’ that is able to reliably detect and sharply the tax slab of the tax payer. this software also accurately calculate the exact amount of the individual taxpayer. the problem here is to find the slab percentages that appears in the acquired data. finally we did optimize our collected data. references [1] d. lazer, a. pentland, l. adamic, s. aral, a-l. barabási, d. brewer. computational social science”. science: 323 (2009), 721-723. [2] s. shvetank, h. andrew, c. jaime. "good data won't guarantee good decisions”. harvard business review, hbr.org. retrieved (2012). [3] v. mayerschönberger & k. cukier. big data: a revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think”, (2013) new york, houghton mifflin harcourt publishing company. [4] j. harris. data is useless without the skills to analyze it, (2012) hbr blog network. [5] j. manyika, m. chui, b. brown, j. bughin, r. dobbs, c. roxburgh, & a. h. byers (2011). [6] “big data: the next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity”. mckinsey global institute. [7] d. raywood. big data analyst shortage is a challenge for the uk. sc magazine, (2012). [8] ccc, advancing personalized education. computing community consortium”. spring 2011. [9] b. hamann, j. l. chen. "data point selection for piecewise linear curve approximation". computer aided geometric design 11 (1994). [10] m. h. lin, j. g. carlsson, d. ge, j. shi and j. f. tsai, a review of piecewise linearization method. mathematical problems in engineering (2013). [11] k. holmberg. solving the staircase cost facility location problem with decomposition and piecewise linearization. european journal of operational research, 75(1994) 41-61. [12] a. b. keha, i. r. de farias, and g. l. nemhauser, models for representing piecewise linear cost function”. operation rsearch letters, 32 (2004) 44-48. [13] v. ford and a. siraj, clustering of smart meter data for disaggregation, in proc. ieee global conference on signal and information processing (global sip),austin, tx (2013). [14] www.fbr.gov.pk [15] w. huang, p. eades, s. h. hong, c. c. lin. improving multiple aesthetics produces better graph drawings. j vis lang comput 24 (2013) 262272. [16] m. j. baker, s. g. eick. space-filling software visualization. journal of visual languages & computing 6(1995)119-133. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://hbr.org/2012/04/good-data-wont-guarantee-good-decisions/ar/1 http://hbr.org/2012/04/good-data-wont-guarantee-good-decisions/ar/1 http://hbr.org/2012/04/good-data-wont-guarantee-good-decisions/ar/1 http://www.fbr.gov.pk/ http://www.journalofbigdata.com/sfx_links?ui=s40537-015-0022-3&bibl=b3 http://www.journalofbigdata.com/sfx_links?ui=s40537-015-0022-3&bibl=b10 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 9 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 journal of mountain area research physico-chemical assessment of water samples collected from some selected streams and rivers in district gilgit, pakistan saif-ud-din1*, s. ali1, m. a. nafees2, h. ali1, s. n. hassan3 z. ali1, earjh1 1. department of environmental sciences karakorum international university gilgit baltistan, pakistan 2. department of biological sciences karakorum international university gilgit baltistan, pakistan 3. department of computer sciences karakorum international university gilgit baltistan, pakistan abstract this study aims to provide information about the drinking water quality of two streams in chakarkote sai and demote sai and two rivers in gilgit and hunza. parameters were tested including physical, and chemical. the physical parameters were temperature, ph, electric conductivity (ec), total dissolved solids (tds), turbidity, dissolved oxygen (do), ammonia (nh4),total nitrogen (tn), total phosphorus (tp) and reactive orthophosphate (po4). the ranges of these parameters set by who and neqs, as most of the asian countries also follow the who standards. all the samples were tested in the epa certified laboratory of biological sciences department karakorum international university gilgit baltistan. the minimum and maximum values of temperature 15.2-18.4, ph 6.78-6.09, ec 109.3297 µs, tds 53.8-149 ppm, turbidity 0.29-88.4 ntu, do 7.1-8.9 mg/l, tn 5.63-7.13 mg/l, nh4 0.0106-0.0151 mg/l, tp 0.042-0.143mg/l, and po4 0.0059-0.016 mg/l. independent t test was applied separately for both streams and rivers to determine significant difference of water properties with respect to location wise. water parameters like do and tp were significantly, while temperature, ph, ec, tds, turbidity, tn, nh4, po4 were non-significant in streams and tds, turbidity, do and tn were significant, while temperature, ph, ec, nh4, tp, po4 were non-significant in rivers according to area wise. key words: assessment, water quality, water parameter, contamination, stream, river *corresponding author: (email: gltsaifuddin@gmail.com) 1. introduction fresh water is the basic requirement for both humans and biodiversity [1]. water is used for different purposes like domestic and agricultural use [2, 3]. each year diarrhea kills around 760 000 children under five and globally, there are nearly 1.7 billion cases of diarrheal disease every year [4]. as the population increases people need more and more clean water to meet their different purposes. the global food production depends on water not only in the formof precipitation but alsoin the form ofavailable water resources for irrigation [5]. population increase has a great impact on the contamination of clean drinking water due to vol. 2, 2017 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article mailto:gltsaifuddin@gmail.com saf-ud-din et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 9-15 10 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 increase in agricultural practices, grazing of domestic animals around the streams and other anthropogenic activities [6, 7].the health effects of chemical contaminants have long term exposures and cause adverse effects [8]. disposal of slag materials generated by steel industries can cause adverse effects on the surrounding aquatic environments. factors like organic matter decomposition [9], nitrates, and phosphorus had a great impact on water streams that are flowing besides small forests, orchards and agricultural land [10]. pakistan is one of the country having largest glaciers outside the polar region and these glaciers feed them mountain livelihood and the whole country. a large number of people around the globe suffer from health problems associated to water [11, 12]. human induced influences on surface water quality reflect not only waste discharge directly into a stream, but also include contaminated surface runoff [13]. in pakistan, a large number of rural and urban populations do not have access to safe drinking water [14]. inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene results in high incidences of water and sanitation related diseases in pakistan [15]. it is estimated that, in pakistan, 30% of all diseases and 40% of all deaths are due to poor water quality [16]. there is a lack of drinking water quality monitoring and surveillance programs in the country [12]. due to rapid increase in population and industrialization many drains of pakistan carry industrial and municipal effluents and this water is carried into rivers, canals and used for irrigation purposes [17]. population in gilgit baltistan feed directly from glacial melt water down the valley streams [18]. many of the freshwater sources are contaminated by use of pesticides in agricultural fields and other anthropogenic activities that completely altered the physical, chemical, and biological processes associated with water resources [19, 20].water borne diseases like diarrhea, cholera, typhoid and hepatitis are endemic in this area and also due to the presence of pathogenic organisms in drinking water [21]. encroachment in the areas around the streams and cutting of forest for wood and agricultural land altered the whole watershed of the streams in many valleys. good quality drinking water means keeping away public from dangerous water related diseases [22]. this study was aimed to find status of the drinking water from streams and rivers in gilgit, is according to the standards set by who and national drinking water policy of pakistan. the samples were tested and compared with the national environmental quality standards (neqs) of pakistan. 2. methodology 2.1 study area: the research was conducted in the gilgit in chakarkote sai stream (css) and damote sai stream (dss), gilgit river (gr) and hunza river (hr). geographically the study region is mountainous, with temperature zero in winter, while in summer it may go beyond from 35 oc. people of damote sai and chakarkote sai valley are totally depend on both two streams water for drinking purpose and people settled saf-ud-din et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 9-15 11 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 the merging zone of gilgit and hunza river fulfill the need of water for drinking purpose from that both rivers. fig a: map showing the sampling points of the study area. 2.2 sampling design: water sampling was done by using simple random sampling method with at least 20-30 cm water deep. the parameters include temperature,ec,tds was measured with (ec/tds/sal pocketester) and do was measured with (hi 5001 do meter) in a field during the time of samples collection. a total of 20 water samples were taken, 5 in each study sites. approximately 500 ml of each water sample were stored in separate plastic bottle with proper labeling. the water samples were taken to the lab (epa certified water quality laboratory in department biological sciences karakorum international university gilgit baltistan) for the analysis. water ph was measured with (jenaway 3510 ph meter), turbidity was measured with (velp scientificatb1 turbidimeter). water nh4, po4, tp, tn was determined by national research council for ecosystem study verbania pallanza italywater chemistry laboratory analytical methods [23]. 2.3 statistical analysis the date after to determined the physiochemical status of water by location wise difference. “independent sampling “t” test” was applied separate for streams and rivers to determine the significant difference. 3 results and discussion independent sample t test indicated that do and tp differed significantly, while temperature, ph, ec, tds, turbidity, tn, nh4, po4 were non-significant in streams and tds, turbidity, do and tn were significant, while temperature, ph, ec, nh4, tp, po4 were nonsignificant in rivers as shown in table 1. table 1: independent sampling “t” test. note: *, **, ***, and “ns” indicates p<0.05(5%), p<0.01(1%), p<0.001 and “ns” non-significant respectively, who; world health organization, neqs; national environmental quality standards, ec; electric conductivity, tds; total dissolved solid, do; dissolved oxygen, tn; total nitrogen, nh4; ammonia, tp; total phosphorus, po4; reactive ortho phosphate, css; chakarkote sai stream, dss; damote sai straem, hr; hunza river, gr; gilgit. locations tem ph ec tds turbidity do tn nh4 tp po4 css and dss 8.792* 1.841ns 2.904ns 2.887ns -1.116ns -2.716** .213ns .640ns 2.207* .924ns hr and gr 31.117ns 1.230ns 36.782ns 28.o19*** 4.527*** -2.341*** -9.365* 1.061ns .249ns 1.041ns 12 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 temperature is biologically an important factor which plays a vital role in proper functioning of all living things [3].the temperature of selected water samples was moderate as this study was taken out in a start of summer season. in study areas temperature was ranges from15.2-18.4 oc. the ph is mutually supporting with further water quality parameters, such as carbon dioxide, alkalinity, and hardness. it can be poisonous in itself at a certain point, and also known to power the toxicity as well of hydrogen sulfide, cyanides, heavy metals, and ammonia [24]. ph of the selected water samples was in the limits of who and neqs guidelines which is 6.5 8.5. ph in samples was varied 6.787.09. hence, in study areas the ph values were not exceed the standard limit on the other hand these were falling in basic or alkaline range. electrical conductivity (ec) is actually measures the ionic practice of a solution that enables it to convey current. according to who and neqs guideline ec value must not exceeded 400 μs/cm. in study areas, ec value varied from 109.3-297 μs/cm. water has the capacity to dissolve a broad variety of inorganic and various organic minerals or salts. these minerals formed ineffective taste and diluted color in water. who and neqs guideline limit of total dissolved solids (tds) is 1,000 ppm. in study areas tds value were ranges from 53.3-149 ppm. hence, this range was satisfactory and concentration of tds is harmless. turbidity may show the existence of disease causing organisms. these organisms consist of bacteria, viruses, parasites that can cause nausea, cramps, diarrhea and related headaches [25]. according to world health organization (who) and neqs the turbidity of drinking water should be less than 5 ntu. in study areas turbidity value were ranges from 0.29-88.4 ntu. hence, the range was satisfactory and within limits of who and neqs saf-ud-din et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 9-15 13 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 in streams, but exceed in rivers. rivers water is not fit for drinking purpose. dissolved oxygen (do) is necessary for respiration by the majority of aquatic animals. in study areas do values were within limits of who and neqs guideline range from 7.1-8.9 mg/l. nitrogen is one of the restrictive nutrients throughout photosynthesis. it enters into the water bodies through rainfall, fixation, river runoff, and transmission from sediments, uneaten feeds, and fish wastes. huge quantity of ammonia causes a raise in ph and ammonia quantity in the blood of the fish which can harm the gills, the red blood cells, have an effect on osmoregulation, reduce the oxygen transportability of blood and raise the oxygen demand of tissues [26]. in study areas total nitrogen and ammonia are within limit of who and neqs guidelines. total nitrogen values were range from 5.63-7.13 mg/l and ammonia value were range from 0.0106-0.015 mg/l in study areas. phosphorus is found in the variety of inorganic and organic phosphates (po4) in normal waters. inorganic phosphates consist of orthophosphate and polyphosphate while organic forms are those in nature bound phosphates. phosphorous is a restrictive nutrient required for the growth of all plants aquatic plants [27]. in study areas total phosphorus and phosphate are within limit of who and neqs guidelines. total phosphorus values were range from 0.042-0.143 mg/l and phosphate value were range from 0.00590.0160 mg/l in study areas. 3. conclusion from this research it is concluded that the parameters tested in the streams and rivers water samples were in the limits of who and neqs guidelines except turbidity in rivers water sample. there is a dire need that there would be awareness in the public that they could not use rivers water 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[23] g. a. tartari, & r. mosello. analytical methods and quality control in the chemical laboratory of the institute of hydrobiology of the italian national research council. documentaist. ital. idrobiol. 60 (1997) 160. [24] g. w. klontz, epidemiology. in: stoskopf, m.k. (ed.). fish medicine. w.b. saunders, philadelphia, us. (1993) 210-213. [25] environmental protection agency (usepa), chemical contaminants in drinking water. technical fast sheet on microbes.epa 81603-016, 2003. [26] t. b. lawson. fundamentals of aquacultural engineering. new york: chapman and hall. (1995) [27] mueller, k. david and d. r. helsel. nutrients in the nation's waters--too much of a good thing? u.s. geological survey circular 1136. national water-quality assessment program (1999). http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/circ1136.html this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 16 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 journal of mountain area research determination of diverse environmental pollution level from selected areas of rawalpindi, pakistan s. pervez1,*, m. s. siddique1, h. y. abdullah1, a. zahra2, n. k. khanzada1, h. fareed1, g. hasnain1 1. institute of environmental sciences and engineering, national university of sciences and technology (iese, nust), islamabad 2. school of natural sciences, national university of sciences and technology (sns, nust), islamabad abstract anthropogenic contaminants arising from both stationary (power plants, industries and residential heating) and mobile sources (road traffic) can harm ambient air quality in urban areas. depending upon their physical state, these pollutants are classified as liquid and vapor phases and are subsequently transported to the earth’s surface through dry and wet deposition. after the deposition of these pollutants onto the surface of earth various health effects caused by these pollutants occurred like cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. in this study four different locations/sites were selected from the rawalpindi city depending upon the population, traffic rush and industries to examine the noise level, concentration of carbon dioxide and heavy metals. air sampler was used for the collection of air sample to analyze the heavy metal concentration, quest electronic sound meter for measuring sound level and sibata for co2 measurement. the study findings revealed that noise level was higher at all selected locations as described by who limit (70 db) being highest at industrial area due to heavy machinery and lowest at green area. concentration of all four heavy metals were high as compared with the prescribed limits. co2 level reaches up to 300 ppm because of coal consumption during the winter season. the threshold values of all these selected parameters well above the prescribed limits defined by the authorities so to combat with this situation we should move towards more energy efficient fuels, proper maintenance of vehicles and machineries, traffic management and installation of noise barriers in industries as well as installation of catalytic convertors in vehicles to stop further air pollution. keywords: climate change, heavy metals, co2, noise, rawalpindi *corresponding author: (email: saim3035@gmail.com) 1. introduction pakistan is bestowed with a great diversity of landscape, climate, seasons, ecosystems, etc. the landscape ranges from snowcapped peaks in the himalayan range in the north to arabian sea coastline in the south, from agriculture ranges in the plains to hot dry deserts in sindh and baluchistan. this diversity has given rise to a variety of living organisms including flora, fauna, animals, birds, insects, etc. which provide economic vol. 2, 2017 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article mailto:saim3035@gmail.com pervez et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 16-22 17 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 benefits and services to human society as well as ecological, recreational, cultural and aesthetic values. however, this diversity provided by the nature has not been exempted by the human greed for development, has been to a large extent exploiting the variety of resources provided by the nature. although pakistan contributes only 0.8 percent in the global greenhouse gas emissions and is ranked 135th in global ghg per capita emissions, still the countries biodiversity is prone to adverse impacts of climate change and the country has been rated as one of the most vulnerable nations to the adverse effects of climate change. sources of air pollution are: (1) natural (2) manufactured. natural sources includes wind storms, volcanic ash and gases, pollens and gases or odors from natural decomposition while man-made sources of air pollution are: industries and vehicles (elmubarak et al., 2014). the main pollutants from all these sources are carbon dioxide (co2), methane (ch4), hydrocarbons and particulate matter. two different types of air pollutants are present, primary and secondary pollutant. primary pollutants are those that occurs in a harmful concentration, added directly to the air by natural events or human activities while secondary pollutants are formed in atmosphere when a primary pollutant reacts with the normal air components or with other air pollutants. [1]. effects of all these man-made or natural atmospheric pollutants are very adverse like severe respiratory problems such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, and degraded lung function and at last but not least respiratory failure [2, 3]. so, it is necessary to combat with all these types of pollutants and with the sources, that a healthier environment could achieve and climate change not affect at all. the aim of the present study is to analyze and characterize the ambient air of rawalpindi city for the quantitative assessment of heavy metals, noise level and carbon dioxide emissions from anthropogenic sources and examine the current level of compliance with environmental regulations. 2. materials and methods the present study deals with the characterization and analysis of ambient air of rawalpindi city. for this analysis, four different locations based upon populations and industrial density were selected. bahria town was selected as residential area while commercial market selected as a commercial area. murree road is one of the congested and busy road of rawalpindi city and also industries lies on the side of the road hence it was selected as industrial area whereas ayub park selected as green area. air samples were collected from december to february. a brief methodology followed during the project was: 1. selection of the area 2. visiting the sites 3. taking the readings of noise and co2 4. collecting the air samples 5. obtaining the heavy metals measurements using the aas. 6. comparing the values with standards the analysis of different parameters measured were performed using standard pervez et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 16-22 18 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 methods by apha (american public health association) 2010 as reference. figure 1. selection of the areas 2.1. measurement of noise level for noise measurement the standard method was used as described in the literature. instrument that was used named as quest electronic sound meter (model 211 fs). first of all turn on the meter, select 100 db range position then switch on the calibrator and check battery level indicator, carefully insert the meter microphone into the calibrator coupler. if reading is off slightly, insert a small screwdriver in the small hole on the bottom of the meter. now change the selector switch to 110 db position on the meter and note the needle should drop to the zero position on the meter dial. meter is now calibrated and ready for use. allow the needle to stabilize and record the measurement. (apha, 2010) figure 2. quest electronic sound meter 2.2. measurement of carbon dioxide (co2) co2 in air was monitored using combustion gas analyzer (us). the co2 value was monitored and average was calculated. the sound level was monitored with the help of a portable sound meter. the equipment was mounted on a tripod stand with a microphone 1.5 m above the ground level. the data was continuously monitored and average values were calculated. (apha, 2010) figure 3. sibata co2 meter 2.3. air samples for heavy metals determination pall flex quartz fiber filter was used for air sampling which was preheated at 550 0c for 1 hour. it was then mounted on an air sampler for 2 hours and air flow was kept at 1m3/min. after sampling, the paper was stored in aluminum foil and stored in freezer till analysis. heavy metals were determined by chemically digesting filter paper and the resulting solution analyzed using aas (atomic absorption spectrometer) [4]. pervez et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 16-22 19 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 3. results and discussion results and discussion were made according to the survey of the selected areas and after the calculation of the desired pollutant level. 3.1. noise level at selected sites of study area the noise level determined using the sound meter at all the selected locations and found it to be that at location of ayub park which is declared as green area has the minimum level of 78db while the residential area and commercial area both have the same value of noise level i.e. 90db although commercial area has more average value which is because of excessive vehicle horn and heavy traffic jam [5]. the value of sound was higher at industrial area i.e. 80-90db because of heavy machinery working and industrial plants. the noise level at all the selected locations was greater than the prescribed limits given by world health organization (who). chronic exposure of this loud noise level cause problems like cardiovascular and hypertension [6]. figure 4. average of noise level (db) 3.2. carbon dioxide concentration at selected locations because of anthropogenic activities, co2 concentration was up to 300ppm. max average value was observed at bahria town i.e. 238 ppm while minimum average value was noted at commercial market. murree road and ayub park had the average values of 214 and 207 ppm respectively. astonishingly the area expected to have minimum pollution levels i.e. residential area of ayub park had maximum average values observed. this was probably winds blowing that took high concentrations of co2 from congested areas like commercial markets to residential areas like bahria town [7]. moreover highest values were observed at 1: 00 pm and 7: 00 pm because these are the peak hours having maximum traffic population. pakistan is one of top 50 countries in terms of co2 emissions [8]. figure 5. average of carbon dioxide (co2) concentration (ppm) 3.3. heavy metals concentrations 3.3.1. lead maximum concentration was observed at bahria town i.e. 149 µg/m3 while minimum at ayub park i.e. 63 µg/m3 .there are two main sources of lead, lower quality fuel combustion and lead based paints [9]. both of these sources are absent in ayub park pervez et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 16-22 20 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 that’s why it has minimum concentration while in residential area paints and use of fuel in generators for electricity purpose are the source that’s why it has maximum values. all values are exceeding who guidelines of 0.5 µg/m3 which is alarming because lead is very harmful for human health mainly damage to nervous system even leading to death [10]. 3.3.2. chromium maximum concentration was observed at commercial market i.e. 42 µg/m3 while minimum at ayub park. all the values are exceeding who guidelines for 0.11 µg/m3. chromium is build up in atmosphere when there is lack of winds and air congestion. as commercial market was congested area so there was lack of winds in area which results in chromium buildup due to pollution in area. when there is good wind it is readily diluted. chromium in air can lead to lung cancer [11]. 3.3.3. arsenic maximum value was observed at commercial market i.e. 33 µg/m3.main sources of arsenic are fuel combustion and metal smelting and aerosols from pesticide. welding shops lead to smelting while pesticides are used in parks adding to fuel combustion of vehicles. all the values are exceeding guidelines of who i.e.0.11 µg/m3. this should be taken as important concern because arsenic is very poisonous for human health [12]. 3.3.4. iron all the values were exceeding the standards set by who for iron in air i.e. 150 µg/m3. highest values were obtained at commercial market and murree road i.e. 376 and 512 µg/m3 respectively. sources were use of old machinery, dust winds and local industrial area [13]. 3.3.5. manganese manganese concentration were lowest among all the heavy metals detected but it was still higher than who standards i.e. 0.15 µg/m3.highest levels were obtained at murree road i.e. 162 µg/m3 and lowest levels were detected at ayub park i.e. 3 µg/m3. sources of manganese are production of steel and alloys and burning of fossil fuels that’s why it has maximum concentration at murree road. [4]. its chronic exposure can cause neurological disorders [14]. figure 6. average concentration of heavy metals 4. conclusions it was observed that almost all the values for heavy metals and noise were found to be exceeding the who guidelines that is very alarming situation for the city environment and its inhabitants. poisonous and dangerous heavy metals such as arsenic (peak value: 33 µg/m3, who limit: 0.11 µg/m3), lead (peak value: 149 µg/m3, who limit: 0.50 µg/m3) and chromium (peak value: 42 µg/m3, who limit: 0.11 µg/m3) are more than 10 times their guideline values. average noise levels were around 80-90 db whereas safe hearing limit is pervez et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 16-22 21 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 below 85 db. co2 values (300 ppm) were although in bearable limit but it is a greenhouse gas so this average amount of co2 may be significant for our global temperature rise. references [1] h. peace, b. owen, d.w. raper, comparison of road traffic emission factors and testing by comparison of modelled and measured ambient air quality data, sci. total environ 334-335 (2004) 385-395. 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[24] m. anicic, m. tomasevic, m. tasic, s. rajsic, a. popovic, m.v. frontasyeva, s. lierhagen, and e. steinnes, monitoring of trace element atmospheric deposition using dry and wet moss bags: accumulation capacity versus exposure time, j hazard. mater 171 (2009)182-188. [25] niosh, niosh regulations and guidelines (2003). [26] r. j. thompson, g. b. morgan, l. j. purdue, analysis of metallic air pollutants, at. absorpt. newsl. 9 (1970)195. [27] b. mason, principles of geochemistry, 3th edition, john wiley and sons, (1966). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 27 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 journal of mountain area research gis-based high-resolution geological map (scale 1:50,000): a new window into structural domains of the quetta and surrounding areas nisar ahmed1, akhtar muhammad kassi2, aimal khan kasi1, khawar sohail3, muhammad asif4, abdul naeem3, muhammad panezai1 1centre of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan, pakistan 2department of geology, university of balochistan, pakistan 3 geological survey of pakistan, quetta 4department earth sciences, quaid-i-azam university, pakistan abstract the quetta and surrounding areas are part of the collision zone between the indian and eurasian plates, named as kirthar and sulaiman fold-thrust belts. the collision is accommodated by folding, thrusting and the nushki-chaman transform fault system. detailed high-resolution (scale 1:50,000) mapping and structural analyses were carried out using modern remote-sensing techniques of the arcgis to understand mutual relationships of the structural patterns and geometries, and the regional and local stress patterns in the study area. fieldwork was carried out to acquire the stratigraphic, structural and geomorphological data, using topographic maps and satellite images as base maps in order to plot additional information and further incorporate them in the gis-based map. balanced structural cross-sections were also prepared along the selected lines using arcgis techniques. based on new mapping, the understudy area has been subdivided into five distinct structural domains. these domains are classified as; domain i: broad syncline intervened by a narrow anticline; domain ii: upright folds and thrusts; domain iii: tight, over-turned thrust zone; domain iv: flysch and molasse successions of paleocene-holocene age; and domain v: suture belt (ophiolites) and associated mélanges and sediments. keywords: gis, geological map, structural cross-sections, lithostratigraphy, structural domain *corresponding author: (email: nakhan621@gmail.com 1. introduction the quetta and its surrounding area (fig. 1) is part of the active collision zone between the indian and eurasian plates (powel., 1979). collision caused formation of the major foldthrust belts; such as, the kirthar and sulaiman fold-thrust belts (bannert et al., 1992; bender and raza, 1995). the map area covers western part of the sulaiman fold-thrust belt (sftb) and northern part of kirthar fold-thrust belt (kftb). it is bounded by khojak-pishin belt (kpb) in the west and northwest and by gazaband fault (gf), and in the south by the kftb (fig. 1) and mostly comprises volcano-sedimentary successions of the triassic through pleistocene age. in response to the head-on collision the relative plate movement is accommodated in part by vol. , 202 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v7i0.146 full length article mailto:nakhan621@gmail.com ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023)27-48 28 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 the folding and thrusting (fig. 1) and in part by the nushki-chaman transform fault system (nctfs), which is considered transform boundary between the india and afghan block of the eurasia (powel, 1979; bannert et al., 1992; bender and raza, 1995). the quetta syntaxes (qs) is an oroclinal bend at the confluence of the kirthar and sulaiman fold-thrust belts, which acts as a junction for various major faults (bender and raza, 1995; haq and davis 1997). the kftb, to the south of the qs, is verging eastward, whereas, the sftb is verging southward. bannert et al. (1992) proposed that generally the rigid afghan block to the northnorthwest of the sftb is assumed to have played an important role to accommodate the strain. figure 1. terrain map showing study and surrounding areas, modified after farah et al. (1984) and maldonado et al. (1998); c, chaman; cma, chaghi magmatic arc; g, gilgit; h, herat; i, islamabad; kftb, kirther fold-thrust belt; kpb, khojak-pishin belt; k, karachi; kb, kabul; kd, kandahar; l, lahore; n, nal; p, peshawar; q, quetta; sftb, sulaiman fold-thrust belt; s, sibi; su, sui; sr, salt range; b, bela ophiolite complex; d, dargai ophiolite complex; ko, khost ophiolite complex; map, makran accretionary prism; mb, muslim bagh-bagh ophiolite complex; wo, waziristan ophiolite complex; zo, zhob ophiolite complex; bf, basement fault; cf, chaman fault; df, dalbandin fault; gf, gardez fault; gwf, gwal-bagh fault; gb, ghazaband-zhob fault; f, frontal fault; hf, herat fault; mbt, main boundary thrust; mft, main frontal thrust; mkt, main karakoram thrust; mmt, main mantle thrust; on, ornach-nal fault; pf, pab rang fault; sf, sarobi fault. the area possesses active faults that have been causing major earthquakes that caused a lot of damage to life and infrastructure (ambraseys and bilham, 2003); (avouac et al., 2014); main examples are the 1935 quetta and 2008 ziarat earthquakes. one segment of the nctfs, i.e. the gf, that lie adjacent to the qs; has been responsible for some major earthquakes in the region during past (ambraseys and bilham, 2003; avouac et al., 2014). however, till date no detailed (high-resolution large-scale) mapping of the study area has been carried out in order to understand the detailed stratigraphy, structure, and seismic behavior of the active faults. therefore, we produced the detailed (high-resolution large-scale) map of the area for the mentioned purpose. the map area comprises over 16 topo-sheets of the survey of pakistan (fig. 2), which covers parts of the eight districts of the balochistan. the northwestern part of the map area covers parts of the killa abdullah and pishin districts, the northeastern part lies in the khanozai and killa saifullah districts, the eastern part lies in the ziarat district, ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 27-48 29 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 the southeastern part lies in the sibi and bolan districts and the southwestern part lies in the mastung district. the quetta district comprises the central part of the study area, which is the main focus of this study. most of the study area is connected with the quetta city by metaled roads. figure 2. satellite image showing the study area, which comprises 16 topographic sheets (of 1:50,000 scale) of the survey of pakistan, as mentioned on the image. 2 methods 2.1 study design extensive fieldwork was carried out in the study area and information of the stratigraphic, structural and geomorphological aspects were obtained. for this purpose, topographic maps and satellite images were used, as base maps, for plotting additional information obtained during fieldwork. structural information, acquired in the field, was plotted and traced along fault lines on satellite imagery, in order to measure the movements along fault planes. the types of contacts between various rock formations were checked, confirmed on the ground and plotted on the base map of the area for incorporation in our final gis-based map. measurement of structural attributes, e.g. dip, strike, lineation etc., were measured, particularly along planned traverses. various faults, associated folds and their geometries were also observed and analyzed. the density and orientations of fractures in different stratigraphic units were also recorded. ultimately a detailed geological map of the field area was prepared, which was mainly based on interpretation of satellite imagery. 2.2 instrumentation various major and minor structures were plotted on the topographic maps on a scale of 1:50,000. balanced structural cross-sections were prepared along the selected traverses, using arcgis, and tectonic models proposed for the purpose of sequential evolution of the mountain ranges. field observations and published studies were used to confirm the location and nature of different faults, fault systems, their geometry and effects on the quetta and surrounding areas. 3 stratigraphy of the study area the map area mostly comprises volcanosedimentary successions of the triassic through pleistocene age (fig. 3a, b; table 1). the adjacent areas to the north and northeast comprise the muslimbagh-zhob ophiolite and ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023)27-48 30 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 associated sedimentary succession and mélanges of the triassic through eocene age (fig. 3a, b; table 2) and the khojak-pishin belt, composed of late paleocene pleistocene sedimentary succession (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4), respectively. additional lithostratigraphic units, identified more recently by some workers, not mapped before, were also incorporated. they include triassic gwal formation, jurassic units like spingwar, loralai, shirinab, takatu and chiltan limestones, cretaceous bibai group, miocene-pleistocene uzdha pasha, shin matai and urak conglomerate of the urak group, pleistocene kach dam conglomerate and hanna lake conglomerate, hanna red clays and spin karez conglomerate of the spin karez group. the map also shows mesozoic bagh complex of the muslimbagh ophiolites, various lithostratigraphic units of the nisai group and murgha faqirzai and shaigalu members of the khojak formation, the dasht murgh group, malgthanai formation etc. various lithostratigraphic units, shown in the mapped and adjacent area, are briefly described below: 3.1 western sulaiman fold-thrust belt and zarghun-sibbi trough over 15 km thick succession of sedimentary rocks, of triassic recent age in the sftb (fig. 3(a, b); table 1), overlies the crystalline basement of the india. the northern zarghun sibbi trough (zst) comprises over 4000 m thick rocks of the urak group (kazmi and raza, 1970; shah, 1977, 2009). also, over 800 m thick succession of the spin karez group overlies the ghazij formation in the hanna-spin karez area (naseer et al., 2019). in the sftb numerous unconformities have been recognized between the lithostratigraphic units (table 1) (shah, 1977; 2009; bender and raza, 1995; kassi et al., 2009). 31 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 figure 3(a). geological map of quetta and surrounding areas, which comprises 16 topographic sheets (1:50000 scale) of the survey of pakistan. 32 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 figure 3(b). geological cross-sections of quetta and surrounding areas. 33 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 table 1. stratigraphic succession of the western sftb and associated zst. age group formation (map units) lithology holocene sub-recent/recent (qay) loose debris, sand, gravel, clay pleistocene spin karez group kach dam conglomerate (qkc) conglomerate spin karez conglomerate (qsc) conglomerate, sandstone, clays hanna red clays (qhrc) reddish brown clays hanna lake conglomerate (qhc) conglomerate dada conglomerate (qd) conglomerate unconformity pliocene urak/sibbi group (qts) urak conglomerate (qtuc) conglomerate shin matai formation (qtsh) mudstone, sandstone, conglomerate miocene uzda pusha formation (qtuz) sandstone, mudstone disconformity (angular unconformity in some areas) eocene kirthar formation (tk) limestone, shale ghazij formation (tg) claystone, sandstone, conglomerate, limestone and coal seams paleocene dungan formation (tku) limestone, shale disconformity (in some areas) late cretaceous pab formation / mughal kot formation / fort munro formation / hanna lake limestone sandstone, siltstone, shale, limestone, bibai group (kb) bibai formation chinjin volcanics in-situ mafic volcanic rocks, volcanic conglomerate, volcanic breccia, volcanogenic sandstone, mudstone disconformity (in some areas) early-middle cretaceous parh group (kjm) parh limestone goru formation sembar formation limestone (bio-micritic), marl and shale disconformity jurassic chiltan limestone (jc) loralai limestone (jl) shirinab formation (js) limestone and minor shale ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023)27-48 34 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 spingwar formation triassic khanozai group wulgai formation (tkw) shale, limestone and sandstone gwal formation (tkg) variegated shale and limestone base not exposed triassic the triassic khanozai group anwar et al (1993) comprises lower triassic gwal formation anwar et al (1993) and upper triassic wulgai formation (williams, 1959). they are the oldest sedimentary successions of the sftb (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). the gwal formation (anwar et al., 1993) comprises variegated shale, limestone and marl of lower triassic age. the wulgai formation is composed of limestone interbedded with shale. various species of ammonites and bivalves are reported, which specify triassic age to the group (fatmi, 1977; shah, 1977). the base of triassic is not exposed anywhere in the sftb. jurassic jurassic rocks comprise the spingwar, shirinab and chiltan formations (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). the spingwar (williams, 1959) consists of grey to greenish grey shale, grey to whitish grey marl and limestone with some igneous sills. it’s upper triassic to early jurassic age is based on fossils like ammonites, brachiopods, bivalves, crinoids, corals and shell fragments (williams, 1959; anwar, et al, 1991). the shirinab (jones,1961);fatmi, (1977) comprises 1500 to 3000 m thick limestone and shale succession (williams, 1959; jones, 1961; fatmi, 1977). shirinab formation transitionally and conformably underlies the chiltan limestone jones, (1961), which is named after the chiltan range and composed of thickbedded limestone. the loralai limestone (jones, 1961), named after the town of loralai (fig. 3(a, b); table 1), comprises thick-bedded limestone and minor shale kassi and khan, (1993, 1997); (durrani et al., 2012; durrani, 2014) of middle jurassic age (jones, 1961; fatmi, 1977). the chiltan and loralai limestones transitionally and conformably overerlie the shirinab and wulgai formations. cretaceous the early to middle cretaceous rocks (fig. 3(a, b); table 1) are composed of parh group jones (1961), which is divided into sembar, goru and parh formations (williams, 1959; jones, 1961; gigon, 1962; fritz and khan, 1967; fatmi, 1977; allemann, 1979). the sembar formation of williams, (1959) is composed mostly of shale interbedded with siltstone, arenaceous limestone and sandstone (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). the shale contains belemnites, foraminifera and ammonites of late jurassic to early cretaceous age (williams, 1959; fatmi, 1968, 1972, 1977). it is conformably underlain by goru formation (williams, 1959); (jones, 1961), which comprises shale and siltstone interbedded with limestone containing pelagic foraminifera of the early ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 27-48 35 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 cretaceous age (williams, 1959; fritz and khan, 1967; allemann, 1979). its upper contact with parh limestone is conformable (vredenburg, 1909); williams, 1959), which is distinctive biomicritic limestone of light grey, white and cream colour, rich in pelagic foraminifers of early late cretaceous age (gigon, 1962; allemann, 1979). its upper contact with bibai group is conformable, whereas in quetta area it is disconformable with the hanna lake limestone (kassi et al., 1999, 2000, 2009). the late cretaceous succession is comprised of bibai groups, hanna lake limestone, fort munro, mughal kot and pab formations. the bibai group (williams, (1959); (kazmi, 1955, 1979, 1984, 1988; khan, 1998; khan et al., 2000; shah et al., 2021) is composed of volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). the group transitionally and conformably overlies the parh limestone (kazmi, 1955, 1988; khan et al., 1999; shah et al., 2021). in kach-ziarat area it is unconformably overlain by the dungan formation (kazmi, 1955, 1988); elsewhere its upper contact is transitional and conformable with the pab formation (khan et al., 1999; shah et al., 2021). the limestone, interlayered with the bibai group, in its lower part, contains pelagic foraminifera of campanian age kazmi (1955, 1988), whereas, its upper part contains foraminifera kazmi (1955, 1988) that suggest an early to middle maastrichtian age. the hanna lake limestone of kassi et al (1999, 2000, 2009) is argillaceous limestone, which is the equivalent of the bibai group kazmi (1955, 1979, 1984, 1988); kassi et al., 1993; khan, 1998; khan et al., 1998, 1999, 2000; shah et al., 2021) and mughal kot formation (williams, 1959; fatmi, 1977) (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). late campanian to early maastrichtian age has been proposed by (kassi et al., 1999). it’s lower contact (with the parh limestone) and upper contact (with the fort munro formation) is disconformable. the fort munro formation (eames, 1952; williams, 1959; allemann, 1979) (fig. 3(a, b); table 1) comprises limestone containing orbitoides of the upper maastrichtian age (williams, 1959; allemann, 1979). upper contact of the formation with pab sandstone is disconformable (table 1). the pab sandstone (vredenburg, 1907) is brownish grey and cream colour and quartzose (fig. 3(a, b); table 1) containing orbitoides of the upper maastrichtian age (vredenburg 1908; williams 1959; jones, 1961). its upper contact with the paleocene dungan formation is conformable. furthermore, numerous sills and dykes are present, which have been intruded in the triassic–lower cretaceous successions of the western sftb during late cretaceous. they have been classified as dolerite, olivine dolerite and lamprophyres (kerr et al., 2010); (muhammad et al., 2019) that are related to the late cretaceous magmatic activity, most appropriately hotspot-related, e.g. the deccan trap and chagos-laccadive ridge (kerr et al., 2010; muhammad et al., 2019). ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023)27-48 36 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 paleocene the dungan limestone (griesbach, 1881); (oldham, 1893; jones, 1961) is a thick succession of highly fossiliferous, nodular to massive limestone and marl, containing an assemblage of the larger foraminifera of paleocene to early eocene age (jones, 1961; allemann, 1979) (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). it is conformably overlain by the eocene ghazij formation. eocene the ghazij formation (oldham, 1890); (eames, 1952; jones, 1961; williams 1959; fatmi, 1974) is a thick succession of shale, claystone, sandstone, limestone, conglomerate, containing coal seams (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). the limestone horizons contain fresh-water lamellibranch, gastropods, mollusks, foraminifers and corals, which suggest an early eocene age (iqbal, 1969a, b). it is conformably overlain by the kirther formation. the kirther formation/ spin tangai limestone (oldham, 1890); (noetling, 1903; jones, 1961; cheema et al., 1977; fatmi, 1977) is distinguishable into the lower limestone-dominant part and upper shale-dominant part (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). lower part is mainly composed of thin to thick bedded argillaceous and nodular limestone, rich in foraminifera. upper part is composed of highly fossiliferous shale containing foraminifera, mollusks, brachiopods, echinoids, bivalves and vertebrate remains (oldham, 1890); (vredenburg, 1908; pilgrim, 1940; eames, 1952; jones, 1961; latif, 1964; iqbal, 1966, 1969); which suggest middle to late eocene age. its upper contact in the zst is disconformable with the urak group (kazmi and raza, 1970; durrani, 1997; durrani et al., 1999). miocene-pliocene the urak group (table 1), named after the village of urak (kazmi and raza, (1970) (sibbi group of jones, (1961) is mainly exposed in the zst. it comprises mollase-type sediments, composed of light grey sandstone (uzhda pusha formation), reddish and brownish grey claystone and sandstone (shin matai formation) and conglomerate (urak formation) (jones, 1961; kazmi and raza, 1970; durani 1997; durani et al., 1999; kassi et al., 2009). the uzda pusha formation of (kazmi and raza (1970) is composed of sandstone, claystone and conglomerate containing vertebrate fossils (pilgrim, 1913, 1926); (anderson, 1928; colbert, 1933; lewis, 1937; gill, 1952; pascoe, 1963) (fig. 3(a, b); table 1) of middle to late miocene age. upper contact of the formation is conformable with the shin matai formation (fig. 3(a, b); table 1), which is characterized by monotonous cyclic alterations of sandstone, claystone, containing vertebrate fossils pascoe, (1963) suggesting an early to middle pliocene age. it is conformably overlain by the urak formation [urak conglomerate of kazmi and raza (1970)], which is composed of conglomerate, sandstone and claystone (fig. 3(a, b); table 1) of pleistocene age (kravtchenko, 1964). the conglomerate is composed of a variety of pebbles and boulders. ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 27-48 37 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 pleistocene quaternary rocks of the hanna-spin karez area, quetta district, comprise over 800 m thick succession that was mapped as spin karez gravel (jones, 1961). it was named (naseer, 2019; naseer et al., 2019) as “spin karez group” and subdivided it into the “hanna lake conglomerate”, “hanna red clays”, spin karez conglomerate”, of pleistocene age, and flat lying “holocene deposits” (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). the “hanna lake conglomerate”, is thick succession of crudely bedded conglomerate in lower part and stratified conglomerate, with sandstone lenses, in upper part. its lower contact with the eocene ghazij formation is an angular unconformity. the “hanna red clays” over 500 m thick succession of red-coloured mudstone rarely interbedded with thin-bedded sandstone and siltstone. it conformably overlies the hanna lake conglomerate. the “spin karez conglomerate” is ~100 m thick, moderatelyto well-sorted conglomerate containing sandstone lenses. the holocene rocks are 1020m thick succession of sediments comprising gravel, clay and silt. they overlie the “hanna red clays” with angular unconformity. near the old kach dam area, west of the hanna lake, over 100 m thick succession of the conglomerate is exposed, which extends further northward, west of the sran tangi. the succession has not been reported, mapped and/or described before, therefore, we arbitrarily named it as the “kach dam conglomerate”. it is mostly composed of cobbles and pebbles of limestones with very minor proportions of sandstone lenses. the conglomerate unit has faulted contact with the urak group and is envisaged to be of pleistocene age. 3.2 muslimbagh-zhob ophiolitic belt the muslimbagh-zhob ophiolite, and associated mélanges and sediments, have been obducted on triassic through cretaceous sedimentary succession of the sftb, which are considered as the boundary between the india and eurasia (gansser, 1979; ahmad and abbas, 1979; sengor, 1987) (figs. 1 and 3; table 2). table 2. stratigraphy of the muslimbagh-zhob ophiolite and khojak-pishin belt. age group formation (map unit) lithological characters holocene zhob river deposits gravel, sand and clays thrust / angular unconformity pleistocene bostan formation red colored mudstone, sandstone, conglomerate thrust / angular unconformity late miocenepliocene malthanai formation sandstone, conglomerate, red-colored mudstone thrust/angular unconformity middle to late miocene dasht murgha group sra khula formation red-coloured mudstone, siltstone and sandstone bahlol nika formation greyish sandstone, mudstone and conglomerate khuzhobai formation maroon mudstone with reddish-brown sandstone thrust / angular unconformity oligocene – early miocene khojak formation shaigalu member (tsh) sandstone with subordinate shale ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023)27-48 38 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 murgha faqirzai member (tm) shale with subordinate sandstone eocene nisai formation (tn) fossiliferous and reefoid limestone, marl and shale with thin limestone beds nonconformity cretaceous muslim bagh zhob ophiolite (kmo) mostly ultramafic and mafic igneous rocks mélange rocks (ktb) mixed-up igneous and sedimentary rocks the ophiolites, are shown in the northwestern part of the map, to the south of zhob valley (fig. 3(a, b)). they are composed of six units, which, from base to top, are: (1) ultramafic tectonites, (2) ultramafic rocks, (3) mixed cyclic succession of mafic and ultramafic rocks, (4) mafic rocks, (5) sheeted dikes and (6) pillow lavas and associated sediments (ahamad and abbas, 1979; mengal et al., 1993). the ophiolites comprise the harzburgite and dunite, which include chromite deposits. they also comprise peridotite that stratigraphically underlie the ultramafic-mafic cumulates. the mafic and ultramafic succession underlie the basaltic pillow lava, massive lava, volcanic breccia and pelagic limestone, radiolarian chert and mudstone succession of jurassic age (kojima et al., 1994). basalts are considered to be tholeiitic, showing characteristics of the mid-ocean-ridge sawada et al. (1992) of cretaceous age (kojima et al., 1994). k-ar dating of volcanics indicate 68 to 81 ma (sawada et al., 1992). the ophiolite preserves sub-ophiolitic metamorphic rocks at its base. geochemistry of crustal rocks of ophiolite suggests supra-subduction zone setting (kerr et al., 2010; kakar et al. 2014; muhammad et al., 2019). the ophiolites overlie the mélange complex, comprising mixed-up igneous and sedimentary rocks of the mesozoic age at the bagh area (fig. 3(a, b)), called bagh complex (mengal et al. 1993, 1994; kojima et al., 994; naka et al., 1996). northward the complex is bounded by the muslimbagh-zhob ophiolite and to the south by the gwal bagh fault (fig. 3(a, b)). the ophiolites are non-conformably overlain by the eocene nisai formation. age of emplacement of the ophiolites, onto the sedimentary succession of indian plate, was thought to be middle paleocene to early eocene (allenman, 1979; otsukie et al., 1989). however, kojima et al. (1994) proposed the age of emplacement as late cretaceous to early paleocene. 3.3 khojak-pishin belt the khojak-pishin belt (kpb) comprises numerous small-size exposures / blocks of the ophiolites, the late paleocene–early oligocene nisai group jones, (1961); (kakar, 2012; kasi et al., 2012; bukhari et al., 2016) that nonconformably overlies the muslimbagh-zhobe ophiolites (fig. 3(a, b), fig. 4), followed by the oligocene khojak formation jones, (1961); (qayyum et al., 1996, 1997) and miocene-pleistocene rocks of the dasht murgh group and malgtanai and bostan formations (table 2) (kasi, 2012; kasi et al. 2012, 2016a, 2016b, 2018). kasi et al. (2012; 2016a, 2016b, 2018) divided the khojak-pishin belt in various tectono-stratigraphic zones of ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 27-48 39 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 distinct lithostratigraphy bounded by thrusts and unconformities. their zone-i comprises the muslimbagh-zobe ophiolites at the base; zoneii comprises the late paleocene–early oligocene nisai group (kakar, 2012; bukhari et al., 2016) and oligocene khojak formation, zone-iii comprises their dasht murgha group. zone-iv comprises their mio-pliocene malgthanai formation, zone-v comprises pleistocene bostan formation and zone-vi comprises holocene succession of zhob valley. kasi et al. (2012; 2016a, 2016b, 2018) first-time invoked the relation of tectonics with sedimentation / stratigraphy of the khojak-pishin belt and demonstrated uplifting of miocene and older rocks supplying sediments to the younger rocks of dasht murgha group and malgthanai and bostan formations. they proposed that tectonic uplift and east-southeastward transport of hanging walls of the major thrusts caused subsidence of the footwalls, which provided accommodation for development of the successively younger fluvial systems, in which the dasht murgha group, malthanai and bostan formations and the flat-laying holocene deposits of the zhob valley were deposited, respectively. ophiolites numerous small-size exposures / blocks of the ophiolites, and associates sedimentary and volcanic rocks, are also exposed in the khojakpishin belt (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4) in the form of thrustbound belts kasi, (2012); (kasi et al., 2012; 2014; 2016a, 2016b, 2018) that have not been studied and/or mapped so far by any researcher. however, we presume them to be the equivalent of the muslimbagh-zhob ophiolite. fig. 4. ophiolite rock sequence modal boudier and nicolas (1985). nisai group the late paleocene–early oligocene nisai formation (jones, 1961; shah, 1977, 2009; ahmad and afzal, 2002; kakar, 2012; bukhari et al., 2016) is a mixed siliciclastic-carbonate succession of the khojak-pishin belt, which nonconformably overlies ophiolites of the zhob valley (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4) and is conformably overlain by the fluvial and deltaic successions of the khojak formation. kakar, (2012) preferred to rename it as “nisai group” and identified three contrasting and mapable lithostratigraphic units and named them, from base to top, as jabrai, malkhozgai and nisai formations. its upper ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023)27-48 40 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 contact is conformable and transitional with the murgh faqirzai member of the khojak formation. khojak formation the khojak formation was subdivided into murgha faqirzi and shaigalu members (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4) (vredenburg, 1909; jones, 1961). murgha faqirzai member dominantly comprises shale and/or slate, sandstone. jones, (1961) assigned it oligocene age based on foraminifera. its upper contact with shaigalu member is conformable. the shaigalu member (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4) comprises sandstone and shale. the foraminiferal assemblage suggests oligocene age for the khojak formation (jones, 1961). dasht murgha group the dasht murgha group kasi et al. (2012; (2016a, 2016b, 2018) comprises the succession exposed northwest of the dasht murgha area of the qila saifullah district (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4). previously, it was mapped as khojak formation jones, (1961) and later on dasht murgha group and the bostan formation were mapped as sharankar formation (qayyum et al., 1997a, 2001). kasi et al. (2012, 2016a, 2016b, 2018) proposed it to be early-middle miocene. malgthanai formation the name malgthanai formation was proposed by (kasi et al., 2012; 2016a, 2016b, 2018) for multana formation of jones, (1961), after malgthanai village (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4). it is composed of sandstone, siltstone, mudstone and conglomerate. its upper contact with the pleistocene bostan formation is thrust and lower contact with nisai formation is unconformable. kasi et al. (2012; 2016a, 2016b, 2018) envisaged that the malgtanai formation is younger than dasht murgha group and may be of late miocene-pliocene. bostan formation the bostan formation jones, (1961) is composed of conglomerate, mudstone and sandstone (kasi et al., 2012; 2016a, 2016b, 2018) (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4) of pleistocene age (jones, 1961; cheema et al., 1977; kasi et al., 2012; kasi, 2014). in zhob valley its lower and upper contacts with the malgthanai formation and holocene deposits are thrusts. however, it is envisaged that its lower contact with the older rocks is an angular unconformity. holocene-recent deposits the holocene-recent deposits, present mostly in the zhob valley (fig. 3(a, b); table 2), are represented by flat-lying deposits (kasi et al., 2012; kasi, 2014) (fig. 3(a, b); fig. 4). they are dominantly composed of loose or semiconsolidated mud, sand, siltstone and gravel, considered to be holocene. they mostly overlie the older successions with angular unconformity. 4 structure and tectonics the quetta and surrounding areas (figs. 1 2 and 3) lie in the kirthar-sulaiman fold-thrust belt (ksftb). quetta syntaxis (qs) and zarghun-sibbi trough (zst) are two key structures that lie ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 27-48 41 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 between the kirthar fold-thrust belt (kftb) and sulaiman fold-thrust belt (sftb). furthermore, the ghazaband fault (gf) is another feature, which is part of the nushki-chaman transform fault system (nctfs) that separates the khojak-pishin belt (kpb) from the ksftb. 4.1 kirthar-sulaiman fold-thrust belt the ksftb initiated with the collision of india plate with the eurasia plate in paleocene early eocene (molnar and tapponier, 1975; border, 1978; acharya, 1979; alemann, 1979; bingham and klootwjik, 1980; otsuki et al., 1989). general trend of the kftb is n-s; however, it accommodates multi-phase prolonged and continued deformation of the volcanosedimentary successions of triassic-pleistocene age (fig. 3(a, b); table 1). westward it is bounded by the nctfs and eastward by the kirthar foredeep (lawrence and yeats, 1979; lawrence et al., 1981). the sftb is northeastward continuation of the kftb, which is separated by the intervening features of qs and zst. the kftb comprises imbricate slices that developed during the southward-propagating piggy-back thrusting (lawrence and yeats, 1979; lawrence et al., 1981). 4.2 zarghun-sibbi trough the zst is a trough-shaped basin that accommodated over 4000 m thick succession of molasse sediments of the miocenepleistocene sibbi and urak groups, locally derived from the ksftb (figs. 1 2 and 3). the mollasse successions of the zst, between the zarghun and sibbi areas, are highly deformed that display obvious intervening patterns (figs. 1 and 3). the coarse clastic sediments, of the zst, were continuously provided by the ksftb. similar situation may be proposed for siwaliks of kohatpotwar area (burbank and reynolds, 1984). 4.3 quetta syntaxis syntaxes are defined as arcuate parts of the fold-thrust belts formed due to systematic rotation in plan (carey, 1955). some syntaxes (e.g. the sicilian calabrian and umbrian syntaxes of italy) developed by active rotation of fold-thrust belts due to impingement across a promontory (catalano et al., 1976), whereas, others are original curvatures, not related to the active rotation of fold-thrust belts. the quetta syntaxis (qs), western pakistan (figs. 1, 2 and 3), is a sharp bend, which separates the e-wtrending western sftb from the n-s-trending kftb. the qs formed due to relative movement of the gf in the west against the relatively consistent sibbi block in the east (wadia, 1931; jones, 1961; bakr and jackson 1964; auden, 1974; sarwar and dejong, 1979; kazmi and rana, 1982). 4.4 ghazaband fault the ghazaband fault (gf) is one of the most important features involved in development of the qs. in the early cenozoic era the interaction of indian, eurasian and arabian plates caused formations of two subduction zones; one in the south, i.e. the makran subduction zone, and another in the north, i.e. the himalayan convergent margin (molnar and tapponnier, 1975; treloar and izatt 1993). after collision the ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023)27-48 42 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 plate boundaries of the indian and eurasian plates were linked by sinistral strike-slip faults of the nctfs in the western pakistan. it comprises three major splays, arranged in en-echelon pattern, namely the ghzaband, ornach-nal and chaman faults, along with associated minor transpressive faults (siddiqui and jadoon, 2013). the nctfs is over 900 km long fault system, which connects various thrusts of makran belt in the south, with the main boundary thrust (mbt) and herat fault in afghanistan. gf, being a splay of the nctfs, continues for 300 km sub-parallel to the system, starting from the gajozai village of khuzdar district (27˚ 11ʹ 28ʺ n, 65˚ 48ʹ 30ʺ e) to the town of pishin (30˚ 25ʹ 21.95ʺ n, 66˚ 57ʹ 00.72ʺ e). studies on the slip-rates have suggested rates of 8 ± 3.1 cm/year along the chaman fault and 16 ± 2.3 cm/year along the gf, respectively, which shows that the gf is the most hazardous in the region (figs. 1 and 3) (fattahi and amelung, 2016). since 1892 various earthquakes of over m7 occurred at western boundary of the indian plate (ambraseys and bilham, 2003), one of which (m 7.7) occurred more recently during 2013 in the awaran district of balochistan (avouac et al., 2014; barnhart et al., 2014; jolivet et al., 2014). gf is the source of quetta earthquake (m7.7) that destroyed quetta with over 60,000 fatalities and heavy loss of properties (lawrence et al., 1981; ambraseys and bilham, 2003; seliga et al., 2012). 4.5 structural domains based on the structural style, niamathullah (1992) subdivided the area into four structural domains, whereas,florian et al. (2011) subdivided the area into five structural domains (fig. 4); however, we have subdivided our map area into five structural domains that are partly different from their domains. their structural domain i (foredeep), to the south, is not part of our map area. furthermore, we have subdivided the structural domain ii of the florian et al. (2011) into two domains (our structural domain ii and iii). our structural domains i, iv and v are the same as those of the (florian et al.,2011). the structural domains are briefly described as under: structural domain i: it mainly comprises the zst, which is mainly a broad syncline intervened by a narrow anticline with flat hinge zone and steep limbs with thrusts and strike-slip faults in the north (figs. 3(a, b), 4). it mostly comprises eocene succession of the ghazij and kirthar formations and miocene-pleistocene molasses successions of the urak / sibbi group. structural domain ii: this domain comprises the western sftb situated to the east and northeast of the zst (structural domain i). the western most part of the sftb, east of the zst, shows upright folds and thrusts (bibai thrust, gogai thrust, chutair thrust), dominated by echelon pattern and probable extension along fold axis (figs. 3, 4). the succession this domain comprises the volcano-sedimentary successions of triassic through eocene age. structural domain iii: it comprises the area at the northwestern extreme of the zst, i.e. part of the schuppen zone at takatu range, which shows ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023) 27-48 43 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 compression at the core of the qs. here structures are very tight; over-turning is common, with well-developed thrust zone and strike-slip components in some parts. this zone is separated by kach (strike-slip) fault (fig. 3(a, b)) from the bibai and gogai thrusts. the kftb to the west of the zst, at its northern extreme (figs. 3, 4), is dominated by major thrusts; e.g. the karkhasa thrust, chiltan thrust, pir ghaib thrust and a major strike-slip fault. the ghazaband fault, that extent northward and merge into the zhob valley thrust, is partly the northwestern boundary of this structural domain. the succession in this domain also comprises the sedimentary successions of triassic through eocene age. structural domain iv: this structural domain mostly comprises the khojak-pishin belt situated to the north and northwest of the gf, having partial boundary with the structural domain v in the northwest and structural domain ii to the south. this is also a ne-s-trending thrust-fold belt comprising mixed marine, flysch and molasse successions of the paleocene through holocene age. structural domain v: this domain comprises the area covered by the suture belt i.e. the muslim bagh ophiolite (mbo) and associated mélanges and sediments. the domain is generally ene-trending belt that occurs between zhob valley thrust to north and gwal bagh fault to south. figure 4: generalized structural domains of the map area. conclusions the collision of india plate with the eurasia plate formed a suture zone (florian et al., 2011) and resulted in the formation of five structural domains that formed a foreland fold-and-thrust belt, a major deep trough, a flysch zone, and an ophiolite complex. four major faults bound the terrain, including the frontal, ghazaband, gwal bagh and chaman faults. folds and thrusts are the main structures and deformation continued, which resulted in folding of the pre-existing thrusts and refolding. the thrusting was on olderon-younger strata, but younger-on-older strata were also observed (e.g. the rhod thrust). declarations conflicts of interest/competing interests: the authors declare no any conflict of interest/competing interests. ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 08 (2023)27-48 44 j. mt. area res., vol. 8, 2023 acknowledgements: we thankfully acknowledge officials of the geological survey of pakistan and center of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan, quetta, for providing the scientific instruments, vehicle and assistance for the field work. author’s contributions: mr. nisar ahmed contributed in conducting the field measurements, data collection for the research work, analysis of the results and writing the manuscript of this paper. akhtar muhammad kassi contributed to the supervision of the whole work; i.e. field supervision, providing feedback on the manuscript, editing and bringing out the final shape of the research paper. aimal khan kasi co-supervised the work and provided help and advice regarding various aspects of the research work. funding: this research work received no external funding. ethical considerations: this research work does not involve any ethical issues. references [1] ahmad and abbas, the muslim bagh ophiolites. geodynamics of pakistan. geological survey of pakistan, quetta, 1979: p. 243-249. 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[82] williams, m.d. 19. stratigraphy of the lower indus basin, west pakistan. in 5th world petroleum congress. 1959. world petroleum congress. received: 29 nov. 2021. revised/accepted: 01 july 2022. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 1 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 journal of mountain area research assessment of temporal flow variability of the kabul river m. arfan1, *, a. h. makhdum1, g. nabi2 1. world wide fund for nature-pakistan 2. center of excellence in water resource engineering, university of engineering and technology lahore abstract water resources estimation under changing flow regimes is required for planning and smooth distribution of water to provinces. since the hydrological parameters are changing significantly due to climate change, the changes in the pattern of flow regimes are definite. the objective of present study was to assess the spatial and temporal hydro variability of indus basin. the data of kabul river at nowshera before its confluence with indus river were collected from surface water hydrology project (swhp), wapda. the seasons were divided as three and six month keeping in view the hydrological cycle. trends and variation were investigated by applying the mann-kendall test and sen’s method. the presence of trends tested at different significant level, 99.9%, 95% and 90%. the overall analysis indicates that there is more flow variation on seasonal basis as compared to the annual basis. the kabul river showed decreasing trend in the maximum mean annual discharge, whereas the minimum mean annual discharge showed increasing trend. it was concluded that kabul river showed decreasing trend in annual mean and maximum discharge, whereas annual minimum discharge showed increasing trend. it was also noticed that kabul river mean minimum discharge time series decreased during 19611985, whereas it increased during 1986-2010. it was also found that annual mean and maximum discharge decreasing rate was greater during 1986-2010. it was further concluded that each decade experienced one or two years of both dry and wet periods and that 2000-2004 was the driest period in the history of kabul river. keywords: climate change, indus basin, flow regimes, mann-kendall *corresponding author: (email: mapiish37@gmail.com, phone: 0092-346770908) 1. introduction the economic life of pakistan highly hinge on the flow of the indus river basin which supports large areas of irrigated agriculture and has a substantial role in generating hydro power for the country. more than 80% of flow in the indus as it emerges onto the punjab plains is derived from seasonal and permanent snowfields and glaciers. the upper indus basin consists of a series of mountain ranges of extreme ruggedness and high elevations. pakistan’s indus river basin system consist of six major rivers, namely the indus, jhelum, chenab, kabul, ravi and sutlej. these six rivers supply water to the entire indus basin irrigation system. these rivers have their origin in the higher altitudes and derive their flows mainly from ice melt and monsoon rains. the kabul river is a 700-kilometre (430 mi) long river that materializes in the sang lakh range of the hindu kush mountain in afghanistan and drains into the indus river near attock, pakistan. it is the main river in eastern afghanistan and it is separated from the watershed of the helmand by the unai pass. the kabul river passes through the cities of kabul and jalalabad in afghanistan before flowing into khyber pakhtunkhawa in pakistan some 25 kilometers (16 miles) north of the durand line border crossing at torkham. the vol. 2, 2017 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article arfan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 1-8 2 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 major tributaries of the kabul river are the logar, panjshir, kunar, alingar, bara and swat rivers. the kabul river is little more than a trickle for most of the year, but surges in summer due to melting snows in the hindu kush range. its largest tributary is the kunar river, which starts out as the mastuj river, flowing from the chiantar glacier in chitral, pakistan and after flowing south into afghanistan it is met by the bashgal river flowing from nurestan. the kunar meets the kabul near jalalabad. in spite of the kunar carrying more water than the kabul, the river continues as the kabul river after this confluence, mainly for the political and historical worth of the name. the kabul river is impounded by several dams. the naghlu, surobi and darunta dams are located in kabul and nangarhar provinces of afghanistan. the warsak dam is in pakistan, approximately 20 km northwest of the city of peshawar. the climatic changes impact on different hydrological parameters like precipitation. these climatic changes result in the form of severe hydrological changes in river flows. for proper water management and planning, we need appropriate and deep understanding of these changes. these spatial and temporal changes in the flows of indus basin tributaries impact on the indus basin irrigation system (ibis). some studies are available concerning climate and hydrology in indus basin. archer and flower [1] studied the hydrological variability in the upper indus basin and their implications on the water resources. in this study they investigated the flow data from 1961 to 1999 and established different correlations/ linkages between the climatic and hydrological variables. they found out that there were significant increase in winter, summer and annual precipitation and significant warming occurred in winter whilst summer showed a cooling trend. also linkages have been established between seasonal precipitation, temperature and runoff. time series analysis of those data showed regional trend in precipitation and temperature since 1961. it was noted that precipitation and winter temperature move upward and summer temperature goes down significantly. the study concludes that runoff from foothill and snow fed catchment may be significantly affected, whereas there may be little impact on runoff on glacier fed catchment. asim et al. [2] analyzed the surface water resources and water delivery system in the indus basin. the mean annual river runoff in the system was found around 172 bcm. this study throws light on the important issues relating to the management of surface water resources in the indus basin. pakistan water resources system has the capacity to cope the scarcities of river flow from 10-13% but if the system river inflows drop from 15-20% water shortages occur in respect of irrigation supplies. archer and flower [3, 4] studied the spatial and temporal variation in precipitation in the upper indus basin, global teleconnections and hydrological implications. in that study spatial variation in precipitation has been investigated by correlation and regression analysis of long period records. that study found out positive correlation between winter precipitations at stations over the entire region, where as spatial correlation in seasonal precipitation were weaker in summer and sometimes significant between station north and south of the himalayan divide. preliminary analysis has identified significant correlation between north atlantic oscillation and winter precipitation in the karakoram. arfan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 1-8 3 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 hydrological regimes are studied by taking stream flow data from nineteen long period stations in terms of annual and seasonal runoff. david archer [5] studied contrasting hydrological regimes in the upper indus basin. in this study satisfactory levels of correlation were achieved between stream flow and measurement of temperatures and precipitation at valley sites, which help as a basis for assessing seasonal flow volumes. in this study he also suggested the possibility extending records back on the basis of the historical climatic records. singh and sen. roy et al. [6] evaluated the climatic variability and hydrological extremes in a himalayan catchment. monthly and annual analysis of climatic data viz temperature and rainfalls were carried out for bhuntar and manali separately. no clear trend was visible for temperature, because some of the months showed increasing trend, whereas some months showed a decreasing trend. for rainfall, annual and monthly values showed wide fluctuation with clear dry and wet periods visible over the years. annual rainfall trend was mildly increasing, whereas the seasonal rainfall showed a slightly increasing trend in winter, while the monsoon rainfall showed a slightly decreasing trend. walter [7] studied the hydrological response to climate change in a glacier fed catchment in the himalayas. he assessed the future development of the glacier and the runoff using an ensemble of downscaled climate models in the langtang catchment in nepal. the study showed that both temperature and precipitation are projected to increase; it results into a steady decline of the glacier area. the study also showed that river flow is projected to increase significantly due to increased precipitation and ice melt. in this study we try to assess these spatial and temporal changes in hydrologic availability in different periods of the year through statistical analysis of the historic data of kabul river station near nowshera. this study helps in the appropriate water management and planning for different sectors in the country throughout the year. this allows assessment of the impacts of trends or periodic variations in flow of kabul river basin. this study will help in understanding the erratic flow pattern of kabul river. 2. data and methods the temporal analysis of following time scales for discharge was to examine whether flows is certainly changing in the study area. i. maximum discharge analysis ii. minimum discharge analysis iii. mean discharge analysis the overall period 1961-2010 was subdivided into two 25-year periods, and the complete measurement period. the data of kabul river sites were collected from surface water hydrology project (swhp), wapda for period 1961-2010. daily maximum, minimum and mean values were used to calculate the monthly maximum, minimum and mean discharge series. mean annual and seasonal means were calculated for each year. non-parametric tests are generally distribution-free. they detect trend/change, but do not quantify the size of the trend/change. they are very useful because most hydrologic time series data are not normally distributed. mann kendall test [8] is widely adopted to assess significant trends in time series [8, 9]. it is a nonparametric test, less sensitive to extreme sample values, and independent from the hypothesis about the nature of the trend, either linear or not. to compute the true slope of trend (change per year) sen’s nonparametric procedure was arfan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 1-8 4 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 used. the sen’s estimator of slope is the median of these n values of discharge (q). the median of the n slope estimates was obtained in the usual way; n values of qiare ranked from smallest to largest and compute the sen’s estimator as follow: sen’s estimator = 𝑄[(𝑁+1)/2] (3.6) if n was odd and 1 2 (𝑄𝑁/2 + 𝑄[(𝑁+2)/2)])(3.7) if n was even data were processed using an excel macro named makesens created by salmi et al. [8]. 2.1. computation of the draught and flooded period indices there are several indices that measure how much precipitation for a given period of time has deviated from historically established norms. the most commonly used for agroecological zoning are the followings: a. percent of normal b. decile c. palmer drought severity index (pdsi) d. surface water supply index (swsi) although none of the major indices is inherently superior to the rest in all circumstances, some indices are better suited than others for certain uses. 2.2. decile indices the distribution of the time series of the cumulated precipitation for a given period is divided into intervals, each corresponding to 10% of the total distribution (decile). gibbs e maher (1967) proposed to group the deciles into classes of events as listed in the following table: class percent period decile 1-2 20% lower much below normal decile 3-4 20% following below normal decile 5-6 20% medium near normal decile 7-8 20% following above normal decile 9-10 20% high much above normal 3. results and discussion 3.1. discharge trend in annual maximum, minimum and mean discharge discharge analysis of maximum and mean discharge time series showed decreasing trend for period 1961-2010, whereas minimum discharge time series showed increasing trend. maximum discharge time series decreased at 99.9 % significance level. in conflicting to the maximum discharge time series, minimum discharge time series increased at 95% significance level. mean discharge series showed decreasing trend but not significantly as shown in table 1. in a comparison of 25 year time period, it was concluded that discharge during1986-2010 decreased more rapidly with respect to 1961-1985 for maximum and mean discharge values, whereas minimum discharge for 1961-1985 was decreased and for 1986-2010 showed increase in discharge as shown in fig. 1, 2 and 3. it was an evidence of the change/ increase of temperature in the kabul river catchment which resulted in the higher rate of snow and glacier melting. 3.2. discharge trend in seasonal (six month) maximum, minimum and mean discharge 3.2.1 discharge trend in winter (o-m) maximum, minimum and mean discharge discharge trend analysis in minimum, and mean discharge time series showed increase for arfan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 1-8 5 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 1961-2010, whereas maximum discharge time series showed a decreasing trend. maximum discharge time series decreased at 90% significance level. contrarily to the maximum discharge time series, minimum discharge time series increased at 99.9% significance level. mean discharge series showed increasing trend but not significantly, as shown in table 1. in a comparison of 25 year time period, it was concluded that from 1986-2010 maximum and mean discharge showed more decrease as compared to the 1961-1985, whereas minimum discharge was found during 1961-1985. similarly, a decreasing and reversed pattern was found for 1986-2010 as shown in fig. 1, 2 and 3. it was again an evidence of the change/ increase of temperature in the kabul river catchment which resulted in the higher rate of snow and glacier melting. 3.2.2. discharge trend in summer (a-s) maximum, minimum and mean discharge analysis of maximum and mean discharge time series, showed decreasing trend for 19612010, whereas minimum discharge time series showed increasing trend. maximum discharge time series decreased at 99.9% significance level. contrarily to the maximum discharge time series minimum discharge series increased at a 90% significance level. mean discharge series showed decreasing trend but not significantly as shown in the table 1. the comparison of 25 year time period, revealed a more decreasing trend in 1986-2010 as compared to the period of 1961-1985 in maximum and mean discharge. minimum discharge decreased during 19611985 as compared to the 1986-2010 decade, which showed increase in discharge as shown in fig. 1, 2 and 3. 3.3. discharge trend in a seasonal (three month) maximum, minimum and mean discharge 3.3.1. discharge trend in winter (djf) maximum, minimum and mean discharge analysis of minimum, and mean discharge showed increasing trend for 1961-2010, whereas maximum discharge showed decreasing trend. maximum discharge decreased at a 95% significance level. conversely to the maximum discharge, minimum and mean discharge increased but not significantly as shown in table 1. the comparison of 25 year time increment, indicated a more rapidly decreasing trend during 1986-2010 in discharge with respect to 1961-1985 as shown in fig. 1, 2 and 3. 3.3.2. discharge trend in spring (mam) maximum, minimum and mean discharge analysis of maximum and mean discharge showed decreasing trend for 1961-2010, whereas mean minimum discharge time series showed increasing trend. maximum discharge time series decreased at a 99% significance level. contrary to the maximum discharge, minimum discharge increased at a 99% significance level. mean discharge series showed decreasing trend but not significantly as shown in table 1. in a comparison of 25 year time increment, it was concluded that the time interval 1986-2010 has more decreasing discharge with respect to the 1961-1985 period for maximum and mean discharge time series, whereas minimum discharge during 1961-1985 is decreasing and during 1986-2010 increasing as shown in fig. 1, 2 and 3. 3.3.3. discharge trend in summer (jja) maximum, minimum and mean discharge arfan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 1-8 6 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 analysis of maximum and mean discharge showed a decreasing trend for the period of 1961-2010, whereas, minimum discharge indicated an increasing pattern. maximum discharge decreased at 99.9% and 90% significance level. contrarily to the maximum discharge time series, minimum discharge time series increasing but not significantly as shown in the table 1. table 1: trends in annual max., min. and mean discharge of kabul river for the period (1961-2010) and 25 year time interval showing discharge change in 1000cusec decade -1 ***significance level <= 99.9%, **significance level <= 99%.*significance level <= 95%. +significance level <= 90%. bold = negative significant trend in a comparison of 25 year time increment it was concluded that the time interval 1986-2010 displayed a more decrease in maximum discharge with respect to the 1961-1985 period and reverse for mean discharge. minimum discharge during 1961-1985 was found decreasing and increasing during 1986-2010 as shown in fig. 1, 2 and 3. it was an evidence of the change/ increase of temperature in the kabul river catchment, which resulted in the higher rate of snow and glacier melt. 3.3.4. discharge trend in autumn (son) maximum, minimum and mean discharge analysis of maximum and mean discharge showed decreasing trend for period 1961-2010, whereas, mean minimum discharge showed increasing trend. maximum discharge decreased at 99% significance level, whereas, minimum discharge increased at a 99.9% significance level. mean discharge series showed decreasing trend but not significantly as shown in table 1. in a comparison of 25 year time increment, the time interval 1986-2010 shows more decreasing in maximum and mean discharge with respect to 1961-1985, whereas minimum discharge decrease during 1961-1985 and 1986-2010 showed increasing discharge, as shown in figure 1, 2 and 3. figure 1. comparison of mean maximum discharge figure 2. comparison of mean minimum discharge seasons 1961-2010 1961-1985 1986-2010 1961-2010 1961-1985 1986-2010 1961-2010 1961-1985 1986-2010 annual (jd) -0.458*** -0.498+ -1.089* 0.128* -0.150+ 0.345* -0.088 -0.327* -0.129 winter(om) -0.107+ -0.078 -0.512* 0.064* * * -0.031 0.119* 0.029 -0.051 -0.039 summer (a-s) -0.874*** -1.034+ -1.459* 0.195+ -0.254* 0.556* -0.18 -0.586* -0.172 winter (df) -0.065* -0.07 -0.248* 0.009 -0.065** -0.017 0.017 -0.05 0.006 spring(mm) -0.721** -1.065+ -1.406* 0.192* * -0.224 0.381+ -0.033 -0.242 -0.294 summer (j-a) -0.945*** -0.902 -1.990* 0.192 -0.34 0.67 -0.333+ -0.925* -0.247 autum(sn) -0.193** -0.028 -0.513* 0.082* * * -0.072 0.152* * -0.026 -0.039 -0.083 discharge change per decade ( 1000cusec) mean max. discharge mean min. discharge mean annual discharge arfan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 1-8 7 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 figure 3. comparison of mean discharge 3.4. drought and flooded period analysis drought and flooded period analysis proceeds by using the decile indices technique. decile technique first arranges the data separately in ascending order and then divides them into 20% decile and made 10 categories. decile 1-2 shows the drought period in the data; this means values laid in this decile range are much below the mean and decile 9-10 shows flooded period in the data, i.e. values laid in this decile range are much above the mean value. figure 4 shows the years experience drought and flooded period in the kabul river. it shows that every decade must experience drought as well as flood but there is no clear cut cyclic pattern. to investigate the cyclic pattern in the discharge, there is a need to investigate a long term discharge analysis series. figure 4. comparison of draought and flooded period. 4. conclusions and recommendations 1. it was concluded that there is more and significant flow variation on seasonal basis as compared to the annual basis. 2. the minimum discharge of kabul river increases significantly lately 1986-2010, being an evidence of minimum temperature rise and land use, land cover changes of the catchment. 3. kabul river annual flow comprises of 82% share of summer flow and seasonal analysis of summer (a-s) and summer (jja) showed decreasing discharge lately possibly due to continuously negative mass balance of glacier and ice melts in the catchment area of kabul river . 4. it was concluded that kabul river showed decreasing trend in annual mean and maximum discharge, whereas annual mean minimum discharge showed increasing trend. 5. it was also noticed that kabul river minimum discharge decreased during 1961-1985, whereas, it increased during 1986-2010. 6. it was also found that annual mean and maximum discharge decreasing rate is larger during 1986-2010. following are the recommendations: 1. some hydrologic simulation models should be used to see contemporary impact. 2. co-relation of temperature and precipitation parameters with the flow gives more insights into the hydrological phenomenon of the basin. references [1] h.j. fowler, d. r. archer, hydroclimatological variability in the upper indus basin and implications for water resources. regional hydrological impacts of climatic change—impact assessment and decision arfan et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 1-8 8 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 making, iahs publication, rev. e. 295 (2005) 131–138. [2] a.r. khan, analysis of hydrometeorological time series: searching evidence for climatic change in the upper indus basin. lahore, pakistan: international water management institute. (iwmi working paper 23). [3] d.r. archer, hydrological implications of spatial and altitudinal variation in temperature in the upper indus basin, nordic hydrology, rev. e. 35 (2004) 209– 222. [4] d.r. archer, h.j. fowler, h .j, spatial and temporal variations in precipitation in the upper indus basin, global teleconnections and hydrological implications. hydrology and earth system science rev. e. 8 (2004) 47–61. [5] d.r. archer, contrasting hydrological regimes in the upper indus basin, hydrology. rev. e. 274(2003) 198–210. 5 [6] d.r. archer, n. forsythe, h.j. fowler, s.m. shah, sustainability of water resources management in the indus basin under changing climatic and socio economic conditions, hydrology and earth system science rev. e. 7 (2010) 1883–1912. 6 [7] w. walter, immerzed, l.p.h van beek, m.konz, a.b. shreshta, m.f.p. bierkens, hydrological response to climate change in a glacierized catchment in the himalays, climate change, rev. e. 110 (2011) 721736.c.t. haan, statistical methods in hydrology, the iowa state univ. press, ames, (1997). [8] m.g. kendall, rank correlation methods, 4th ed. charles griffin, london, (1975). 9 [9] m. akhtar, n. ahmad, m.j. booij, the impact of climate change on the water resources of hindukush–karakorum– himalaya region under different glacier coverage scenarios ,hydrology. rev. e 355(2008) 148–163. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 45 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 journal of mountain area research petrology and geochemistry of the late cretaceous pab formation, western sulaiman foldthrustbelt, pakistan: implications for provenance and paleo-weathering f. ahmed1, a. k. kasi1*, m. mohibullah2, r. a. manan1 1. centre of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan, quetta 2. department of geology, university of balochistan, quetta abstract late cretaceous sandstone succession of the pab formation in western sulaiman fold thrust belt pakistan was investigated for petrology and bulk rock chemistry to determine its source terrain, paleo-weathering and tectonic setting. the formation is mainly comprised of sandstone with reddish to maroon color shale and arenaceous limestone. texturally, the sandstone is fine to coarse grained, sub-angular to well-rounded and moderately to well sorted. the sandstone is petrologically and geochemically classified as quartz arenite to sub lithic arenite. the detritus was mainly derived from plutonic acidic source. qtfl and qmflt suggests that recycled orogeny and craton interior setting were major sources of sediments. geochemical models support that the detritus was derived from quartzose sedimentary source terrain, suggest deposition in a passive continental margin setting. average values of chemical indices are cia 59% ciw 67% and civ 12.70%, which suggest moderate to high degree of chemical weathering in source area, that may reflect humid climate condition in the source area. the petrographic study and geochemical models demonstrate that the pab formation is mostly composed of mature sandstone from acidic plutonic and low-grade metamorphic rocks terrain in recycled and craton interior setting deposited on western passive margin of indian plate in tethys ocean. keywords: pab sandstone; quartz arenite; passive margin; tethys ocean; craton interior *corresponding author: (email: aimal_kasi@yahoo.co.uk) 1. introduction provenance studies of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks often aim to determine the composition and geological evolution of the sediments' source region. the composition of siliciclastic rocks is a function of a complex interplay of several variables, including the composition of source rock, transportation history, paleoclimatic conditions and diagenetic alteration (1,2,3,4) various tectonic environments may supply various types of source materials with different chemical signatures (5 6 7). the clastic rocks in the passive continental margin tend to have more stable features (rich in si, low in mg and fe, etc.), whereas the sediments in the back-arc basin are always rich in mafic rather than felsic detritus (4). the pab formation is the late cretaceous unit exposed in different parts of the kirthar and sulaiman fold-thrust belts. pab formation has thoroughly been studied in kirthar fold-thrust belt for facies variation, provenance and reservoir potential for hydrocarbons (8, 9, 10, 11). the pab formation is also documented to represent thick succession in different parts of the sulaiman fold -thrust belt such as qilla saifullah, loralai, zhob and mughal kot (12) but poorly studied in terms of its petrography, composition, provenance and facies. the present work mainly focuses on provenance, tectonic setting and paleo-climatic conditions by carrying out modal analyses and bulk rocks geochemistry of three well exposed sections of the formation in the western sulaiman vol. 6, 2021 https://doi.org/10.53874/jmar.v6i0.98 full length article ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 46 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 fold-thrust-belt showing late trassic to pleistocene rocks, while the regional basal detachment is located below jurassic sediments (26). the enormous sedimentary thickness that was considered to be accommodated by passive roof duplex model geometry, partly explains the deformational front of the sulaiman (27). it is assumed that the sulaiman basement fault is north-south trending step fault with a throw towards the west and it developed the zhob valley thrust in the oligocene and continued during the miocene and pliocene. 2. geological setting the area under investigation lies within western sulaiman fold-thrustbelt (sftb) (fig. 1) (13, 14). it comprises of triassic to eocene and recent sedimentary succession. the sftb is a south-southwest extension of the himalayas developed as a result of the indo-pakistan plate colliding with the southern margin of the eurasian plate during the paleocene-eocene epoch (15, 16, 17, 18, 19). the sftb is bounded by zhob-muslim bagh ophiolite and pishin belt in the west and by indus plain and sulaiman fore-deeps in the east (20, 21, 22). the sftb represents a thick sedimentary succession ranging in age from triassic to recent (23). the mesozoic and lower paleogene (paleocene-eocene) strata are of marine origin whereas the post-eocene strata are fluvial (siwaliks/urak group) (23, 24). it is believed that basement faults have controlled the shape of the sftb. regionally, the sulaiman block was bent towards the north along the sulaiman basement fault in the west and the overlying sediments were detached. they were moved southwards as nappes in large lobes now forming the mari bugti hills and the sulaiman ranges (14). the sftb has assumed its present shape due to an interplay of strike-slip and thrust faults because of oblique convergence of indian plate (25). the existing basement structures may have developed due to the collision and formed the structures along the zhob thrust, which bounds the belt in the west. the resultant deformation style is indicative of thin skin tectonics. the tight folds and imbricate thrusting in the northern part may be due to an upper-level detachment in cretaceous shale figure 1: geological map of the study area western sulaiman fold thrust belt pakistan (modifed after jones, 1961). 3. stratigraphy the western part of the sftb contains over thousands of meters thick sedimentary and volcanic/volcano-clastic succession of rocks that are triassic to recent (28, 23) (table 1). the late cretaceous pab sandstone is named after pab ranges in kirthar ranges in southeast balochistan, near khuzdar and the section along drabber dhora (n 25o 31' 12", e 67o 00' 19") is designated as its type section (29, 30, 31,). the formation is exposed in different parts of the k-sftb with a thickness range from a few meters to hundreds of meters. in the type section 478 m thickness has been recorded and further southward from the type section in the jakkher pass the formation is 498 m thick, whereas in the sulaiman belt its maximum thickness is 1524 m (31, 32). the pab sandstone is dominantly composed of thick-bedded to massive sandstone with subordinate mudstones, shales, conglomerates and marls in some areas (32, 33, 9,10) medium to coarse grained sandstone is well sorted, and thick ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 47 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 bedded quartz arenite to sublitharenite (9, 33, 11). weathered color of sandstone is light brown and fresh surfaces are yellow-brown to varnish (32). the sandstone displays a variety of facies such as trough cross-bedding, large table 1. stratigraphic succession of the western sulaiman fold-thrust-belt. age formation lithology pleistocene lei conglomer ate conglomer ate, sandstone. miocene-pleisto cene urak group sandstone, clays-tone, and conglomer ate. angular unconformity middle-late eocene spintangi limestone limestone, shale, and sandstone. early eocene ghazij formation clay stone, sand-stone, conglomer ate, limestone and coal seam. paleocene dungan formation limestone and shale. late cretaceous pab formation / mughal kot formation sandstone, siltstone, shale, arenaceous limestone early-middle cretaceous parh limestone / goru formation / sembar formation limestone (bio-micritic ), marl and, shale. disconformity jurassic loralai formation limestone and minor shale. triassic wulgai formation shale and limestone. base not exposed scale planar cross bedding, parallel bedding, massive, bio-turbated and figure 2. photomicrographs of the sandstone of the pab formation shows: (a) the minerals constituents and texture, medium to coarse grained, sub rounded, moderately sorted, tightly packed sandstone, x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ;. (b) mono-crystalline quartz with straight and undulose extinction, x-nicols, scale bar is 200 µ; (c) polycrystalline quartz more than five sub crystals with straight and sutured boundaries, x-nicols, scale bar is 200 µ;.(d) quartz grains with different types of contact from concave to convex contact, point to suture, x-nicols, scale bar is 200 µ; (e) boehm lamellae on quartz grain x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ; (f) inclusions of heavy mineral garnet x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ hummocky cross stratification. this suggests a wide variation in depositional settings from fluvial-deltaic, shallow marine to deep marine (32, 34 9,10). lower contact of the pab formation is conformable with either fort munro or mughal kot formations, but in some localities where fort munro and mughal kot formations are not deposited the pab formation formed a disconformable basal contact with the parh group (12). the pab sandstone is conformably overlain by moro formation but in some localities pab formation has an unconformable upper contact with paleocene khadro formation or dungan formation in mughal kot gorge (35). ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 48 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 4. materials and methods 30 sandstone samples from three stratigraphic sections were used for petrographic study while for point counting study 24 medium to coarse grained samples were selected (table 2). point counting was carried out with digital pelecon point counter equipped with software, in the laboratory of the headquarters of the geological survey of pakistan quetta. in every thin section five hundred points were counted using the gazzi-dickinson method (35, 36). quartz mono-crystalline (qm), quartz polycrystalline (qp), plagioclase (p), kfeldspar (k), muscovite (m), biotite (b), heavy minerals (h), chert (ch), volcanic lithic (v), metamorphic lithic (m), sedimentary lithic (s) and matrix (ma) were counted. for geochemistry 15 sandstone samples were crushed and pulverized for major and trace element analysis. for major oxides analyses sp8/400 uv-vis spectrometer and 700 perking elmer graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometer (pe/aas) were used for whole-rock geochemistry and for trace elements analysis x-ray fluorescence (xrf) was used in the laboratory of nceg in geology, university of peshawar. 5. results 5.1 petrology sandstone of the pab formation ranges from coarse to very fine grained, grain supported, moderate to tightly packed, moderately to well sorted and sub angular to sub rounded figure 3. photomicrographs of the sandstone of pab formation shows: (a) the k-feldspar grain displaying carlsbad type of twinning x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ: (b) is the plagioclase grain with albite twining x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ: (c) muscovite flakes with speckled texture x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ: (d) biotite grain with red brown to yellow brown color twisted between quartz grains x-nicols, scale bar is 100 µ: (e) heavy mineral zircon grain with high relief and perfect cleavage x-nicols, scale bar is 200 µ: (d)heavy mineral tourmaline grains x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ: (fig. 2a). grains are mostly cemented by calcite, subordinately by chlorite, quartz and iron oxide. the roundness, sorting and low clay content in study samples suggest that the sandstone is texturally mature. 5.1.1 mineral constituents quartz is the most abundant framework grain in the sandstone of the pab formation both as mono-crystalline and polycrystalline quartz (table 2). mono-crystalline quartz is more abundant than polycrystalline quartz, mono-crystalline quartz has straight as well as undulatory extinction (fig. 2b). polycrystalline quartz is composed of several sub crystals (fig. 2c) having straight or sutured boundaries, quartz grains are sub angular to sub rounded, quartz grains display concave to convex contact, point to sutured, and tangential contact (fig. 2d). boehm lamellae are also present in some quartz and indicate intense deformation of quartz grains in source rocks (fig. 2e), mono-crystalline quartz grains also contain the inclusion of garnet, tourmaline, opaque minerals, rutile, muscovite and chlorite (fig. 2f). feldspars, both plagioclase and k-feldspar, were identified by their cleavage, twinning, and cloudy appearances and susceptibility to diagenetic alterations. k feldspar comprises microcline, orthoclase and perthite. they occasionally display carlsbad type of twinning (fig. 3a) plagioclases were identified by pericline and albite type of twining (fig. 3b.) feldspar is altered slightly (clouded) or completely and replaced by secondary calcite or clay minerals. micas include biotite, muscovite and chlorite. muscovite displays high order interference color (fig. 3c), biotite appears ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 49 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 yellowish-brown to dark brown and green in crossed nicols (fig. 3d). biotite is pleochroic in plane-polarized light, also contains pleochroic halos. mica grains are often twisted, broken and squeezed between competent grains. accessory minerals include tourmaline, zircon (figs. 3e and 3f) rutile and glauconite; opaque minerals include hematite and magnetite. cements include both carbonate and non-carbonate cement, carbonate cement includes sparry calcite (fig. 4a, b) while non-carbonate cements include chlorite, iron oxide and quartz (fig. 4c), silica cement was observed in the form of quartz overgrowth. calcite cement is frequently present at the boundary of framework grains and partially replaces the grains. varieties of lithic fragments were observed in studied samples that include igneous (fig. 4d), metamorphic (fig. 4e), and sedimentary (fig. 4f). lithic fragments collectively make up the second most common components in studied sandstones. igneous lithic fragments include both volcanic and plutonic fragments characterized by granular, porphyritic and lathwork texture. metamorphic lithic fragments include schist, gneiss and slate. figure 4. photomicrographs of pab formation showing the various type of cements and lithic fragments. (a) sparry calcite grain x-nicols, scale bar is 100 µ. b is carbonate cements present at edges of quartz grains and also replacing some grain completely x-nicols, scale bar is 200 µ). c is non carbonate cements with edges of quartz grains and surrounding a plagioclase grain x-nicols, scale bar is 100 µ: (d d) basic is an igneous lithic fragment x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ: (e) low grade metamorphic lithic fragment x-nicols, scale bar is 500 µ: (f) sedimentary lithic fragment of chert grain x-nicols, scale bar is 100 µ 5.1.2 modal composition and provenance the sandstone composition is fundamentally affected by the source rock composition so modal investigation of detrital framework grain is useful for provenance determination (36, 37, 38). the relationship between depositional basins and provenance is controlled by plate tectonic. ternary diagrams have been used to show compositional fields containing different provenances (37 and 38). six ternary models were plotted using fourteen recalculated variables (qt f l, q f l, qm f lt, qm p k, qp lvm lsm, lm lv ls; table 3) (after 39, 37, 40, 41, 42). the qt-f-l diagram (37) is traditionally used for the first-order sandstone classification. it contains three types of tectonic settings i.e. recycled orogeny, continental block and magmatic arc. in qt-f-l almost all the sandstone samples plotted in the field of recycled orogen, which suggests that the detritus of the pab formation has been recycled enroute from the source belt (fig. 5b). the average mode is qt93 f2 l5, feldspar and lithic fragments are very low as compared to total quartz. qm-f-lt ternary diagram (38) is used for further subdivision of recycled orogen of (37) into transitional recycled, quartzose recycled, and lithic recycled fields. most of the samples in the qm-f-lt diagram plotted in continental block setting very close to qm apex while few in quartzose recycled (fig. 5c). the average values of qm-f-lt for pab formation are qm90 f2 lt8, due to the high percentage of mono-crystalline quartz all samples plot near qm pole of the compositional diagram. 42 devised the qm-p-k compositional plot to show partial framework mode of minerals grains only. the qm-p-k ternary plot of sandstone of the pab formation shows a high percentage of the mono-crystalline quartz (qm) as compared to ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 50 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 feldspars. mean values of qm98p2k0 indicate that the proportion of mono quartz is far higher than both kfeldspar and plagioclase, that is why all the sample plot on qm pole of qm-p-k ternary diagram (fig. 5c). 40 and 43 suggested lm-lv-ls ternary diagram, which highlights the class of lithic content in sandstone. the lm-lv-ls compositional plot shows that the sandstone of the pab formation is abundant in igneous and sedimentary lithics, however, poor in metamorphic lithic fragments. the mean values of lm-lv-ls are lm19lv36ls44 (fig. 6a). samples are highly scattered and samples plot in mixed magmatic arc and subduction complex and suture belt. the mean values of the compositional diagram also plot in the field of the mixed magmatic arc and subduction complex, which suggest a substantial input from mafic igneous source. the qp-lvm-lsm ternary diagram suggested by 37, 43 and 38 is used to discriminate the detrital modes of suture belt, magmatic arcs, rifted continental margins and mixed subduction complex. the ternary diagram combines plots of 37 and 38 (illustrated by dashed lines). 40 divided collision orogen into suture belts, continental margin, mixed subduction complex and magmatic arcs, (solid lines) (fig. 6b). figure 5. (a) qfl classification plot of pettijohn (5). for sandstones of the pab formation; (b) qt-f-l tectonic plot of dickinson and suczek (37) (c) qm-f-lt compositional diagram of sandstone of the pab formation; (d) qm-p-k compositional diagram of the pab formation. most of the samples plot in collision orogen, subduction and magmatic arc complex. two samples plot in suture belt and two samples also plot in rifted continental margin. the mean values of qp41lvm9lsm50 ternary diagram plot in collision orogen qt-f-l plots indicate that the sandstone of the pab formation is sourced from recycled orogen. the qm-f-lt ternary plot (fig. 5 b.) indicates that the detritus is derived mainly from the continental blocks and quartzose recycled orogen belt. qm-p-k plot shows that the pab formation is highly rich in mono-crystalline quartz and low in feldspars that indicate arenite nature of sandstone. according to 44 for determining the nature of sandstone source terrains lithic fragments are very important; the ternary plots lm-lv-ls and qp-lvm-lsm indicate that meta-sedimentary and igneous sources have mainly contributed to the detritus of the pab formation. in lm-lv-ls and qp-lvm-lsm ternary plots samples are scattered across the subduction complex and collision orogen, however mean values of lm19lv36ls45 and qp50lvm41lsm9 plotted in collision orogen. the higher sorting, roundness and low concentration of clay in sandstones indicates that sandstone is compositionally mature, which may suggest long transportation route. the great proportion of mono-crystalline quartz over polycrystalline quartz can be caused by the destruction of primary polycrystalline quartz during high energy and long-term transportation (45). heavy minerals such as zircon and tourmaline, which ranges between 0.2-3.2 might have been derived from an acidic igneous source (table 2) (46). ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 51 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 6. (a) lmlvls plot of sandstone of the pab formation (40, 43), background plot shows average values; (b) qplvmlsm compositional diagram of pab formation, the dotted lines show compositional fields of 37, solid-lines indicate compositional fields of 40. 5.2 geochemistry 5.2.1 major elements major elements percentages of pab formation and mean values of upper continental crust (ucc 46) as references are present in table 4. sandstone samples exhibit a large degree of variation in major oxide elements. sio2 is the highest major oxide in samples, which ranges from 75.50% to 85.30% and the average is 80.81. sio2 values are high in pab sandstone when compared to ucc value of 66% (46). al2o3 is the second highest major oxides in sandstone, which ranges from 3.0% to 7.55% (average is 5.63), the average value is slightly depleted compared to ucc values (15.2). the fe2o3 value ranges from 0.34% to 6.20% and the average value is 2.33, which is slightly depleted as compared to ucc value (5.03). the mgo ranges from 0.21% to 1.49% and the average value is 0.49, which is slightly depleted as compared to ucc (value is 2.2). mno values ranges from 0.1 to 0.28%. the bivariate plots of 47, and 48, are normally used to show relationships among various major elements. harker variation diagrams (48) were used to plot different major elements against sio2 and al2o3 (fig. 7). it has been noticed that sio2 has a strong positive correlation with other major oxides except na2o and k2o, which may be due to feldspars. tio2 and fe2o3 show positive correlation in some samples. different major oxides were also plotted against al2o3, which show a positive correlation except sio2 and mno that may be due to enrichment of quartz and calcite cement. 5.2.2 trace elements trace elements concentration (in ppm) ranges, mean values and other geochemical parameters of pab formation are given in table 5. the concentration of barium (ba) is highest and range 80 to 940 with an average value of 259.87 (ucc value 550). zirconium (zr) is the second most abundant trace element in studied samples ranging from 93 to 534, and mean value is 253, which is greater than ucc value of 190. the higher concentration of zr may be due to high concentration of heavy minerals such as zircon that was observed in our petrographic study. the studied samples are also enriched in tungsten (w) and zinc (zn), tungsten ranges between 132 to 1869, and the means value is 423 while the values of zn range from 17-155 and mean value is 35.33, which is variation diagram of hossain (49) to correlate different trace elements with al2o3 for the sandstone samples of the pab formation, zn, pb, and th make linear correlation with al2o3, however, the rest of the trace elements such as zr, w, sr, rb and ba do not correlate well with al2o3 (fig. 10). the average values of trace elements of pab formation (in ppm) are greater as compared to the ucc (46). studied sandstone samples are high in zr when compared to ucc values, rest of the trace elements ba, rb, sr, y, pb, zn and th show a depleted trend as compared to ucc value. figure 7. harker diagrams plotted major oxides vs al2o3 0f harker (48) for the sandstone of the pab formation (tp tanga section, mp mina bazar 52 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 section, kp kapip section) in western sulaiman fold-thrust belt pakistan depleted as 5.2.3 classification the sandstone of the pab formation according to classification scheme of pettijhon (39) is quartz arenite (fig. 5a) (20 out of 24 samples plot in quartz arenite) due to very high percentage of quartz and low percentage of feldspar and lithic fragments. three samples plot in subarkose field and one sample in sublithranite. the classification scheme of crook (50) indicates that majority of the samples plot in quartz-rich field except two, which goes in the field of quartz intermediate 5.2.4 geochemistry and provenance in order to evaluate the tectonic setting and provenance determination of the sandstone of pab formation the tectonic discrimination diagrams of bhatia (51) and roser and korsch (52) were used. bhatia (51) classified the bivariate plots into discrimination fields, which are: active continental margin, oceanic arc, passive margin and continental arc. the mgo and tio2 are predominantly utilized for their low mobility and ratios of al2o3/sio2 give an estimation about the quartz in sandstones (48). plotting the samples in the bivariate diagram of bhatia (50) fe2o3+mgo vs tio2, (fig. 9a) indicates that almost all samples fall in the field of passive margin, further plotting of the samples in the bivariate diagram of 48 fe2o3+mg vs al2o3/si2o3 (fig. 10.b) shows that all samples plot inside or very close to field of a passive margin (fig. 9b). roser and korsch 51 introduced the discrimination function diagram to establish the provenance signature of the sandstone. using ratios of oxides of tio2, mgo, cao, fe2o3, na2o, and ko with al2o3. four kinds of provenance are indicated by the discrimination function diagram that includes, mafic igneous, intermediate igneous, felsic igneous and quartzose sedimentary field. plotting the samples of diagram, almost all the samples plot in the field of quartzose sedimentary provenance (fig. 10) and one sample fall in fields of mafic igneous. . ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 53 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 table 2: recalculated percentage of point count data of the pab formation of the study area samples no qm qp p k m b hv op ch ls lm li ccm ncc m matri x total tp3 77.4 3 1.4 0.4 0.6 0 1.8 0.4 5.8 0.2 0.2 1.6 7 0.2 0 100 tp4 78.2 5.4 4.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.8 0.4 3.8 1.4 0.2 0.6 2.8 0 0.4 100 tp5 83.8 0.6 0.4 0 1.6 0 3 3 2.4 0.2 0.2 0.6 1 3.2 0 100 tp8 89.8 2.6 0.4 0 0 0.8 1.6 0 1.4 0.2 0 0.2 0.4 1.8 0.8 100 tp9 90.6 3 0.4 0 0 0.6 0.2 0.8 0.8 0.4 0 0 1.4 1.4 0.4 100 tp10 88 1.6 2.4 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.8 0.4 2.2 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.8 0.6 1.2 100 tp11 74.2 3.2 0.6 0 0.6 0.4 1 1.2 2.8 0.6 0.2 1 13.2 0.4 0.6 100 tp13 65 4.4 1.4 0 0.6 0.2 0.4 2.2 3.4 1.4 0.2 2.2 17.4 0.8 0.4 100 tp14 87.8 1.4 2.4 0.2 0.2 1 0.4 0.6 2.4 1.2 0.2 0 0.8 0.8 0.6 100 mp2 80.2 1.2 1 0 0.2 0.2 1.4 0.4 2.4 0 0.2 1.2 9.6 1.4 0.6 100 mp3 79 2 0.2 0 0.2 0 1.4 1.6 0.6 0.2 0.6 0.4 11.6 1.6 0.6 100 mp5 77.2 3.4 3.4 0 1 0 1.8 1.8 2.6 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 6 0 100 mp7 89.6 0.8 0.8 0 0 0 1 0.4 2 0.4 0.6 0.2 3 0.4 0.8 100 mp8 71.2 9.4 2 0 1 0 2 0.8 2.8 1.4 0.2 1.8 4.6 2.8 0 100 mp9 77.2 5.4 0.6 0 0.2 0.2 2.4 0.8 3 0.2 0.2 1.4 1.4 7 0 100 mp10 77.2 3.4 3.4 0 1 0 1.8 1.8 2.6 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 6 0 100 kp1 64 1.8 1.8 0 0.4 1.6 1.6 0.6 0.6 0.2 0 0 26 1 0.4 100 kp3 80.4 2.2 2 0.2 0.8 0 1.2 1.4 5.4 0.6 0.4 0 2.6 2.6 0.2 100 kp4 72.6 4.6 2 0 0.8 1.2 3.2 1 3.2 0.2 0.4 0.2 6.6 3.8 0.2 100 kp5 78.2 2.8 2.2 0 1.4 0.6 2.4 1.8 3 1.4 0.2 0.4 3.6 1.6 0.4 100 kp6 78.6 4.6 1.8 0.2 0.2 0 1 1 4.2 0.8 0.4 0.8 1.8 4.6 0 100 kp7 88.6 1.2 0.6 0 0.4 1.6 1.2 0.4 1.6 0.2 0 0.2 1 2.8 0.2 100 kp8 78 3.8 1 0.2 0 0.4 1 0.8 5.2 1 0.4 0.2 3 4 1 100 kp9 78 1.6 3.8 0.6 1.4 0.2 1.2 2.2 3 1 0.4 0.2 4.6 0.8 1 100 ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 54 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 table 3: recalculated parameters used for composition and provenance study of pab formation of the study area qfl qtfl qmflt qmpk lmlvls qplvmlsm samples no. q % f % l % qt % f % l % qm % f % lt % qm % p % k % lm % lv % ls % qp % lvm % lsm % tp4 88 6 6 88 5 6 82 6 12 94 6 1 9 27 64 47 5 47 tp5 96 0 4 96 0 4 95 0 5 100 0 0 20 60 20 15 15 70 tp8 98 0 2 98 0 2 95 0 5 100 0 0 0 50 50 59 5 36 tp9 98 0 1 98 0 1 95 0 4 100 0 0 0 0 100 71 0 29 tp10 94 3 4 94 3 4 92 3 5 97 3 0 29 29 43 31 8 62 tp11 94 1 6 94 1 5 90 1 9 99 1 0 11 56 33 41 13 46 tp13 89 2 9 89 2 9 83 2 15 98 2 0 5 58 37 38 19 43 tp14 93 3 4 93 3 4 92 3 5 97 3 0 14 0 86 27 0 73 mp2 94 1 4 95 1 4 93 1 6 99 1 0 14 86 0 24 24 52 mp3 98 0 2 98 0 2 95 0 5 100 0 0 50 33 17 53 11 37 mp5 91 4 5 91 4 5 87 4 9 96 4 0 33 44 22 44 10 46 mp7 96 1 3 96 1 3 95 1 4 99 1 0 50 17 33 20 5 75 mp8 91 2 7 91 2 7 80 2 18 97 3 0 6 53 41 60 12 28 mp9 94 1 5 94 1 5 88 1 12 99 1 0 11 78 11 53 14 33 mp10 91 4 5 91 4 5 87 4 9 96 4 0 33 44 22 44 10 46 kp1 96 3 1 96 3 1 94 3 4 97 3 0 0 0 100 69 0 31 kp3 91 2 7 91 2 7 88 2 9 97 2 0 40 0 60 26 0 74 kp4 93 2 5 93 2 5 87 2 10 97 3 0 50 25 25 53 2 44 kp5 92 2 6 92 2 5 89 2 9 97 3 0 10 20 70 36 5 59 kp6 91 2 7 91 2 6 86 2 12 98 2 0 20 40 40 43 7 50 kp7 97 1 2 97 1 2 96 1 3 99 1 0 0 50 50 38 6 56 kp8 91 1 8 92 1 7 87 1 12 98 1 0 25 13 63 36 2 62 kp9 90 5 5 90 5 5 88 5 7 95 4 1 25 13 63 26 3 71 average s 93 2 5 93 2 5 90 2 8 98 2 0 19 36 44 41 8 51 ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 55 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 table.4 major element’s concentration averages, and ranges of the major elements in weight percentage and ucc (average value for upper continental crust) (mclennan2001) and other geological parameters of pab formation in western sulaiman fold thrust belt pakistan. sample no cao% mgo% na2o% k2o% mno% fe2o3% p2o5 % tio2% al2o 3% sio2 % loi % cia ciw civ k2o/n a2o sio2/al 2o3 tio2/al 2o3 tp-4 1.637 0.582 0.745 0.570 0.008 1.503 0.6 0.45 7.2 83.3 1 70.92 75.54 5.11 0.76 11.57 0.06 tp-7 1.1095 0.520 0.626 0.657 0.002 1.537 0.07 0.16 7.03 80.6 1 74.60 63.61 4.47 1.05 11.47 0.02 tp-10 1.37375 0.425 0.926 0.890 0.001 1.300 0.24 0.15 5.8 85.3 2 64.51 93.64 4.94 0.96 14.71 0.03 tp-13 4.438 0.452 0.866 0.513 0.111 4.513 0.28 0.55 4.48 79.9 6.5 43.50 87.57 11.01 0.59 17.83 0.12 tp-14 7.43575 0.307 0.589 0.518 0.002 1.432 0.01 0.48 3 82.3 1.5 25.99 59.89 10.44 0.88 27.43 0.16 mp-1 1.74125 1.485 0.518 0.718 0.008 5.105 0.01 0.41 5.51 79.5 2.5 64.92 52.81 9.65 1.39 14.43 0.07 mp-2 2.89625 0.514 0.555 0.362 0.060 2.190 0.06 0.68 6.4 78.8 6.5 62.66 56.52 6.68 0.65 12.31 0.11 mp-3 1.757 0.210 0.793 0.232 0.056 3.092 0.09 0.5 3.9 80.4 5.5 58.36 80.31 6.27 0.29 20.62 0.13 mp-5 2.4535 0.349 0.689 0.764 0.142 2.301 0.01 0.2 3.2 80.8 7.5 45.02 69.90 6.76 1.11 25.25 0.06 mp-1 1 2.07725 0.588 0.518 0.512 0.043 0.338 0.24 0.54 5.1 82.6 4 62.14 52.81 4.18 0.99 16.20 0.11 kp-2 1.9975 0.365 0.595 0.216 0.009 1.737 0.04 0.35 7.55 83.2 1 72.88 60.47 4.97 0.36 11.02 0.05 kp-3 2.952 0.359 0.605 0.331 0.009 0.618 0.05 0.15 6 81.8 1 60.67 61.53 4.90 0.55 13.63 0.03 kp-7 1.18425 0.305 0.503 0.789 0.222 1.228 0.08 0.12 7.5 79 6.5 75.15 51.30 4.25 1.57 10.53 0.02 kp-8 8.01325 0.454 0.766 0.651 0.280 1.852 0.16 0.07 6.6 75.5 3 41.17 77.57 12.03 0.85 11.44 0.01 kp-9 1.73425 0.448 0.746 0.054 0.012 6.201 0.09 0.3 5.25 79.2 1.5 67.44 75.59 9.25 0.07 15.09 0.06 ucc 4.2 2.2 3.9 3.4 0.08 5.03 0.15 0.68 15.2 66 0.87 4.34 0.04 rang e% 1.1095-8. 013 0.210-1. 485 0.503-0. 926 0.503-0. 926 0.001-0. 280 0.338-6. 201 0.010.6 0.07-0. 68 3-7.5 5 75-5. 85 1-7. 5 25.99-75 .15 51.30-93 .64 4.18-12 .03 0.11-0. 96 11.30-25 .17 0.02-0.0 9 mean % 2.853367 0.491 0.669 0.669 0.064 2.33 0.135 0.341 5.63 5 80.81 3 3.4 59.32 67.94 6.99 0.77 14.34 0.06 ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 56 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 table.5; trace elements (ppm) concentration of the studied sandstones from pab formation, in western sulaiman fold-thrust belt pakistan sample no. zr ba rb w sr y pb mo zn th tp-4 470 421 51 395 60 13 8 3 19 8 tp-7 198 98 18 369 24 7 10 2 17 5 tp-10 262 661 36 616 52 8 13 1 26 4 tp-13 157 360 23 209 133 7 12 3 23 5 tp-15 219 240 13 565 18 8 19 2 155 5 mp-1 93 305 6 195 17 5 17 2 22 6 mp-2 202 105 15 227 110 9 3 2 60 8 mp-3 301 209 7 292 95 12 9 3 19 9 mp-5 534 940 32 221 140 18 23 3 33 10 mp-11 276 397 4 132 126 14 21 2 25 13 kp-2 194 250 8 224 30 7 15 2 19 4 kp-3 352 95 12 638 30 6 20 1 19 7 kp-7 139 105 8 186 83 8 13 2 35 8 kp-8 147 80 6 207 78 11 26 3 38 5 kp-9 238 82 8 1869 23 11 10 1 20 6 pg1 xrf 52 183 34 163 3 30 2 40 4 agv1 xrf 112 497 35 319 9 21 1 43 5 pg1 reference 1026 173 683 7 61 1 88 3 agv1 1230 67 660 20 36 1 ucc 190 550 122 350 22 17 71 10.7 range 93-534 80-940 4-51 132-1869 5-140 3-186 3-26 1-3 17-55 4-13 mean 252.13 289.87 16.47 423.00 67.93 14.60 9.60 2.13 35.33 6.87 ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 57 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 figure 8. plots of various trace elements against al2o3 (48) for sandstones of the pab formation (tp tanga section, mp mina bazar section, kp kapip section) in western sulaiman fold-thrust-belt pakistan. 5.3 source area weathering the weathering of the source area is mainly controlled by relief, the composition of source rocks, climatic conditions, tectonic uplift and intensity of weathering (52). depletion of the alkali and alkaline earth elements occurs during weathering (52), which provide constraints on chemical and physical weathering and also sedimentary environments 53. the chemical index of alteration (cia, 54), chemical index of weathering (ciw 55, and index of chemical variability have been used to assess the palaeo-weathering state of the source area (icv 56). the chemical index of alteration or cia shows the intensity of chemical weathering occurred in the source area (54). the molar equation is used to calculate the index. cia = [al2o3+cao+na2o+k2o]*100 cia = [al2o3/ (al2o3+cao*+na2o+k2o)] × 100. the variation in the cia values may indicate alterations of feldspar and a variety of clay minerals (54). the high cia values (76–100) show intense chemical weathering while the low values of cia indicate (50 or less) fresh source areas. the values of cia in the studied samples range from 26% to 75% and the average value is (59%), which suggest that source region may have experienced intermediate chemically weathering. the average to high values of cia may reflect humid to semi-humid palaeo-climatic conditions in the source area. figure 9. (a) fe2o3+mgo vs tio2; (b) fe2o3+mgo vs al2o/ sio2 after after bhatia (51) figure 10. after roser and korsch (52) discrimination function diagram for the sandstone samples of the pab formation (tp, tanga section, mp mina bazar section, kp, kapip section), in western sulaiman fold-thrust belt pakistan. the discrimination functions are as under: discrimination function 1 = 1.773tio + 0.607 a2o3+0.76 fe2o3-1.5mgo + 0.0616 cao + 0.00616 cao +0.509 na2o-1.224k2o -9.09 ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 58 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 discrimination function 2 = 0.445 tio2 +0.07 al2 o3-fe2o3-1.142 mgo+0.438 cao+1.475 na2o+1.426 k20-6.861 the chemical index of weathering (ciw) can reveal a better understanding of source area weathering conditions (57) ciw = [al2o3/al2o3 + cao + na2o]*100 the ciw values of the pab formation range from 95% to 52% and the average value is 70%, which indicates intermediate to high-intensity chemical weathering in the source area. the index of chemical variability (icv) proposed by 58 measures the percentage of alumina compared to other main cations, which may be used for evaluating the maturity of murdock. icv=(fe2o3+k2o+na2o+cao+mgo+mno+tio2)/ al2o3 *cao molecule in detrital grains the icv values range from 6.37 to 12.03 (mean 12.18). the samples with higher alteration products have low values of icv, less than 1, such as clay minerals and formed within low topography with intense chemical weathering (59). the plot of si2o vs total al2o+k2o+na2o introduced by (60) was used to identify the maturity of the sandstone as a function of climate this plot (figure 11) indicates a humid climate and intense weathering conditions and higher degree of mutuary in the source region. figure 11. plot showing chemical maturity of the sandstone, (tp, tanga section, mp mina bazaar section, kp, kapip section) in western sulaiman fold-thrust belt pakistan, as expressed by plotting sio vs al2o3+k2o+na2o after suttner and dutta (61). 6. discussion sandstone of the pab formation is quartz arenites. the mineral assemblages of pab formation after being plotted in different ternary diagrams indicates the detritus derivation from recycled orogeny and craton interior. the petrographic and model analysis data point towards plutonic as well as metamorphic rocks in the source. the higher percentage of mono-crystalline quartz over poly-crystalline quartz indicates the derivation of sediments of the pab formation largely from an acidic plutonic source and represents a long transporting route. such kind of interpretations have been done by (blatt 1967) 62, by examining the characteristics of the quartz grains. (tucker 2001) 63 proposed a set of heavy minerals used for the identification of source lithology, he mentioned epidote, staurolite, and garnet as minerals of metamorphic source terrain, while tourmaline, zircon and rutile indicate igneous source. the inclusions of mica and garnet within quartz grains are another indication of metamorphic source (64). besides quartz grains, pab formation also contains the lithic fragments of basic igneous and metamorphic rocks. the sorting, roundness, and low clay concentration indicates that the sandstone is mature and sediments were transported over a long distance. the compositional diagrams such as qm-f-lt indicate quartzose recycled and lithic recycled while lm-lv-ls indicate mixed magmatic arc and subduction complex fields. identified minerals after being plotted on different compositional diagrams indicate that both quartz and feldspars are derived from a granitic body with some contribution of metamorphic and basic igneous rocks. the comparison between the present findings with the triassic and jurassic sandstones of the wulgai and loralai formations in western sulaiman fold-thrust belt and cretaceous mughal kot and pab formations in kirthar and sulaiman fold thrust belts show that they have similar characteristics (33, 65, 66,67, 68 ,69). detrital modes of the triassic sandstone of the wulgai formation (69) in western sulaiman fold thrust belt has detrital modes of q96f4l0.2, qt71f4l25, qm96f3lt1, qm96p1k2, lm55lv1ls16 and qp71lv6ls29 are very close to our detrital modes (q93f2l5, qt93f2l5, qm90f2lt8, qm98p2k0, lm19lv36ls44, qp41lvm8lsm50). durrani et al., (68) carried out the detrital modes of the jurassic loralai formation in western sulaiman-fold-thrust belt, they classified jurassic sandstone as quartz arenite and in qt-f-l, samples plot fall in the field of craton interior and quartose-recycled field. umar et al (65) analyzed the pab formation in kirthar fold thrust ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 59 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 belt, they also reported high percentage of quartz in the sandstone. umar [66] concluded that the detritus of the pab formation in kirthar fold-thrust-belt was supplied from craton interior and quartzose recycled settings. kakar et al [67] studied the petrographic and provenance studies of late cretaceous pab formation and mughal kot formation in northeastern sulaiman belt, their results are also close to our findings, they also proposed craton interior and recycled orogeny setting. kassi et al., (33) also classified pab formation as quartz arenite, sublithic-arenite and lithic arenite and suggested acidic igneous and metamorphic terrain within craton interior and recycled orogenic belt. sultan and gibson [65] analyzed the sandstone of the pab formation in eastern sulaiman fold-thrust-belt and also reported lower degree of maturity in sandstone due to its proximity to source terrain. the indian craton which is exposed as inliers in the northeast and southeast of the sulaiman belt is believed to be the most probable area for the sandstone of the pab formation and it remained the dominant source for the sandstones of the belt until cretaceous. the grains sorting, roundness and low clay concentration suggest that the detritus of pab formation travelled a long transporting distance before deposition into the basin. studied samples of the pab formation are high in sio2 due to enrichment of quartz. al2o3 is the second highest oxides in sandstone, which ranges from 3.00% to 7.55% (average is 5.63), the average value is depleted when compared to ucc values (15.2). these values suggest mature types of sandstone the relationships between various major oxides such as cao, al2o3, mno, tio2, fe2o3, mgo, k2o, and na2o with sio2 show a positive correlation except na2o and k2o harkar 1983 (48) that may be due to scarcity of feldspar. plots of different major oxides against al2o3 show a stronger positive correlation except sio2 and mno that may be due to the enrichment of quartz and calcite cement. plots of the trace elements vs al2o3 indicate positive correlations of the trace elements with al2o3, the reason may be the absorption of most of the trace elements by alumino-silicates (49). the classification scheme of pettijon and crock (5, 50) showed that the samples plotted in the field of sublithic arenite to quartz arenite. the index of chemical weathering and alteration of source areas such as cia, ciw and icv (after 54, and 55) indicates moderate to intense chemical weathering in the source region. the provenance of the pab formation was also investigated using discriminant function diagrams, (52) discriminant function diagram indicates that pab formation is derived mainly from recycled quartzose sedimentary source. the discriminate plots of 51 favor a passive margin environment for the deposition of the pab formation. in such setting the sediments are largely quartz-rich and the sandstones are derived from plate interior or stable continental areas and deposited in the intra-cratonic basin or passive continental margins (52). the indian shield in pakistan comprises many precambrian outcrops comprising crystalline rocks of kirana group in sargodha high, sargodha-shakot area and nagar-parkar complex, thar, sindh (18). rocks of kirana group are composed of meta-sedimentary and metavolcanics assemblages such as quartzites, slates, phyllites and minor volcanics (70). rocks of nagar parkar complex comprises grey granite, pink granite, metabasites, acid dykes of rhyolite/quartz trachyte in metabasites and dykes of mafic composition (18). till collision in paleocene the northwestern margin of the indian plate remained passive in the enormous tethys ocean (71). the wulgai formation (triassic) and loralai formation (jurassic) demonstration a slow progradation from deep to shallow marine environmental setting and final emergence, which is marked by the disconformity between the jurassic loralai formation and late jurassic-early cretaceous sember formation (23). the eastern indian shield interior was thermally uplifted when the indian plate was passing over the hot spot (reunion hot spot) during late cretaceous. as a result a large amount of sandy detritus was derived from the interior and deposited onto the passive margin as the pab formation (10). the supply of terrigenous detritus to the basin was diminished during paleocene due to a large scale transgression, which initiated the deposition of pelagic-hemipelagic shales and very thick shallow marine limestone of the dungan formation. the oblique convergence of indian plate with the eurasian plate (afghan) block during paleocene initiated the obduction of bela-muslim bagh ophiolite onto the western passive margin of the indian plate (72,73, 74). the collision affected the geometry of the margin and as a result flexural foreland-basins started evolving in far west side. the sedimentation still continued on western passive margin and thick ghazij deltaic shales and the shallow marine limestone of kirthar formation were deposited. the continued collision between the indian plate and eurasian plate uplifted the gigantic himalayan mountain belts on the northern and northwestern margin. the kirthar-sulaiman fold-thrust-belts are the south-southwestern ahmed et al., j. mt. area res. 06 (2021) 45-62 60 j. mt. area res., vol. 6, 2021 extensions of himalayas. compressional deformation continued until pliocene–pleistocene time and is recorded in imbricated thrust sheets in the kirthar fold belt (75). conclusions the sandstone of the late cretaceous pab formation in western sulaiman fold and thrust belt is quartz arenite to lithic arenite. the petrography reveals that low grade metamorphic and granitic rocks were the dominant source terrains. the geochemical ternary diagrams indicate the derivation of sandstone from quartzose recycled and lithic recycled orogeny. the weathering and alteration indices of source areas such as cia, ciw and icv indicate intense to moderate chemical weathering in the source area. in discriminant function diagrams the pab formation is plotted in quartzose recycled sedimentary source and favor a passive margin environment for the deposition. eroded sediments were largely derived from stable craton areas and laid on passive continental margin of the indian plate. well sorted and rounded grains of sandstone and low concentration of clay indicate that the detritus of the formation had travelled a long distance before deposition into the basin. the indian craton which is exposed as inliers in the northeast and southeast of the sulaiman fold and thrust belt, remains the most logical source terrain for the detrital material of the pab formation and it remained the dominant source for the sandstones in western sulaiman fold -thrust belt until late cretaceous. declarations the authors are thankful to the director centre of excellence in mineralogy, university of balochistan, quetta, for 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[75] niamatullah, mohammad “anomalous orientation of the khude range fold belt and enigma of khuzdar syntaxis in southern kirthar fold belt, pakistan” acta mineralogica pakistanica, 9 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 18 aug. 2021. revised/accepted: 07 oct. 2021. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 32 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 journal of mountain area research an overall view on gemstone mining in gilgit-baltistan: problems and mitigations muhammad alam1,*, s. ali2, g. khan3, m. alam4, y. bano5, a. khan6 1 government degree college jutial gilgit, pakistan 2 institute of tibetan plateau research, university of chinese academy of sciences, china 3 xinjiang institute of ecology and geography, chinese academy of sciences 4 china university of geo sciences beijing china 5 fatima jinnah women degree college gilgit, 15100 pakistan 6 kunming university of science and technology yunnan, china abstract gilgit-baltistan has tremendous amount of gemstone wealth and thousands of miners are busy to explore this wealth, but due to unscientific and crude mining methods this mineral wealth goes into waste in many ways, like fractures, damages and total destruct ions of gemstone due to ill blasting methods and lack of proper training. gemstone mining is done in all districts of gilgit-baltistan. according to a careful survey in july 2007, 32 types of gemstones (precious and semiprecious) are found in gb, out of total production of gemstones produced in pakistan 95% come from gb. according to this survey there are more than 2000 mines which produce different variety of gemstones and numbers of miners involved in this mining industry directly or indirectly are more than 25000. due to these crude and unscientific mining methods, improper camps without hygienic facilities, lack of proper mining equipment, lack of basic health facilities and safety tools and lack of mining equipment repairing facilities at mining sites, number of problems are arising. these problems include damage to the fauna and flora in mining areas, damage to the eco system due to blasting and flow of people; mountains are becoming vulnerable due to improper mines development, glaciers melting due to use of thermal generators, spreading of human filth and waste like plastic and at last polluting of the water. this research is based on the mitigation of all these problems to some extent. the damage to the fauna and flora may be reduced by controlling spreading of human filth and waste, controlled blasting may be done by using modern blasting techniques, proper mines of international standard may be developed by in forcing the mining rules, use of thermal generators may be prohibited by developing small hydro projects at sites and at last pollution of water may be controlled by training people to adopt the cleanliness drives time to time and equipment repairing facilities at sites as well. keywords: gemstones, fauna and flora, international standards, mitigation *corresponding author: (email: muhammad.alam@gcgilgit.edu.pk) introduction gemstone mining has a history in different parts of gilgit-baltistan like hunza and nager valleys, heramosh, rondo, shiger, khapolo, istak, ghizer, astore and diamer. however, most of the gemstones mined are damaged, fractured full length article vol. 4, 2019 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar alam et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 32-39 33 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 and destroyed due to crude and primitive mining methods. the miners may be trained to mine the gemstones by modern methods to explore the gems without damage, fractures or totally destroying them. due to the climatic changes in gb the miners are facing great difficulties in locating the new prospects, due to flash flooding, erosions, land sliding, rock falling, debris flow and seismic activities. as we know that gilgit-baltistan is prone to active seismic activities due to the presence of mkt (main karakorum thrust fault) and mmt (main mantle thrust fault). the explosives (especially wahbox) used in gemstone mining is hazardous for the fauna and flora of the area and the noise produced during blasting is also harmful for the ecosystem in these mountains. the overall environment of the area is disturbed for many reasons. the history of mining of hunza ruby was started in 1966, when a local shepherd found a ruby crystal somewhere in hunza ruby belt area. the wipdc azad kashmir and northern areas mineral development project team conducted some exploratory operations on one of the pre-reported ruby horizons in khoshi (now faizabad) area during 1968-1969 through a short prospecting drift [1]. later on, pmdc (pakistan mineral development corporation) in 1978 carried out exploratory works in different areas of gb like heramosh and istak nalah to explore the gemstone wealth with the objectives to prove the feasibility of gemstone mining in gilgit-baltistan. later on, different private mining companies were granted leases in different areas like hunza, istak and shiger valley to explore this wealth. but these private companies destroyed the mines by illegal mining methods instead to develop them on modern lines. with the passage of time the local people became familiar with gemstones and started mining in different parts of gb. the local buyers and international buyers came to gb and paid reasonable amount of money to them. due to the reason gemstone mining rush was started [2]. as we have discussed earlier that thousands of miners are busy in mining these gemstones without any safety and basic tools risking their lives as well as destroying this mineral wealth. all the gemstone mining is done illegally and it is difficult for the law enforcement agencies or minerals department officials to reach the sites due to height and resistance from the locals. it is the need of the hour to legalize the mining and enforce the mining rules to save lives as well destroying the mineral wealth. the miners may be trained to adopt the mining standards, health standards, avoiding damage to fauna and flora and stop to polluting the water. this study will help to mitigate the health risks, less damage to mineral wealth, minimization of threat to fauna and flora and polluting of water coming to valleys from these mining sites. the gemstone mining is a common practice worldwide in more than 20 countries. all these gems producing countries are very careful and adopt the international standards. they are very careful about the environment and government departments concerned are very active and enforce the government laws. hence mining is done in its proper shape without damaging the environment of the area. study area the study area includes the entire gem bearing areas of gilgit-baltistan like hunza, chumar bakoor and hoper (distt. nager), heramosh (distt.gilgit), bulachi (distt. astore), istak (distt. skardu), shiger (distt.shiger), braldo and basha valley, ghizer and diamer districts. alam et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 32-39 34 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 figure 1. map of study area with gem bearing points in gilgit-baltistan. geology of the study area the gilgit baltistan province is very significant for gemstone resources because of hosting two main sutures like northern indus and karakoram (shyok suture). the high temperature created by geodynamics and tectonic collision of indo-pak subcontinent, so their sutures are producing gemstones and significant for further exploration. gemstones like aquamarine from askere, shingus, dusso and tisgtung of gilgit; emerald from khaltaro of gilgit; moonstone from shingus and bulechi (gilgit); quartz from gilgit and skardu; red ruby and spinel (magnesium aluminate) from hunza are more attractive than burma, and pargasite cabochons (green amphibolite; locally purchased as hunza emerald) from hunza valley; rose quartz from dusso pegmatites near skardu; topaz from pegmatites from bulechi, shingus and gone near dusso in skardu; gem tourmaline (pink, blue, green and black) from pegmatites of haramosh range like stak nala between gilgit and skardu, bulechi and shingus; beautiful pyrite, malachite and azurite in pegmatite near gilgit[3]. ruby bearing area in hunza is constituted by the metasedimentary rocks of the darkot group pierced from place to place by intrusive bodies of mainly acidic character with a common emplacement period of early to late tertiary. the largest and the most persistent intrusive body is the karakorum granodiorite which may be termed as karakorum batholith [4]. the hunza ruby belt is constituted by one of the members of the darkot group (permo-carboniferous) which attains an apparent thickness of 7000 to 10000 feet and is persistent to at least 15 accessible miles with mineralization [5]. the chumar bakoor mines are located at the height of about 15000 feet. the location of the area is longitude 33˚ 43 ́ 66˝ and latitude 73˚ 45 ́ 90˝. geologically the area is composed of garnet mica schist, graphitic schist, amphibolites and aplites. the pegmatite bodies are in the form of dykes and sills. the pegmatites are ½ m to 1 ½ meter thick. the gemstones are also found here in the form of pockets. the formation of gemstones in the pegmatites of chumar bakor is due to the reason of activity at the margins of the karakorum batholith, which is in the vicinity of the chumar bakoor. these pegmatites are formed from waters that separate from magma in the late stages of recrystalization, this activity has occurred in small pockets along the margins of the karakorum batholith. these pegmatites may also be formed in fractures that develop on the margins of the karakorum batholith. the pegmatites of bulachi area are situated between heramosh and istak nalah on the gilgit-skardu road. this pegmatite swarm includes those along the indus river, the area around heramosh, the istak nalah mines and the mines within the astore district on the south side of the indus river. these pegmatites generally have zones extending out from their parent rock type. there alam et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 32-39 35 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 are zones of phosphates, zones that are beryllium rich and lithium rich (lct type) pegmatites. most of these pegmatites produce beryl, aquamarine, black tourmaline, topaz and fluorite. at istak nalah the pegmatites are lithium rich (lct type) and produce multi colored tourmaline rather than black ones. there are also granitic pegmatites in the area which produce aquamarine, black tourmaline, topaz, apatite and garnet. the pegmatite swarm of this area is spread out over an area of about 150 square kilometers [7]. the shiger valley pegmatites are classified into two groups. group one pegmatites are gem bearing and group two pegmatites are barren. gem bearing pegmatites are further divided into two groups. one is muscovite schorl-beryl garnet pegmatites and another one is muscovite schorl pegmatites [3]. based on field features we can assume that the pegmatites of braldo and basha valleys are of the same origin as discussed above. these pegmatites are coarse grained and zoned. dassu area contains granitic gneisses. pegmatites are intruded and composed of quartz, feldspar, muscovite and black tourmaline. the mine in dassu visited is at the elevation of 7913 feet. the location of the area has longitude 34˚ 22 ̍̍ 593 ̋ and latitude 72 ̋ 94 ̋̋̋ 505 ̋. method the gemstone mining sites in gilgit-baltistan are mostly at greater heights except the ruby mines of hunza, which are near the karakorum highway or at the top of villages like aliabad, dorkhan, hassan abad etc which are easily accessible. similarly, the ruby-emerald mines in shiger valley are also accessible easily. but most of the mines are not accessible easily like chumar bakor, istak, shiger, heramosh, bulachi, braldo and basha valleys. it is a bit difficult job to reach the actual mining sites, to meet the miners, to know about the miners and their problems and to know about the mines to examine the gemstones. so 25 days field work was conducted in all the areas discussed, reached the actual sites, met with miners, examined and observed the gemstones mined from the area and confirmed about the gemstones mined. pictures of the mines, gemstones and miners were taken. interviews from the miners were conducted also [7]. problems after conducting interviews with the miners and observing the conditions of the miners we concluded the following problems faced by the miners of gilgit-baltistan. due to severe hard work and lack of training and basic facilities, the miners are suffering from different diseases, such as 20 to 30% miners have breathing as well as eye infection problems. due to difficult terrain it is very hard to carry the machinery to the actual mining sites such as drilling machines, compressors and other mining tools. miners are facing problems such as ventilation, lighting and drilling after 150 to 200 feet of drivage. all the mines visited are not of the standard as specified in the mining rules. miners are working without basic safety equipment like helmet, mining shoes, gloves, googles and masks by risking their lives[7]. miners spent less money and want to earn more from the mines, hence they are not maintaining the mines according to the standards. most of the miners are suffering from the disease silicosis (a kind of disease which slowly damages the lungs) due to the explosives and the dust. repairing of the machinery at the mining sites is severely needed to save the time of the miners. due to uncontrolled mining and use of explosives extensively the fauna and flora are becoming extinct. alam et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 32-39 36 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 mitigation to mitigate the problems faced by the miners of gilgit-baltistan following solutions are suggested which are useful to decrease the problems to some extent [8]. man powered ventilation system ventilation problem is one of the problems faced by the miners of gilgit-baltistan. due to tough terrain and cliffs, it is rather impossible to develop a ventilation system in the mines. so, a simple ventilation system may be adopted to solve this problem of ventilation, called man powered ventilation system. for this purpose, a ten-speed bicycle may be used for ease of gaining speed (rpm) and the rear wheel as a large pulley to drive the fan. this simple homemade machine may be installed in the mine to drive out the dust and explosive fumes out of the mine. it is simple and not expensive. it may be run by miners turn by turn to out the fumes from the mines [8]. fig 2. a homemade pedal machine roof support using timber in most of the visited areas the roof support is not a problem. the only areas that required some support were the detached blocks. in seismically active areas or the mines near to mkt (main karakorum thrust fault) and mmt (main mantle thrust fault), shearing zones may encountered and need timbering. the timber is placed as close to the direction of rock wants to move, usually downward. in stops the timber is usually placed perpendicular to the slope. locking all parts together is important to keep the set from moving in any direction. the kicker which is nailed to the bottom of the cap keeps the posts from moving into the drift. the scabbing is nailed to the post and holds the brace up which keeps the post and cap from moving either direction up or down the drift. the brace fits in between sets trying the structure together [8] fig.3 wooden wedges are used to tighten up the structure by placing a wedge between a block of wood and the structure and pounding it tight with a sledge hammer. there are as many ways to lock timber together as there are different mines in gb. each major mine should develop their own method of timbering based on their particular circumstances. blasting technique blasting techniques play a vital role in mine development and gemstone exploration. the proper loading sequence is to place the blasting cap at the bottom of the hole so the blast propagates upwards. if a full stick of explosive is used, carefully slit the upper portion of the explosive with a knife. safety fuse is bended alongside of the stick is placed and capped end into the hole. explosive stick is pressed until it is expanding. it should not be pressed hard and cap should be placed well alam et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 32-39 37 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 inside the explosive and it should not touch the rock. anfo (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixture) may be used and a small end of explosive may be used to detonate the anfo. the hole diameter for anfo should not be smaller than 3.75cm. if small diameter holes are drilled should not use anfo. anfo can be poured down a whole if near vertical or plastic tubing can be used and the anfo loaded like sausages. it should be tamping tightly. stemming is used to confine the expanding gases to keep the explosives from blowing back out of the hole. almost anything can be used as stemming. pea gravel works very well when placed in a plastic tube for ease of loading. vertical or downward holes the stemming can be poured in and tamped [8]. fig.4 blasting technique sanitation sanitation is a big problem in the mining areas where the miners work extensively such as chumar bakor, shiger, istak and heramosh area. due to spreading of the human filth the fauna and flora has the devastating effect. to reduce the destruction to fauna and flora following simple sanitation methods may be at the mining sites. the ventilated improved pit (vip) latrine reduces substantially the two main problems associated with conventional pit latrines: smell and flies. the essential improvement is the insulation of a screened vent pipe. sun heats the vent pipe, causing an upward movement of air and subsequent circulation from the pit and the main chamber upwards and out through the vent pipe. odour and flies are thus kept away from the main chamber. wind flowing across the vent flies are attached to the top of the vent pipe since this is the area where the smells are the strongest. fly proof gauze prevents them from entering. some flies may enter via the main chamber is kept dark; the strongest light source is at the top of the vent pipe. since flies are attracted to the light, these will fly up the pipe. they are prevented from escaping by the fly proof gauze and so eventually die and fall back into the pit. this control; is effective. in a 78 day comparison of a conventional and improved pit latrine, 13,953 flies were caught in the main chamber of the conventional design compared to 147 flies in the improved version. in the vip latrine it is very important that a lid is not placed over the squat hole, otherwise air circulation is impeded. above figures illustrate the essential construction details for both a ferrocement version and a brick made structure [8]. alam et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 32-39 38 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 fig 5. exploded schematic diagram of ferrocement spiral vip latrine. personal protection equipment (ppe). first aid kit. white cross industrial first aid kit. serves up to 25 people. assorted supplies for miners. all steel case. can be wall mounted. polythene caps. high density polythene caps with rain trough. easily replaceable. adjustable to sizes. slip-lok attachment accepts face shields and welding helmets quickly and easily. can be front or side embossed. assorted quilted hard-hat liner. outer shell flame retardant. liner at soft flannel. adjustable chin strap. one size fit all. goggles. flexible frame with perforated sides for comfort. protects from flying particles and dust. fits over personal glasses. safety hearing protectors. noise reduction rating. light weight and adjustable. hear the difference. ear plugs. convenient hearing protection. noise reduction. soft foam type plugs expand to comfortably seal off unnecessary noise. tools. several types of shovels are useful for the collector and prospector. the center shovel is useful and smaller than either of the shovels. it may be operated by unscrewing the collar just above the blade; this permits the shovel blade to be folded to a right-angle position or folded back on the handle to reduce the total size for showing in a knapsack. several useful tools are designed also for picking, hammering and digging. fig. 8 different tools used in mining gemstones. pick, striking hammer, sledge hammer and splitting tools. the best all round hammer is the mineralogist pick. similarly, small rock cracking hammer is also extremely useful in situations where considerable rock must be broken to free specimens or a hammer or medium weight is required to drive chisels and gads. the nevada sledge hammer is better for cracking rocks than either of the other sledges illustrated but the broader faces of the engineer and oregon hammers make them less likely to miss in striking drills or gads. fig 9. various tools used in mining of gemstones. a variety of useful tools for splitting rock. the borehole wedge is meant to be used in drilled holes to split rock. the side pieces or feathers are inserted in the holes, followed by the tapered pin or plug. repeated blows on the pin alam et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 32-39 39 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 cause exertion of enormous pressure on the rock. although this is a professional piece of equipment, similar sets can be made up from wedges and plates of sheet steel [8]. conclusion after the entire visit of gemstone mining sites of gilgit-baltistan, we have conclude that gb has tremendous gemstone potential. due to difficult terrain and short working season the miners are in great pressure and some have psychological problems as well. all these problems may be solved to some extent by adopting all these mitigation methods by the miners. all this equipment may be provided to the miners by government or by ngos [9]. trainings at actual sites should be given to minimize the damaging factor of gemstones. their ventilations problems may be solved, when this is solved the miners will have fresh air in mines and they will be saved from disease like silicosis and eyes itching etc. the damage to fauna and flora may be stopped by adopting the sanitation method as described. the tools may be used in mines to extract the gemstones properly without damages. references [1]. faruqi, s.h, (1978) find report hunza ruby project. pakistan mineral development carporation. [2].gemstones of pakistan. wikipedia. the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gemstones_of_pa kistan [3] malakani,m., malik,z.m., somro,n., arif,j.,gemstone and jewlry resources of pakistan, information release (gsp ir), (2017), no.1004; 1-28. [4]. agheem, m. h., shah, m. t., khan, t., laghari, a., & dars, h, field features and petrography used as indicators for the classification of shigar valley pegmatites, gilgit-baltistan region of pakistan. himal j earth sci univ peshawar, (2011), 44(2), 1-7. [5]. searle, m. p., khan, m. a., fraser, j. e., gough, s. j., & jan, m. q, the tectonic evolution of the kohistan‐karakoram collision belt along the karakoram highway transect, north pakistan. tectonics, (1999), 18(6), 929-949. [6].austromineral, feasibility study of indus gold project: submitted to pakistan mineral development corporation retrieved from, (1976). [7]. alam,m., ali. a., a brief report on mines and gemstones of gilgit-baltistan.submitted to aga khan rural support program, gilgit, (2008). [8]clanin.j., jcmining inc, final report. recommendations for the mining sector/teaching curriculum in gb, (2007). [9] hunzai, i., baig, a., final report, development and promotion of gemstone sector policy/regulatory frame work for community based fair, clean and ethical practices.under gilgit-baltistan.the “the jewel of pakistan” project, (2014). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 3 october 2019. revised/accepted: 13 december 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gemstones_of_pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gemstones_of_pakistan http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 1 j. mt. area res., vol. 3, 2018 journal of mountain area research outcome and roots of early marriages in gilgit-baltistan: a quantitative descriptive study saima baig1,* and asmat ullah2 1. sindh madressatul islam university karachi, sindh pakistan. 2. aga khan university karachi, sindh pakistan. abstract the aim of this study was to find out the causes and outcome of the early marriages in the light of victims and gatekeepers observations. however, one-third of under-aged girls in the developing countries are married before the age of 18 years. although in northern areas of pakistan, early marriage is a very common problem in both gender, especially, in gilgitbaltistan and the ratio is higher than any other part of the country. moreover, in this region, early marriage is prevailed due to traditional customs, religious dominance and supernatural evil. the present study chose two categories, first category for victims which includes respondents of age group from 10 to 40 years old and married before 18 years of age. the second category was chosen for interpretation of the community gatekeepers. we utilized a quantitative survey method to collect data from each district and examined 200 sample. a sample is divided into two groups, the victim's group includes 150 respondents and the group of gatekeepers includes 50 sample size. the tailor-made close-ended questionnaire was designed for the collection of data. beside this, a likert scale was also used for professionals. there is a need to take some serious steps to eliminate this social disease which promotes the illiteracy, poverty, crime, economic burden, terrorism, domestic violence and rapid increase in population which is surmounting challenges in the pathway of regional development. early marriage has psychological, physical and economic consequences; most girls remain unable to complete their primary and secondary education and also have the negative impact on their health. keywords: early marriage, causes, outcome *corresponding author: (email: srbaig100@gmail.com) 1. introduction early marriage is one of the main reason for the rapid growth in south asia and more than seven hundred million women [1] and 46 percent of south asian girls got married before 18 years of age. almost, half of the girls married before the age of 15, one in five girls are married out of them and it is the highest ratio in the world. while in india 43 percent of women were married between the ages of 20 and 24 from 2005 to 2013 [2]. around 42% of girls in pakistan got married before their 18th birthday and 8% of adolescents married women are already mother between the ages of 15 and 19 [3]. globally, early marriages is a common practice in the community and they began to be curious in the 20th century. in ancient and medieval societies, it was common for girls to be engaged even before puberty [4]. vol. 3, 2018 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article mailto:srbaig100@gmail.com saima et al., j. mt. area res. 03 (2018) 1-7 2 j. mt. area res., vol. 3, 2018 the prevalence of early marriages, 100 million girls will be married before 18 in next decade and 51 million girls' ages between 15 and 19 will be married worldwide [5] although, 82%, 75%, 63%, 50% these percentage of girls in nigeria, bangladesh, nepal, uganda respectively married before 18 years [6] however, 39% of the girls in amahara region ethiopia married before 15 years of age [7] the experience of adolescence in amahara region of ethiopia joint study of the population, united nation population fund and unicef population council 66%, 12% the proportion of the girls among nigeria poorest 20% and richest 20% respectively, who married before 18 years of age [8]. girls who are younger than 15 years are five times more likely to die in childbirth than those in their 20s [9]. india is the second highest number of early marriages. the highest ratio of early marriages in bangladesh, there are two out of every three girls are married before age followed by india, nepal, and afghanistan. india has the highest number of unregistered children under the age of five years from 2000 to 2012 and the second highest number of early marriages. according to the un report, the country still needs to improve immunization coverage and stop gender-based sex selection. the largest number of children under the age of five and 71 million birth is not registered in india from 2002 to 2012. although, 100 million unregistered children were born in india, afghanistan, bangladesh, and maldives [9]. in developing countries, the majority of the sexual female adolescent are married. although married adolescent is often assumed to be a low risk for hiv infection and a little is known about actual hiv risk [10]. unfortunately, motherhood ratio is very high 147/1000 because of early marriages in pakistan [11]. early marriage affects girls and boys negatively and they suffer from various diseases. moreover, sexual violence in girls affects them by fistula. six thousand girls infected daily hiv [12], 60%, 10%, 1% in mozambique with no education, secondary schooling and higher education respectively married before 18 years of ages [13]. early marriages are one of the reason of sociocultural belief that create health issues. it was said that more than two million south asian children die before the fifth birthday of prevalence causes [14], and nearly 38% of children have chronic malnutrition [15] cultural and social pressure lead families to allow early marriages of people in nigeria [16]. in pakistan, an urban feminist may be offended to learn that an economist from the world bank determined that women married in interchange relationship (watta satta) marriages faceless marital discord than the rural in pakistan. exchange marriages involve simultaneous marriages of brother and sister from one family pair to another family [16]. though in any society early marriages are harmful to its growth and affect societies like pakistan where multiple social problems such as; illiteracy, social crimes, poverty, overpopulation, economic, psychological and environmental issues are already existing. unesco and unicef played a great role to eradicate early marriages in mdgs and they totally focus to stop early marriages. in addition to this, they increase the level of education and formulate an agenda to enhance the level of primary education from 2000 to 2015. they started a global agenda “education for all” but pakistan remained unable to achieve the mdgs. the purpose of mdgs is to educate the girls and enable them to raise their voice for their basic rights . 1.1 situation breakdown of study zone the ratio of early marriages in rural areas is higher (62%) than urban areas (59%), especially in gilgit-baltistan the ratio of early marriage in all districts is 57 percent where women got married before reaching 18 years [17] due to their family and social pressure. although, it is far-flung rural areas are higher than the main cities. there are diverse typical issues like religious dominance, supernatural events, and economic aspects. interestingly, the literacy rate in gilgit-baltistan is above than 85% [18] and it is higher than other parts of the county but unfortunately, inhabitants of the region are tightly bound to their traditional and tribal values. therefore, it is the key factor to drive them for early marriages. the provincial government was intending to pass anti-child early marriage bill but they faced so many challenges to get it passed in the assembly. one of the strong hurdles was the religious factor which pressurized government and prevented to not pass the bill. in this respect, the early marriages bill could not implement [19]. the early marriage is a common practice that is why the ratio of divorce is high in district diamer and suicide incidents. saima et al., j. mt. area res. 03 (2018) 1-7 3 j. mt. area res., vol. 3, 2018 moreover, the ratio has been increasing for the last 10 ten years, according to media reports about 300 girls suicide from 2011 to 16 [20]. these girls are directly or indirectly victims of such traditional customs. most people belong to far-flung areas when reaching puberty and do not marry are supposed to be against the islamic faith. another enormous factor is the traditional belief in supernatural evils i.e. shamanism. the shaman boy or girl suffers from this supernatural disease is advised to marry without considering his or her age and this tradition has prevailed mostly in nager and rondo. additionally, government facilities for specific areas of the region in response to forest royalty the people of those particular areas are preferred early marriages than the legal suitable age. the direct benefit of royalties does not go to the newly married couple that is the real beneficiary of the amount whereas the family of the couple gets benefits from the increased royalty on each newborn child [21]. the extended family system is one of the key factors in the local society that leads to early marriages. in extended families, elders decided themselves for their children marriages even without taking any consent from the victims, owing to these typical traditional decisions, children are bound to follow their elders. another myth or traditional belief is if girls suffer from any disease from her parents keep the vow that the first person come for her will be accepted as her groom for marriage, by doing this act they actually fulfill their vow [22]. unfortunately, in this type of marriage, most of the victims are survive due to the massive age differences between spouses i.e. 10 to 15 years commonly observed in the area of gilgit-baltistan, which is the part of their rolling stone tribes who live for driving soon marriage of children for domestic assistance. according to mics survey report, the population growth in the region is very high 4.8%, however, it is difficult to control unregistered marriages and the unregistered birth of children. this study aims to find out the causes behind the early marriages and their outcome on the victim's life. 2. material & methods the present study consists of a quantitative method and survey method used for achievement of the study purposes and the collection of the data from eight districts of gilgit-baltistan. 2.1 study design the present study was fit into quantitative descriptive research design and respondent divided into two groups’ victims and gatekeepers. the first study group based on victims and included set for them which having age group from 10 to 40 years and married before 18 years of age at the time of the study. the second study group was deliberated for gatekeepers that inclusion criteria set they should be professionals and practitioners. 2.2 data distribution in the current study examined 200 cases with 95% confidence interval and 5% margin of error further divided into two groups; the information collected from eight districts of gilgit-baltistan. the 150 victims approached through snowball sampling for the first group and for the second group 50 gatekeepers selected while reached to them through the provided list of professionals. the sample size distribution is mentioned as under the table. 2.3 tools: two separate but inter-related, close-ended, and tailor-made questionnaires were designed for the respondents. the first was used for victims that represent the region and the population of strata of both male and female. the second category questionnaire was designed for experts that were structured as a likert scale towards their perceptions. saima et al., j. mt. area res. 03 (2018) 1-7 4 j. mt. area res., vol. 3, 2018 2.4 data analysis we used spss version 22 for data entry and data analysis. data was presented in charts and tables with demonstrations of numbers and percentage. 3. results and discussion 3.1 study #01. victim of early marriages we selected 150 respondents as a victim. they married before 18 years of age. in this paper observed (n=32, 21.3%) male and (n=118, 78.7%) female as victims of early marriage shows in figure no 1. figure 1: gender distribution of early marriage victims figure 2 shows the victim’s age at the time of marriage. we explored (n=41, 27.3%) victims were up to 14 years and (n=109, 73.2%) were 15 to 18 years old at the first time of marriage. figure 2: victims age at the time of marriage table 1 shows knowledge of victims about early marriage highest (n=96, 64.2%) respondents did not know about early marriages while, although (n=54, 35.7%) of victims were good knowledge about it. however, majority victims (n=85, 56.6%) were not aware of legal age of marriages though, (n=65, 43.3%) were good knowledge about legal age of marriages above half of the respondents (n=93, 62%) were not satisfied to their daily life routine after 32, 21.3% 118, 78.7% gender of victims male female m a r r i a g e a g e up to 14 years 15 to 18 years saima et al., j. mt. area res. 03 (2018) 1-7 5 j. mt. area res., vol. 3, 2018 early marriage while (n=57, 38%) were satisfied. however, (n=118, 78.6%) of the respondents were not able to continue their education while, (n=32, 21.3%) respondents were to continue their education after marriage. although, (n=109, 72.6%) of the respondents were not sustain health practices after marriage while, (n=41, 27.3%) of the respondents were sustain their health the highest proportion of the respondents (n=99, 66%) were not able to handle while, (n=51, 34%) were able to tackle domestic issues. although, maximum data shows (n=123, 82%) of the respondents did not have school going children, however, (n=27, 18%) of the respondents had school going children, (n=38, 25.3%) of the respondents achieved life objectives and the highest proportion of (n=112, 74.6%) of the respondents were not achieved their life objectives for the reason that early marriage. table 1: knowledge and outcome of early marriages indicators n=150 knowledge about child marriage n = % yes 54 (35.7) no 96 (64.2) knowledge about the legal age of marriage in pakistan yes 65 (43.3) no 85 (56.6) satisfied with married life yes 57 (38.0) no 93 (62.0) currently, continue your education yes 32 (21.3) no 118 (78.6) currently, sustain your health yes 41 (27.3) no 109 (72.6) able to tackle your domestic issues yes 51 (34.0) no 99 (66.0) your children go to school yes 27 (18.0) no 123 (82.0) achieved life objectives yes 38 (25.3) no 112 (74.6) 3.2: study #02: gatekeeper’s interpretation we examined the response of gatekeepers according to the age fixed in the pakistani constitution (18 years and above). in five-point likert scale responses were as; 44% gatekeepers were strongly agreed while, 24% agree, 20% neutral, 6% disagree and 6% strongly disagree. although, 32% gatekeepers were strongly agreed to early marriages is the hurdle in community development in gilgit-baltistan, 30% agree, 22% neutral, 6% disagree and 10% strongly disagree. professionals 44% strongly agreed to social problems increasing as an outcome of early marriages while, 34% agree, 12% neutral, 0% disagree and 10% strongly disagree.  although we found 10% results of the professionals were strongly agreed to supernatural elements and forced them for early marriages but 26% agree, 54% neutral, 4% disagree and 6% strongly disagree. an extended family system is one of the main cause of early marriages among other causes and the responses are as; 40% of professionals strongly agreed, 34% agree and 26% neutral. moreover, print media of gilgit-baltistan did not highlight the suicide cases of girls due to early marriage, in this connection, 30% of the respondents strongly agreed while, 28% agree, 38% neutral while 4% disagree. in response to maternal mortality and domestic violence rate increases 66% of professionals strongly agreed, 14% agree, 10% neutral, 0% disagree and 10% strongly disagree.  seventy-two (72% ) of the professionals strongly agreed to early marriage practice and it is higher in rural areas than urban areas whereas 16% agree, 8% neutral, 0% disagree and 4% strongly disagree. early marriages cause over population and poverty rises in the region, in this connection responses are as, 38% of the professionals strongly agreed, 40% agree, 12% neutral, 0% disagree and 10% strongly disagree. saima et al., j. mt. area res. 03 (2018) 1-7 6 j. mt. area res., vol. 3, 2018 we found 72% of the experts strongly agreed to early marriages and it is higher in rural areas than of urban settlement, similarly, according to zia’s study results were found as; 42% of early marriages and 24% of marriages occur in rural areas and 18% in urban areas.3 the same findings were found in nasrullah and zakar [23] study that stated from pakistan demographic and health survey showed 71% of early marriages were from rural while 30% in urban areas [24]. we found 68 % experts agreed to marriage age which is 18 years and they want to follow national and local marriage laws that are same and included in the cedaw the issue of consent, a minimum age of marriage 18 years that outlaws discriminatory ages for both genders. while 80% of experts were agreed to directly involved in maternal morbidities and mortalities, however, (n=109, 72.6%) victims were not healthy because of early marriages. although the same outcomes were shown in ending early marriage policy guide and in this report experts said that maternal morbidities and mortalities are major problems causes a high level of early marriages [22]. they have a double risk of dying during and after birth, furthermore, they increase chances of morbidities i.e. unbearable obstetric fistula. over a quarter 78% of victims in the study could not continue their education because they have several family responsibilities and economic issues. it is also evident from earlier researches conducted in the country that describe 68% of victims were uneducated [23]. although, found in the study of the role of low intake and birth weight was shown 72.5% women belongs to [up to 20 years] of age bracket that were low birth weight babies deliver [25] it is a strong association of early marriages is leading cause of low birth weight babies. the good nutrition is a requirement of the puberty age and due to early marriage which is insufficient for them and at the same time difficult to deliver nutrition to a newborn baby. legislation assembly of gilgit-baltistan has blocked a bill seeking the ban on early marriage terming it un-islamic. although, according to the survey conducted in all districts of gilgit-baltistan approx. 10,744 underaged from 15 to 49 years’ women, 54% of the respondents got married before reaching 18 years. a difference of age between husband and wife is from 11 to 17 years whereas wives are younger and their husbands were in polygamous relationships [19]. 4. conclusion the research paper shows that the experts such as legal practitioner, journalists, economist, psychologist, educationalist, civil society, human rights activists and physicians were well familiar to early marriages and its negative impacts on community development and victim’s health outcomes. the victims are against an early marriage and its consequences for society as well as their life i.e. their health, education, and their children live also effective due to this action. while the religious experts had an opinion that does not stop the early marriage which is un-islamic and against the preaching of islam and sunnah. the dilemma of the research study is needed to take a serious step to eliminate the key indicators of early marriages. the victims married earlier were unaware about their marriage age and have been suffering from multiple issues in their life due to the burden of social and economic responsibilities. the government, civil society, and ngos might play a vital role to eradicate this social disease in gilgit-baltistan. the issue of early marriage is ought to be raised in assemblies and various programs related to the issue are to be broadcasted for creating awareness saima et al., j. mt. area res. 03 (2018) 1-7 7 j. mt. area res., vol. 3, 2018 in society towards early marriages. while there are laws that protect the innocent girls, there are considerable religious, cultural and social factors that overshadow these laws. acknowledgment we would like to thanks all participants they gave us time, support to highlight the matter of gilgit-baltistan and in the accomplishment of the study. i acknowledged the efforts of abrar khan for assist in the collection of data in all district of gilgit baltistan. references [1] j. svanemyr, v. chandra-mouli, a raj, e travers and l sundaram, research priorities on ending child marriage and supporting married girls. bmc reproductive health. 12 (80) (2015) 2-4. [2] united nation international children’s emergency funds. ending child marriage: progress and prospects. new york: (2014). [3] zia a. underage married girls from pakistan. tribune. january 2, (2013). [4] abgeiki, “coercion to sex and marriages in ancient and medieval societies”, washington d.c., (1993) pg. 85-190. [5] retrieved from http://www.icrw.org/files/images/childmarriage-fact-sheet-by-thenumbers.pdf accessed at 27th may 2017) [6] s.m. mathur, a. greene, and malthora. too young too wed the lives, rights, and health of young married girls. icrw. (2003). [7] a.s. erulkar, t. mekbib, n. simie, and t. gulema. “the experience of adolescence in rural amhara region, ethiopia.” accra: population council. (2004) 1-24. [8] kyari, gimba victor. and ayodele, joseph. “the socio-economic effect of early marriage in north western nigeria”, 5th, (2014), pg. 582 29. [9] retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/mdg/maternal.html accessed on aug 10th, 2017. [10] clarks, bracej, dude, “protecting young women”, international family planning, column 32: june (2016) 79:88 [11] staff reporter. pakistan: who report. the daily express. ed., dated on may 22nd, (2016). karachi. [12] unicef, “young people and hiv/ aids: opportunity in rises”, a joint report by unicef, unaids, who. (2002). [13] s. asfaha, independent evolution report. camfed and cama. programs, zimbabwe 1993-2003. (2003). [14] m. nasrullah, r. zakar, a. kramer: effect of child marriage on use of maternal health care services in pakistan. obstet gynecol 122: (2013) 517-524. [15] haider, murtaza. dated on sep 7th, 2011. retrieved from http://www.dawn.com/news/657239/bartered -in-marriage-the-brideexchange-in-rural-pakistan accessed at sep 17th, 2017. [16] m. nasrullah, r. zakar, m.z. zakar, a. kramer: girl-child marriage and its association with morbidity and mortality of children under 5 years of age in a nationally-representative sample of pakistan. j pediatr, 164: (2014) 639-646. [17] unicef, multiple indicator cluster survey 2016-17: gigit-baltistan. the government of gilgit-baltistan (2017) 205-207. [18] r. abdul, j. luan and h. imran. the province-wide literacy rate in pakistan and its impact on the conomy, pacific science review b: humanities and social sciences vol 1(3) (2015) 140-144. [19] s. mir, “underage, under law: g-b lawmakers blocks bill to ban child marriages”, the express tribune. dec 9th, (2015). [20] the nation, suicide incidents in gilgit-baltistan have reached an alarming level june 21, (2017) retrieved from http://nation.com.pk/21-jun-2017/suicideincidents-in-gb-have-reached-an-alarming-level accessed at nov 15, 2017. [21] a. saif ur rehman. early marriages in pakistan”, chitral pakistan, the chitral times. april 4th,(2014). [22] unfpa. ending child marriage: aguide for global policy action. london: international planned parenthood federation. (2006): 1-32. [23] m. nasrullah, r. zakar, m.z. zakar, s. abbas, r. safdar, m. shaukat and a. kramer. knowledge and attitude towards child marriages practices among women married as children-a qualitative study in urban slums of lahore, pakistan. bmc public health, (2014), 14:1148 [24] national institute of population studies (nips) [pakistan] and macro international inc. pakistan demographic and health survey 2006-07. islamabad, pakistan: national institute of population studies and macro international inc (2008). [25] s. baig, and f.h. siddique, the role of prenatal low intake and low birth weight among deceased infant. journal of social sciences and humanities, vol (52)-2 (2013).83-96. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. file:///c:/users/hp/desktop/cm%20in%20gb.data/gb%20marraiges/retieved%20from%20http:/www.icrw.org/files/images/child-marriage-fact-sheet-by-the file:///c:/users/hp/desktop/cm%20in%20gb.data/gb%20marraiges/retieved%20from%20http:/www.icrw.org/files/images/child-marriage-fact-sheet-by-the file:///c:/users/hp/desktop/cm%20in%20gb.data/gb%20marraiges/retieved%20from%20http:/www.icrw.org/files/images/child-marriage-fact-sheet-by-the http://www.icrw.org/files/images/child-marriage-fact-sheet-by-the-numbers.pdf http://� http://www.dawn.com/news/657239/bartered-in-marriage-the-bride-exchange-in-rural-pakistan http://www.dawn.com/news/657239/bartered-in-marriage-the-bride-exchange-in-rural-pakistan http://www.dawn.com/news/657239/bartered-in-marriage-the-bride-exchange-in-rural-pakistan http://nation.com.pk/21-jun-2017/suicide-incidents-in-gb-have-reached-an-alarming-level%20accessed%20at%20nov%2015 http://nation.com.pk/21-jun-2017/suicide-incidents-in-gb-have-reached-an-alarming-level%20accessed%20at%20nov%2015 http://nation.com.pk/21-jun-2017/suicide-incidents-in-gb-have-reached-an-alarming-level%20accessed%20at%20nov%2015 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 37 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 journal of mountain area research potential impacts of climate change on plant diversity of hilly areas of azad kashmir and their mitigation: a review k. f. akbar* department of botany, university of lahore, sargodha campus, sargodha. abstract azad kashmir has variety of mountain ecosystems which are rich in floral and faunal diversity. these ecosystems are fragile and are under stress due to various natural and anthropogenic pressures. mountain ecosystems of azad kashmir are more vulnerable to global warming and are expected to show its impacts rapidly. climate change may cause major changes in distribution ranges of different vegetation types. as a result of climate change, the area of three vegetation groups (alpine, grassland/arid woodlands and deserts) is expected to decrease and the areas of five types (cold conifer/mixed woodland, cold conifer/mixed forests, temperate conifer/mixed forests, warm conifer/mixed forests, and steppe/arid shrub lands) are expected to increase. climate change is going to affect conservation of plant species and ecosystems by causing direct loss of plant species and intensify the effects of existing threats such as habitat degradation, deforestation and over-harvesting of plants by local communities, pollution and invasive species. these stresses, acting individually and collectively on species, communities and ecosystems, are depleting and will continue to deplete biodiversity. the negative impacts of climate change are multi-dimensional and wide-ranging. their mitigation requires an integrated and coordinated policy response for conservation of plant resources. these measures include a regular monitoring and observation system, restoration of degraded habitats and forests, identifying new solutions involving cross-sectoral linkages to conserve biological diversity of azad kashmir by supporting the intricate and complex responses of species and ecosystems to climate change. key words: azad kashmir, floral diversity, climate change, conservation *corresponding author: (email: kakbar5813@gmail.com) 1. introduction today, climate change is considered as one of the most challenging global environmental issues facing humanity. it has been reported to cause the death of 0.4 million people and global economic losses of more than us$1.2 trillion each year [1]. climate change is the result of human-induced accumulation of green house gases (co2, ch4, n2o) in the atmosphere and resultantly, increase in global atmospheric temperatures. in the past, the global atmospheric concentration has increased from 280 ppm in 1753 (after the dawn of industrial era) to 400 ppm in 2013. along with increase in co2 levels, the global mean temperature has increased by 0.740c [2]. the recent studies show that earth’s climate is changing unabated and global atmospheric concentration of co2 may go up to 1250 ppm and temperature can increase by 7oc by 2100 as compared to1750 [3]. the global warming is not an isolated phenomenon and it may cause changes in other climatic parameters (precipitation change, snow cover, humidity, sea level etc.). vol. 2, 2017 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article mailto:kakbar5813@gmail.com akbar et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 37-44 38 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 these climatic variations may impact global ecosystems by causing variation in different activities in symbiotic, bio-geo-chemical, parasitic and mutualistic relationships between different organisms and communities [3]. climate change is a multidimensional global phenomenon with implications for nearly every sphere of human life. today it has emerged as a critical scientific, development and economic global challenge due to its potential impacts on all kinds of living organisms, integrity of ecosystems and national and global economies [5, 6]. it is particularly so for pakistan because pakistan is highly susceptible to negative impacts of climate change, with a low capability to compete it by adopting necessary measures. global warming is posing a serious danger to its water resources, agricultural production, biological diversity and energy security [7]. the adverse effects of climate change on pakistan are expected to increase further in future as the world’s mean temperature, which increased by 0.6 °c in the 20th century, is going to increase further by 1.1 to 6.4 °c by the last decades of the 21th century [8]. the state of azad jammu & kashmir lies in the north of pakistan. pakistan including azad kashmir is projected to undergo warming at a rate higher than global average. during the 20th century, in pakistan, average annual temperature increased by 0.6 °c, similar to temperature increase on the global level. however, at local level, the northern part of pakistan including aj&k experienced temperature increase higher (0.8 °c) than its southern part (0.5°c) indicating higher susceptibility of its mountainous regions to adverse effects of climate change [8]. according to another study, the temperature in himalayan region has risen by 1oc since 1970s [9]. the studies based on different simulation models predict that pakistan will face a temperature increase up to 1.3 -1.5 °c by 2020s, 2.5 -2.8 °c by 2050s, and 3.9-4.4 °c by 2080s, in line with an increase in average global surface temperature of 2.8-3.4 °c by the end of this century [10]. this paper examines the possible impacts of climate change on plant diversity of the state of azad jammu and kashmir, and more specifically the impacts of climate change on plants of its hilly areas and approaches needed for their conservation. 2. major climate change related issues for pakistan and aj&k the major threats to azad kashmir and pakistan from climate change are mentioned as:  change in dynamics of monsoon;  rapid reduction in size of hindu kushkarakoram-himalayan (hkh) glaciers leading to reduced water in flows into the indus river system (irs) [11]; there are however, conflicting reports about the impact of global warming on the glaciers of himalayas increasing uncertainty. some workers claim that these glaciers are increasing in size due to increase in precipitation [12] whereas other claim that these glaciers are not affected by climatic changes and exhibit no significant change in size in the recent past [13].  the water-storing capacity of natural reservoirs will decrease due to glacier melt and rise in snow line;  higher risks of natural disasters such as floods and droughts;  the water storing capacity of major dams will decrease due to increased silting;  the frequent occurrence of extreme water-stressed and heat-stressed incidents having negative impacts on crop yields in dry regions [14];  increase in upstream movement of ocean water in the indus delta, having adverse impacts on the ecology and production of coastal areas; and  increased threats of sea level rise and cyclones to the human settlements along the sea coast including karachi due to higher sea surface temperatures [15]. from these potential dangers, it is evident that climate change poses serious dangers to regional and global biodiversity by altering the akbar et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 37-44 39 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 patterns of seasonal temperature and precipitation. furthermore, synergistic effects between global warming and other anthropogenic phenomenon such as pollution, habitat loss and fragmentation, over-exploitation of natural resources will make worse climate-induced changes for biodiversity [15]. 3. general profile of azad jammu & kashmir the state of azad jammu and kashmir lies between longitude 73o – 75o and latitude 33o – 36o and its total geographical area is 13,297 km2. ajk falls within the himalayan orogenic belt with hilly and mountainous topography characterized by deep ravines, rugged, and undulating terrain. the state can be divided into two geographical regions, the northern mountainous region (neelum, muzaffarabad, hattian, bagh, haveli, poonch, and sudhnoti districts) and southern plain region (kotli, mirpur, and bhimber districts). main rivers are jhelum, neelum and poonch. the altitude varies from 360 m asl to 6325 m asl in the north. despite its small size, ajk has a variety of climate types; from sub-humid sub-tropical, to moist temperate, dry cold temperate, very cold temperate to snow deserts in extreme north. the mean annual rain fall ranges from 800 mm to 1600 mm. the snowline in winter is 1,200 meter above sea level, while in summer it rises to 3,300 meters. the mean minimum and maximum temperature are 2oc and 40oc respectively with significant variations between different regions [16]. aj&k has 224 glaciers with ice reserves of about 4.9 cubic km mainly inneelum valley. total area of glaciers is 109 km with average thickness of 24 meters. major glaciers are saranwali, shonthar, parbat, dewarian, rati gali and mianwitch. these glaciers and glacial lakes are present above 4000 4500 m altitude. there are 76 glacial lakes with total area of 545 ha [17]. aj&k has a population of 4.3 million in 2013 with a population density of 320 persons per km. a major part of the aj&k population lives in rural areas and their main professions are forestry, livestock and agriculture. major crops are maize, wheat, rice while minor crops are grams, red beans, vegetables and oil seeds. major fruits are apple, pears, apricot and walnuts. along with farming, livestock rearing is a common practice. agriculture and livestock income ranges between 30-40% of household earnings. the remaining share comes from other sources including employment, businesses and remittances received by the families of aj&k living abroad. 4. plant resources of azad jammu & kashmir azad kashmir is blessed with rich diversity of forest and other plant resources. forests cover 42.6% of the total area of the state [18]. the forest types include alpine, sub alpine, temperate conifer, sub-tropical and scrub (table.1) [19]. due to hilly terrains, the vegetation of azad kashmir exhibits an altitudinal zonation of plant communities. 4.1 alpine zone the areas between the elevation of 3600m and 4000 m include alpine grasses and shrubs and are called alpine pastures. these areas experience very cold climatic conditions during greater part of the year. the growing season starts from may and ends in september. the alpine pastures include grasses such as poa spp, bistorta affinis, saxifraga sibrica and herbs like draba trinervis and euphorbia kanaorica. at high altitudes of the himalayan mountains in the state, due to low temperatures, some dwarf varieties of birch and junipers are found making a shrubby appearance. the common species are betula utilis, rhododendron hypenantbum and juniperus communis. sub-alpine forests have open canopies including evergreen conifers and broadleaved trees. betula utilis and abies spectabilis are the characteristic trees. other common species are viburnum, salix, and dwarf junipers. table1. types and area of forests in aj&k forest type/area main plant species akbar et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 37-44 40 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 (000 acres) alpine/ juniperuscommunis, sub-alpine/370.2 betulautilis abiesspectabilis temperate conifer forest/717.3 blue pine (pinuswallichiana), fir (abiespindrow) and spruce (piceasmithiana), deodar (cedrusdeodara) with broadleaved associates of maple, poplar, horse chestnut, birds cherry, walnut, oak and birch sub-tropical pine/290.2 chir pine (pinusroxburghii), with broad leaved associate of oak scrub forest/23.0 olea cuspidata, acacia modesta, pistaciakhinjuk, dodonaeaviscosa, 4.2 temperate forests the areas between 1500 to 3000 m are occupied by himalayan temperate forests. the vegetation of these forests includes dominant species such as abies pindrow, aesculus indica, pinus wallichiana, salix denticulata, cedrus deodara, taxus fuana, viburnum foetans, sarcococca saligna, lonicera quinquelocularis, achillea millefolium and buxsus papilosa. on the lower elevations, plants such as quercus incana, pinus roxburghii, pyrus pashia, cithara xylumspinosa, diospyrus lotus are found abundantly. in the plains of the valleys, deciduous trees such as poplar, maple and vir (willow) are commonly found. these forests are main source of timber, fuel wood, charcoal and provide wood for construction of houses. 4.3 subtropical forests the subtropical forests are abundant on the foot of the hills (below 1500 m) and their vegetation includes pinus roxburghii as the only dominant pine tree with many broadleaved trees. the common plants of these forests are morus alba, melia azedarach, dalbergia sissoo, acacia modesta, berberis lycium, punica granatum, ziziphus nummularia, viola biflora, taraxacum officinale and cynodon dactylon. these forests exhibit great diversity of plants owing to soil types and weather patterns. in addition to trees, other groups of plants such as xerophytic bushes, shrubs, wines, ferns and tall grasses are also found commonly [20]. 4.4 herbaceous flora in addition to trees, azad kashmir is rich in herbaceous plants and these have great medicinal values. there have been some extensive studies on ethnobotany of medicinal plants of different regions of azad kashmir and hundreds of medicinal plants have been reported in these studies [2126]. 5. impact of climate change on vegetation in azad kashmir all ecosystems are dependent on climatic factors for their survival and distribution. the studies of fossils [27] of extinct species and present times [28] prove that climatic variations can have significant effects on the survival and distribution of plant communities [29]. the projected climate change is going to affect the composition and distribution of plant communities [30]. the climatic changes related to the global warming (e.g., higher levels of atmospheric co2, increased temperatures of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, changes in precipitation, increase in temperatures on regional levels)will have adverse effects on the timing of reproduction of plants, the duration of the growing season, species distributions and population sizes, and the incidence of pest and disease outbreaks. mountainous regions in azad kashmir, are more prone to negative impacts of climate change and are expected to show its impacts rapidly. the climate change may impact vegetation of hilly regions by shrinkage of cooler zones at higher altitudes and shifting of tree line to upper elevations [31, 32]. these increases in temperature may bring changes in composition of mountain plant communities by favouring the spread of thermophilous species and decline in the populations of current low-temperature, dominant plant species [33]. akbar et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 37-44 41 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017 azad kashmir, being a part of himalayas is expected to experience a relatively higher rate of temperature increase than the global average (34). during 1961-2000, in the coniferous forests of pakistan including aj&k, a mean temperature increase of 0.56°c to 0.78°c was recorded with a greater increase in minimum temperature over maximum temperature. the highest increase in temperature was observed during winter and autumn. greater increase in minimum temperature and warming of autumn and in sequence the winter may lead to early start and lengthening of growing season of plants [35]. these changes are going to affect the composition of plant assemblages and conservation of plants. according to a study carried out in the indian occupied kashmir, it was found that 35-40% of vegetation types will undergo shifting of their areas in future because of increase in temperature [36]. out of different forest types, sub-tropical deciduous forests are expected to shift at a higher rate (42-47%) than moist evergreen forests (15%). another study investigating the effects of global warming on different biomes of pakistan, found that three biomes (alpine, grassland/arid woodlands and deserts) will decrease in their area and five biomes (cold conifer/mixed woodland, cold conifer/mixed forests, temperate conifer/mixed forests, warm conifer/mixed forests, and steppe/arid shrub lands) are expected to increase [37]. due to climate change, grasslands and tropical deciduous forests in the region would be affected on large scale. shrubs, temperate evergreen broadleaf forest, and mixed forest types would shift to higher altitudes currently under the snowy mountains regions. in addition, large tracts of land, presently under the permanent snow and ice cover, would disappear by the end of the century which might reduce stream flows, decrease agriculture productivity and biodiversity in the region [36]. the climate change will also affect the hydrology of the region by enhancing rate of glacial melting. initially, increased melting will lead to increased flooding but will deplete the water resources rapidly. after 2-3 decades, this region may face decreased river flows as glaciers recede in size. the depletion of fresh water resources will lead to loss of vegetation, crop productivity and loss of biodiversity. warm temperatures and shortage of fresh water will also affect the biodiversity of the region by favouring growth of pests, insects and weeds, and invasion of alien species (e. g; partheniumhysterophorus is found spreading along roads in azad kashmir[38]. in summary, the main threats of global warming to plant communities of azad kashmir are:  reduction in productivity of the plant communities,  changes in floristic composition favouring thermophilous species,  extinction of species with narrow ecological amplitude,  increase in pathogens and pest of plants,  reduction in areas of forests and  loss of biodiversity including loss of phytoversity [39]. 6. conclusions and recommendations  there is general consensus that climate change will have adverse impacts on conservation of species and ecosystems, at first by causing loss of biodiversity by its direct impacts and secondly, by amplifying the impacts of other anthropogenic activities such as habitat loss, over-exploitation of plant resources, environmental pollution and spread of invasive species. these factors, acting separately and collectively on flora, fauna and ecosystems, are depleting and will continue to deplete biodiversity.  azad kashmir has very rich floral diversity and valuable forest resources which must be monitored, managed and protected.  these resources are threatened by direct (effects on the distribution, lifecycles, habitat use, physiology and extinction rates of individual species, effects on the structure and composition of ecosystems and communities)and indirect (increased forest fires, diseases, reduced water flows in rivers, ground water levels, floods)impacts of climate change. akbar et al., j. mt. area res. 02 (2017) 37-44 42 j. mt. area res., vol. 2, 2017  the hilly forests and ecosystems of azad kashmir are threatened by climate change because of ever-increasing anthropogenic pressures and their dependence on climaterelated water resources (rain, snowfall). but these effects will vary between its different regions and are difficult to generalize.  the current status of the programs and institutions dealing with climate change studies and their management is unsatisfactory. it needs to be enhancedto deal specifically with current known issues (water availability, weeds, pests) to develop adaptive management strategies. it should also help in making reliable predictions about future climate change challenges and provide effective solutions for the protection of the floral and vegetation resources of aj&k.  pakistan and azad kashmir harbor nearly 6,000 vascular plant species. its plant resources will continue to be of vital importance in supporting azad kashmir’s sustainable future development by securing its food security and socio-economic stability. furthermore, these resources are crucial as a source of medicinal substances and conservation of biodiversity under changing climatic conditions.  the negative impacts of climate change are multi-dimensional and wide-ranging. their mitigation therefore calls for an integrated and coordinated policy response for conservation of plant resources. these responses will need a complex, and multidimensional approach to save plant diversity from potential threats of climate change. since there is a lot of uncertainty in projecting the impacts of climate change, the strategies to formulate adaptation and mitigation responses to climate change will remain unclear. it shows that conservation of plant diversity in changing climate scenario may conservation of plant resources of azad kashmir therefore, requires new perspectives to traditional conservation practices.  due to lack of reliable information and data on the scale of climate change and its impacts, a regular monitoring and observation system should be developed to record and evaluate climatic changes and their potential impacts on biodiversity.  the plants and their associated ecosystems that are under immediate threat from effects of climate change may be assessed through integrated research to identify characteristics, traits and processes contributing to their vulnerability.  the forests should be conserved by controlling deforestation and promoting afforestation due to their potential role as carbon sinks. these forests will also provide renewable and cheap fuel for domestic needs of neighbouring human settlements.  the paradigm of natural resource management should be shifted from merely conserving current biological resources to managing and supporting the intricate and complex responses of species and ecosystems to climate change; and  identify potential win-win solutions and encourage cross sectoral knowledge and information sharing and transfer. references [1] m. mckinnon. climate vulnerability monitor, 2nd edition: a guide to the cold calculus of a hot planet, estudios gráfcos europeos, s.a, spain, (2012), pp. 331. 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[39] r.a. qureshi, m.a. ghufran, s.a. gilani, k. sultana, m. ashraf. ethnobotanical studies of selected medicinal plants of sudhangali and ganga chotti hills, district bagh, azad kashmir. pak. j. bot., 39(7)(2007):2275-2283. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 1 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 journal of mountain area research comparative efficacy of synthetic and botanical insecticides against sucking insect pest and their natural enemies on cotton crop m. a. baker1, 2*, a. h. makhdum, 1, 2, m. nasir1, 2, a. imran1, 2, a. ahmad1, 2, f. tufail1, 2 1. world wide fund pakistan for nature conservation, rahim yar khan, pakistan. 2. sustainable agriculture programme, world wide fund -pakistan (wwf-pakistan) abstract the synthetic and botanical insecticides are relatively safer for environment and beneficial insects. the study was conducted in rahim yar khan during the cotton cropping season 2014 to evaluate the comparative efficacy of two synthetic insecticides i.e. nitenpyram (jasper 10% sl) and pyriproxyfen (bruce 10.8% ec) and two botanical extracts of calotropic procera and azadirachta indica, against sucking insect pest complex of cotton and their natural enemies. upon reaching economic thresholds, the recommended field doses of all the insecticides were applied on cotton cultivar mnh-886. data against sucking pests and their natural enemies was recorded 24 hours prior to insecticidal application and then 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours after insecticidal application. results revealed that nitenpyram was much toxic against sucking pests followed by pyriproxyfen as compared to two botanical extracts. on the other hand, the synthetic insecticides did not prove safer for natural enemies as compared to botanical extracts. it was concluded that as an integrated pest management (ipm) strategy, botanical extracts can be used at low infestation levels so that ecosystem service of biological control may be sustained. keywords: synthetic insecticides, botanical insecticides, cotton, sucking pests, ipm *corresponding author: (email: mabaker@wwf.org.pk, phone: 0092-685900733) 1. introduction cotton is the most important fiber crop of pakistan and it plays a dominant role in its agrarian and industrial economy. cotton is alsoconsidered the backbone of pakistan’s textile industry. cotton and cotton products contribute nearly 1.5 per cent gross domestic product (gdp)and 10.22 billion us$ to the foreign exchange earnings of the country [1]. many farmers use plant extracts such as neem, kortumma, wild tobacco, dried chilies, (ak plants) calotropic procera etc. for controlling and repelling sucking pests of cotton. the cultural control has not been exploited as yet [2]. botanical pesticides are generally regarded as environmentally safe and can be used directly in organic agricultural practices. plant extracts contain multiple active ingredients that can be used to control a range of insect pests. plant extracts do not cause the pollution problems and have no residual effect. biopesticides are an important group of naturally occurring, often slow-acting crop protectants that are usually safer to humans and the environment than conventional pesticides and with minimal residual effects. biopesticides can be biochemical or microbial. biochemical pesticides may include plant-derived pesticides (botanicals) that can interfere with the growth, feeding, or reproduction of pests or insect pheromones applied for mating disruption, monitoring or attract-and-kill strategies [3]. continuous use of large quantities of synthetic insecticides is creating health hazards to human and animal life as well as environmental pollution that have resulted in crop failure in different parts of the world [4, 5]. the objective of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of two synthetic insecticides and vol. 1, 2016 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article abu baker et al. j. mt. area res. 01(2016)1-4 2 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 botanical extracts against insect pest of cotton and beneficial insects in cotton field. 2. methodology the study was conducted having two synthetic insecticides (nitenpryam 10 sland pyriproxyfen 10.8 ec) and equal number of botanical insecticides i.e. calotropic procera and azadirachta indica against sucking insect pests of cotton and their natural enemies on a cotton cultivar mnh-886, at farmers’ field in rahim yar khan during cotton cropping season 2014. at the time of experiment temperature was 43±2 degree centigrade. randomized complete block design (rcbd) was used for statistical data analysis. the dimension of each plot was 5445 ft2. details of the insecticides used in the experiment are given in table. table1: insecticides used in the experiment. treatments common name dose per acre t1 nitenpryam 200 ml t2 pyriproxyfen 400 ml t3 neem leaf extract 6000 ml t4 ak plant leaf extract 6000 ml t5 control the spray materials were prepared at their recommended doses mentioned on the label of insecticides i.e. nitenpryam 10 sl (200 ml/acre), pyriproxyfen 10.8 ec (400ml/acre) after calibration. knapsack sprayer was used to spray the insecticides. experiment was repeated once a time with three replications per treatment. the data of thrips (thrips tabaci; thripidae; thysanoptera), jassid (amrasca bigutella; jassidae; homoptera), and whitefly (bemisia tabaci; aleyrodidae; homoptera) and their natural enemies form each plot were recorded 24 hours before and 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours after application from five randomly selected plants. during experiment 300 plants were studied having the age of 47 days. the populations of thrips (thrips tabaci), jassid (amrasca bigutella) and whitefly (bemisia tabaci) were recorded from top, middle and bottom leaves of the plants while populations of the natural enemies were recorded on randomly selected plants. 2.1 preparation of plant extracts leaves of neem (azadirachta indica) and akk plant (calotropic procera) were plucked. 3 kg chopped leaves of neem (azadirachta indica) were soaked in 6 liter water and 3 kg chopped leaves of akk plant (calotropic procera) were soaked in 6 liter water separately and kept for about three to four days and nights. after that material was filtered and stored in canes for subsequent use. 3. results average number of thrips (thrips tabaci), jassid (amrasca bigutella), whitefly (bemisia tabaci) and lady bird beetle (coccinella spp), chrysopa (chrysoperla carnia) and mystery bug (campylomma verbasci; miridae; hemiptera) was recorded after 24, 48 72 and 96 hourspost treatment. in case of pest population, least number of jassid, whitefly and thrips was found in nitenpryam and pyriproxyfen treated plots which were significantly different from neem leaf extract and akk plant leaf extract treated plots. highest population of pests was found in akk leaf extracts and neem leaf extracts treated plots as shown in table 2. table 2: mean number of insect pests recovered on cotton crop at different time intervals post treatment. treatments 24 h 48 h 72 h 96 h jassi d whitefl y thrips jassi d whitefl y thrip s jassi d whitefl y thrips jassi d whitefl y thrip s nitenpryam(t1) 0.4a 0.6a 1b 0.2a 0.2a 0.6b 0a 0.2a 0.4a 0a 0.2b 0.4b pyriproxyfen (t2) 0.6b 1b 0.8a 0.4b 0.2a 0.4a 0.2b 0.2a 0.4a 0.2b 0a 0.2a neem leaf extract (t3) 1.2c 1.2bc 1.6c 0.8c 0.8b 1.2c 0.4c 0.8b 1b 0.4c 0.6c 0.8c akk plant leaf extract (t4) 1.6d 1.6d 1.8c d 1d 1.2c 1.4d 0.6d 1c 1.2b c 0.4c 0.8cd 1d abu baker et al. j. mt. area res. 01(2016)1-4 3 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 control(t5) 1.6d 4e 8.2e 1.6e 3.8d 7e 1.8e 3.6d 6.4d 1.4d 3.4e 6.6e mean number of insect pests represented by same letters in a column are not significantly different table 3: number of beneficial insects recovered on cotton crop at different time intervals post treatment. treatments 24 h 48 h 72 h 96 h lady bird beetl e chryso pa myste ry bug lady bird beetl e chryso pa myste ry bug lady bird beetl e chryso pa myste ry bug lady bird beetl e chryso pa myste ry bug nitenpryam (t1) 0.2d 0.4d 0c 0.2d 0.2d 0d 0e 0.2d 0c 0e 0d 0c pyriproxyfe n (t2) 0.2d 0.2e 0c 0.2d 0.2d 0d 0.2d 0e 0c 0.2d 0d 0c neem leaf extract (t3) 2.4a 1.6b 0.6a 2.6a 1.8b 0.8c 2.4b 1.6c 1.2b 3a 1.8c 1b ak plant leaf extract (t4) 2.2b 1.4c 0.4b 2.4b 1.6c 1.2a 3a 2.2a 1.2b 2.6b 2.6a 1.4a control(t5) 2c 2a 0.6a 2c 2.4a 1b 2.2c 2b 1.6a 2.2c 2.2b 1.4a mean number of beneficial insects represented by same letters in a column are not significantly different 4. discussion the results showed that new chemical or synthetic insecticides effectively kept the level of sucking insect pests of cotton below economic threshold levels. botanical extract of neem and akk plant was less toxic against sucking pests and friendly for natural enemies. the side effects of insecticides against non target insects especially predators have been demonstrated in field conditions[6, 7].the results of a field study have also reported less toxicity of these insecticides for a variety of predators [8]. efficacy of neem leaf extract (azadirachta indica) and ak plant extract (calotropis procera)in field conditions for controlling the sucking pest of cotton plant showed effective results against jassid, thrips and whitefly [10]. santos and costa (2004) reported that botanicals are used an alternative technique for controlling the sucking pest of cotton. the plant extract applied against sucking pest causes mortality at nymph stage [10]. indirect way of affecting parasitoids negatively by neonicotinoid insecticides is suggested because foliar, drench or granular applications may decrease host population levels so that there are not enough hosts to attack and sustain parasitoid populations [11]. based on growth inhibition and antifeeding activities, the plant extracts like neem (azadirachta indica) widely used at field level and cause reduction in growth and population of insects [12]. neem seed extracts rich in azadirachtin (10–25%) act both as potent antifeedants and insect growth regulators [13, 14]. the non-selective insecticides can bring serious problems of reduction in the population of beneficial insects on the crops all over the world. hence, in order to preserve natural enemies, selective insecticides compatible with bio-control agents should be available to include in the programs of integrated pest management (ipm) [15]. references [1] anonymous, “economic survey of pakistan”, ministery of food and agriculture, islamabad (2014). [2] anonymous, finding alternatives to persistent organic pollutants (pops) for termite management.global ipm facility expert group on termite biology and management.stockholm convention. food agric. org.; (2000) 118-168. [3] l. g. copping, j.j menn biopesticides: a review of their action, applications and efficacy. pest manag.sci 56 (2000)651–676. [4] m. razaq, m. aslam, and a. suhail, synergism of pyrethroids with piperonylbutoxide (pbo) in jassid, amrascadevastans (dist.) (homoptera: cicadellidae) from pakistan. pak. entomol., 28 (2006) 51-56. abu baker et al. j. mt. area res. 01(2016)1-4 4 j. mt. area res., vol. 1, 2016 [5] b.g. naik, s. verma and k.g. phadke, occurrence of pest in relation to degradation of insecticides in bringal crop during summer and kharif season. pestic. res. j., 5 (1993) 94-103. [6] r.f. mizell and m.c. sconyers. toxicity of imidacloprid to selected arthropod predators in the laboratory. fla. entomol. 75 (1999) 277-280. [7] n.s. awasthi, u.p. barkhade, s.r. patil and g.k. lande , comparative toxicity of some commonly used insecticides of cotton aphid and their safety to predatory coccinellids. bioscan 8 (2013) 10071010. [8] r.k. mensah, development of an integrated pest management programme for cotton. part 2: integration of a lucerne/cotton interplant system, food supplement sprays with biological and synthetic insecticides. int. j. pest manag. 48 (2002) 95-105. [9] m. hasan, f. ahmed, a. ali and m. ahmed, studies on the effect of synthetic growth regulators and neem plant materials against sucking insect pest of cotton. pak. entomol., 18 (1996) 24-27. [10] t.m.d santos and n.p. costa, extract of neem extract on the cotton aphid. pesq.agropec.bras. 39 (2004) 1071-1076. [11]r.a. cloyd and j.a. bethke, impact of neonicotinoid insecticides on natural enemies in greenhouse and interiorscape environments. pest manag. sci. 67 (2011) 3-9. [12] y. akhtar, y. r. yeoung, m. b. isman, comparative bioactivity of selected extracts from meliaceae and some commercial botanical insecticides against two noctuid caterpillars, trichoplusiani and pseudaletiaunipuncta. phytochem. rev 7(2008)77–88. [13] t. r. govindachari, suresh g, gopalakrishnan g. and wesley sd, insect antifeedant and growth regulating activities of neem seed oil—the role of major triterpenoids. j appl entomol 124(2000)287–291 [14] w. kraus, (2002) azadirachtin and other triterpenoids. in: schmutterer h (ed)[13]kraus w (2002) azadirachtaindica a juss and other meliaceous plants: sources of unique natural products for integrated pest management, medicine, industry and other purposes, 2nd edn. neem foundation, mumbai, india, pp 39–110. [15] f.l. fernandes, l. bacci and m.s fernandes, impact and selectivity of insecticides to predators and perastoids. entomobrasilis. 3(2010) 1-10. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 16 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 journal of mountain area research analysis of precipitation trends in gilgit-baltistan (gb), pakistan m. raza* department of physics, karakorum international university gilgit-baltistan abstract this article explores seasonal as well as annual trends of precipitation in gilgit-baltistan (gb) pakistan over the period between 1980 and 2012. for the analysis of precipitation trends, non-parametric mann-kendall and sen’s tests were applied. the assessment of precipitation data showed an annual increasing trend of precipitation in gb although this trend is not statistically significant. seasonal analysis revealed least amount of precipitation occurs in the autumn season which is becoming drier. trend analysis showed an increasing trend of precipitation in the other three seasons (winter, spring and summer). the study revealed that the precipitation at gupis is increasing significantly in winter, spring and summer seasons. keywords: precipitation, mann-kendall, significant, gilgit-baltistan. *corresponding author: (email: raza.physics@kiu.edu.pk) 1. introduction winter and summer are the two major rainy/precipitation seasons in pakistan. in winter, the mid-latitude westerly waves move across the lower latitudes and their troughs generally extend down to 35n, and sometimes even further south. under the influence of westerly waves as well frontal system, the northern parts of pakistan receive substantial rainfall over low elevation and snow fall at high elevation areas in the winter season. in pakistan the total annual precipitation ranges from 500 mm to 800 mm. the northern half of the country receives handsome amount of precipitation in both winter and summer, but the southern half receives hardly 50% of the amount received in the north [1]. solid precipitation over the northern mountains melts in early summer and maintains sustainable river flow for power generation and irrigation before the onset of summer monsoon. in addition to this precipitation, winter rain bearing systems yield substantial rainfall in submountainous and low elevation plains [2]. the northern part especially gb is host to the world’s largest glaciers and is the major water resource the river indus, the leading river of the country [3]. changing trends of precipitation and extreme events in gb bring floods in the indus on large scale and damage the population living down the country. in context of climate change and disaster management, it is therefore important to understand the precipitation trends. the aim of this study is to analyze the recent trends of annual and seasonal precipitation in gb. 2. data and study area to carry out precipitation assessment, daily precipitation data over the period 1980 2012 from the six weather stations situated in gb were obtained from pakistan meteorological department (pmd). fig. 1 and table 1 show the full length article vol. 4, 2019 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar raza et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 16-23 17 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 specific locations of the six stations and data period of precipitation used in this study. using this dataset monthly, seasonal and annual total precipitation was calculated, and trend analysis was also performed. for all the six stations homogeneity analysis of the dataset was performed on monthly total precipitation. graphical analysis was carried out to check the homogeneity of the dataset. the monthly totals of all the six stations have been used to calculate the regional average and the regional precipitation series. 3. methodology monthly total precipitation was calculated from the daily precipitation data. these monthly totals were used to calculate the annual and seasonal precipitation. the regional precipitation index was developed using monthly precipitation of the six weather stations in gb. the stepwise methodology of the study is given in fig.2. table 1: details of stations general location station name latitude longitude average altitude a.s.l. (meters) gb pakistan astor 35o20/ 74o 54/ 2168 bunji 35o40/ 74o 38/ 1372 chilas 35o25/ 74o 06/ 1251 gilgit 35o55/ 74o 20/ 1460 gupis 36o10/ 73o 24/ 2155 skardu 35o18/ 75o 41/ 2210 3.1 mann-kendall test the mann-kendall test, which is a nonparametric; therefore, data outliers do not affect the results [4, 5, 6, 7]. it was applied to the long-term data in this study to detect statistically significant trends. in this test, the null hypothesis (h0) was that there has been no trend in precipitation over time; the alternate hypothesis (h1) was that there has been a trend (increasing/decreasing) over time. for the assessment of changes in magnitude of precipitation we used sen’s test method. the mathematical equations for calculating mannkendall statistics s, v(s) and standardized test statistics z are follows: 𝑆 = ∑ ∑ 𝑆𝑔𝑛(𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑗) 𝑛 𝑗=𝑖+1 𝑛−1 𝑖=1 (1) 𝑆𝑔𝑛(𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑗) = { 1 𝑖𝑓 𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑗 > 0 0 𝑖𝑓 𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑗 = 0 −1 𝑖𝑓 𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑗 < 0 (2) 𝑉(𝑆) = 1 18 [𝑛(𝑛 − 1)(2𝑛 + 5) − ∑𝑡𝑝(𝑡𝑝 − 1) 𝑞 𝑝=1 (2𝑡𝑝 − 5)] (3) 𝑍 = { 𝑆−1 √𝑉(𝑆) 𝑖𝑓 𝑆 > 0 0 𝑖𝑓 𝑆 = 0 𝑆+1 √𝑉(𝑆) 𝑖𝑓 𝑆 < 0 (4) where xi and xj are the annual values in year i and j, i > j, respectively, n is the length of time series, tp is the number of ties for pth value, and q is the number of tied values. positive z values indicate an upward trend and negative z values indicate downward trend. if│z│ > 𝑍1−𝛼/2 , (h0) is rejected and statistically significant trend exist in hydrologic time series. the critical value raza et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 16-23 18 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 of 𝑍1−𝛼/2 for p value of 0.05 from the standard normal table is 1.96. fig. 1: study area and location of the meteorological stations 3.2 sen’s test to estimate the true slope of an existing trend (change per year) the sen’s nonparametric test is used [8]. in this study this method was used to estimate the magnitude of trend in the time series data: 𝑇 = 𝑥𝑗−𝑥𝑘 𝑗−𝑘 (5) in this equation, 𝑥𝑗 and 𝑥𝑘 represent data values at time j and k, respectively. consider 𝑄𝑖 = { 𝑇(𝑁+1)/2 𝑁 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑑𝑑 1 2 (𝑇𝑁 2 + 𝑇𝑁+2 2 ) 𝑁 𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 (6) a positive 𝑄𝑖 value represents an increasing trend; a negative 𝑄𝑖 value represents a decreasing trend over time. fig. 2: the stepwise data organization and the analytical tools used in this study. for detecting and estimating trends in the time series mann-kendall and sen’s tests were performed, using microsoft excel template makesens, which was developed by the finnish meteorological department. makesens is a widely used software for detecting and researching precipitation trends [4, 5]. for this study we divided the seasons of gb into four raza et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 16-23 19 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 categories. table 2 describes the seasons and respective months. table 2: seasons of gilgit-baltistan 4. results 4.1 station basis 4.1.1 increasing trend of annual precipitation table 3 shows that in the region of gb the annual mean precipitation varies by location. during the period from1980 to 2012 the annual mean precipitation varies from 148 to 485 mm. highest precipitation was recorded in astor and the lowest in gilgit. fig. 3: seasonal trend of precipitation in gb mann-kendall test results revealed upward trend in annual precipitation at five weather stations i.e. bunji, chilas, gilgit, gupis and skardu, and a downward trend of annual precipitation at astor. annual precipitation is increasing significantly at gupis with a rate of 7.348 mm/year (table 4). 4.1.2 seasonal trends seasonal trend of mean precipitation in gb for 33 years (1980-2012) is summarizes in figure 3. the figure shows that the highest amount of precipitation occurs during winter and lowest during autumn seasons. during winter the mean precipitation varies from 39 to 203 mm and in spring season it varies between 49 to 142 mm (table 5). being a winter dominant region, the highest amount of precipitation occurred during the winter season. as compare to the other parts of pakistan, gb receives less precipitation in the summer season. during summer the amount of precipitation varies between 35 to 75mm (table 5). seasons months winter season november, december, january, february, spring march april, may summer june, july, august, september autumn october, november 0 50 100 150 200 250 p re c ip it a ti o n i n m m summer winter spring autumn astor bunji chilas gilgit gupis skardu raza et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 16-23 20 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 table 3: descriptive statistics of the annual precipitation in gb for the period 1980-2012 table 4: mann-kendall and sen’s test results of annual precipitation trend for the six stations stations mk test (test z) trend result sen’s slope estimate change in precipitation (mm/y) astor -1.13 ns -3.055 bunji 0.51 ns 0.716 chilas 0.85 ns 0.756 gilgit 1.13 ns 1.309 gupis 3.46 sig. 7.348 skardu 0.95 ns 1.756 mm= millimeter; mk: mann-kendall; ns: not significant; sig.: significant; ↑: upward; ↓:downward there is an upward trend of precipitation during summer season in the whole of gb region which clearly shows the approach of monsoon rain in this region. spring rainfall is also increasing in gilgit, gupis and skardu and it is decreasing in astor, bunji and chilas. winter precipitation is increasing at all the stations except astor and chilas where it is decreasing non-significantly. in gupis the winter precipitation is significantly increasing with an increasing rate of 2.15 mm/year. table 5: seasonal mean, standard deviation and range of precipitation at various stations stations seasons mean precip itation (mm) std. dev. precipi tation (mm) range precipitation (mm) min max astor winter 202.57 83.16 43.3 381.5 spring 142.33 84.61 26.4 344.9 summer 74.83 40.57 18.1 201.6 autumn 39.09 41.85 0.6 170.6 bunji winter 46.24 31.19 5.7 126.7 spring 51.90 40.43 6.5 144.3 summer 55.63 33.46 0.0 138.0 autumn 10.66 22.79 0.0 124.0 chilas winter 82.97 42.88 16.8 180.3 spring 66.38 14.24 0.1 263.5 summer 41.68 31.80 3.0 152.0 autumn 14.24 28.13 0.0 146.2 gilgit winter 39.82 21.44 7.5 108.1 spring 49.36 34.70 4.1 116.9 summer 40.66 25.15 11.5 121.0 autumn 9.40 18.34 0.0 102.4 gupis winter 60.28 53.55 0.0 222.3 spring 73.59 95.11 0.0 410.9 summer 60.19 50.17 2.3 182.4 autumn 12.34 21.74 0.0 109.7 skardu winter 128.32 68.37 39.2 263.0 spring 59.73 55.67 3.0 218.0 stations mean precipitation (mm) std.dev. range precipitation (mm) min max astor 484.83 137.51 248.4 887.0 bunji 167.12 68.18 63.2 339.8 chilas 182.57 99.70 55.1 573.4 gilgit 148.23 56.62 67.5 300.9 gupis 212.15 169.38 63.0 683.0 skardu 267.15 213.68 87.0 1334.0 raza et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 16-23 21 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 summer 35.46 20.63 0.6 94.0 autumn 14.29 25.24 0.0 114.5 table 6: seasonal precipitation in gilgit-baltistan region seasons mean precipitatio n (mm) std. dev. range precipitation (mm) min max gb winter 94 63 19 214 spring 74 35 7 250 summer 52 15 6 148 autumn 17 11 0.1 128 table 7: trend of seasonal precipitation of all six stations station s seasons mk test (test z) trend resu lt sen’s slope estimate change in precipitatio n (mm/y) astor winter -0.08 ns -0.15 spring -0.33 ns -0.39 summer 0.88 ns 0.53 autumn -1.27 ns -0.57 bunji winter 0.82 ns 0.42 spring -0.50 ns -0.18 summer 0.93 ns 0.60 autumn 0.30 ns 0.00 chilas winter -1.12 ns -1.03 spring -0.64 ns -0.33 summer 1.07 ns 0.41 autumn -0.08 ns 0.00 gilgit winter 0.62 ns 0.32 spring 0.08 ns 0.12 summer 0.91 ns 0.12 autumn -0.45 ns -0.04 gupis winter 3.56 sig. 2.15 spring 1.80 sig. 1.22 summer 2.18 sig. 1.49 autumn 1.46 ns 0.17 skardu winter 0.76 ns 0.93 spring 0.81 ns 0.48 summer 1.89 sig. 0.59 autumn -1.57 ns -0.16 4.2 regional trend analysis table 6 shows the seasonal means, respective standard deviations and the range precipitation in gb between the period 1980 and 2012. seasonal percentages of mean precipitation revealed that forty percent of total annual precipitation occurs during winter season and 31% is received in the pre-monsoon season. maximum amount of precipitation was observed during the winter and pre-monsoon. table 7 summarises the results of seasonal trend analysis of all stations. the mann-kendall test shows an upward trend of precipitation during the winter and summer seasons and downward trend in the autumn season. however the results are not statistically significant. autumn season receives the lowest amount of precipitation showing the downward trend of precipitation which means that the region is becoming drier. on the basis of this trend analysis we can predict that gb will receive more precipitation in future during winter and summer seasons. 5. discussions upstream water supply is crucial to sustain upstream water reservoir system, which are used to store and release water to downstream area when most needed. indus basin irrigation system raza et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 16-23 22 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 is the world largest irrigation network, which regulated through two major storage dams (tarbela dam on indus river and mangla dam on the jhelum river). both are located in the upper indus basin and are fed predominantly by melt water. any change in upstream water supply to these dame will have profound effect on millions of people downstream [9]. this study investigated variability in monthly, seasonal and annual precipitation at 6 stations in the upper indus basin over a 33year study period (19802012). the mean annual precipitation at different stations showed considerable variation. astor showed negative trend (decreased precipitation over time) at 5% significance level in the annual precipitation series. this will affect the contribution of water flow in the indus from astor basin. at the same significance level (5%), at the remaining stations, there was an increasing trend in the annual precipitation trend. the significant changes in seasonal and annual precipitation over time was detected at gupis station. these study results follow the same statistical trend by salma khalid et al. [10] hartmann et al. [11] for indus river basin. findings of this study were consistent with results from imran [12], stein bauer [13], rasul [14], dimri [15] wherein they found statistically significant increasing trends in winter precipitation for northern area of pakistan. these deviations in precipitation trends may bring more water related disasters such as drought and flood in the near future. conclusions following conclusion can be deduced from the study: seasons; at 214 mm and 250 mm respectively. twenty two percent of the total mean precipitation occurs during summer season. the lowest precipitation occurs during the autumn season i.e. 7% of the total annual precipitation.  total annual precipitation in gb has increased. however, the trend is not statistically significant.  in gb, 40% of the total annual precipitation was received in the winter season. the spring and summer season received 31% and 22% of the total precipitation respectively. autumn season received the lowest amount of precipitation i.e. 7% of the annual precipitation.  autumn precipitation trend was decreasing in almost all the areas of gb and this season is getting drier.  gb is likely to receive more precipitation in the winter and summer seasons. acknowledgement i would like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to the pakistan meteorological department (pmd) for providing data and valuable information. references [1] g. rasul, a. mahmood, a. sadiq and s.i. khan, “vulnerability of the indus delta to climate change in pakistan”, pakistan journal of meteorology, vol. 8, issue. 16, pp.89-107, 2012. [2] g. naheed and d.h. kazmi, “seasonal variation of rainy days in pakistan”, pakistan journal of meteorology, vol. 9, issue. 18, pp. 9-13, 2013. [3] m. raza, d. hussain, g. rasul, m. akbar and g. raza, “variation of surface temperature and precipitation in gilgit-baltistan (gb), pakistan from 1955 to 2010”, journal of biodiversity and environmental sciences, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 67-73, 2015. raza et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 16-23 23 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 [4] ahmad, d. tang, t.f. wang, m. wang and b. wagan, “precipitation trends over time using mann-kendall and spearman’s rho test in swat river basin, pakistan”, advances in meteorology, vol. 2015, 2015. [5] finnish meteorological institutes, makesensapplication for trend calculation [internet], finnish meteorological institutes. available from http://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/makesens [ accessed 1st july 2015] [6] h.b. mann, “nonparametric test against trend”, econometrica, vol. 13, pp.245-259, 1945. [7] m.d. rehman and m. begum, “application of non-parametric test for trend detection of rainfall in the largest island of bangladesh”, arpn journal of earth sciences, vol. 2, pp. 4044, 2013. [8] p.k. sen, “estimate of the regression coefficient based on kendall’s tau”, journal of the american statistical association, vol. 63, no. 324, pp. 1379-1389, 1968. [9] w.w. immerzeel, “climate change will affect the asian water towers”, science, vol. 328, no. 1382, 2010. [10] s. khalid, m. qasim, d. farhan, “hydrometeorological characteristics of indus river basin at extreme north of pakistan. j earth sci clim change, vol. 5, no. 170, 2013. [11] h. hartmann and l. andresky, “flooding in the indus river basina spatiotemporal analysis of precipitation records”, global and planetary change, vol. 107, pp. 25-35, 2013. [12] a. imran, q. zaman and m. afzal, “temporal trends in the peak monsoonal precipitation events over northeast pakistan”, pakistan journal of meteorology, vol. 10, no. 19, pp. 19-30, 2013. [13] m.j. steinbauer and j. zeidler, “climate change in the northern areas of pakistan impact on glaciers, ecology and livelihood”, wwf for nature-pakistan gilgit conservation and information center, 2008. [14] g. rasul, “climate data and modelling analysis of the indus region”, pakistan meteorological department (pmd), 2012, http://wwfpak.org/ccap/pdf/climate data modelling%20an alysis%20of%20the%20indus%20ecoregion.pd f. [15] a.p. dimri, “surface and upper air fields during extreme winter precipitation over the western himalayas”, pure and applied geophysics, vol. 163, no. 8, pp. 1679–1698, 2006. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 24 april 2019. revised/accepted: 4 june 2019. http://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/makesens http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation jan et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 9-15 9 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 journal of mountain area research review of use of nano material in modifying the properties of concrete irfan u. jan1 1 national center of excellence in geology, peshawar pakistan abstract modern technologies have affected all fields of human activities. traditionally nanotechnologies deal with material having a dimension in the range of one billionth of a meter or 100 nano meter in size. it has been widely used in natural sciences and biomedical sciences in the fields like microbiology, medicine, electronic, chemical, and materials sciences. the application of nontechnology and nano material in civil engineering is still under active research in the areas of concrete technology, construction management, water purification systems, properties of concrete at early ages and use of modern polymers in producing high performance concrete (hpc). the use of nano material to produce relatively sustainable concrete represents a promising area of research in nano material. in this paper the state of the art of application of nanotechnologies to civil engineering and its future prospects with special reference to sustainability in construction. keywords: nanotechnologies, civil engineering, concrete technology, construction. *corresponding author: (email: irfan_nceg@uop.edu.pk) introduction civil engineering is a diverse field of education and practice which incorporates interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary domains. some of the specific discipline of civil engineering include structural engineering, water supply & waste treatment, transportation engineering, geotechnical engineering, construction management. the civil engineering generally aims at creating a sustainable built environment for the humanity, which incorporates the use of traditional and modern material like supplementary cementitious material (scm) such as pulverized fly ash (pfa), rice husk ash (rha), silica fumes (sf), ground granulated blast furnace slag (ggbfs). these materials are extensively used to rationalize the building environment for improvements and conservation (elvin, 2007). today cement concrete is the most widely used material in construction, which is not sustainable in terms of emissions of green house gases (ghg), as on ton manufacturing of cement produces an equal amount of co2, which is one of the major ghg. concrete is one of the world’s most versatile and widely used construction materials. more than 30 billion tons of concrete is produced and consumed around the world annually (atakan et al. 2014). the world cement production has reached at the level of 4.3 billion tones during 2014. the extensive production of cement also leads to enormous emissions of co2, as with every tone of cement production an equivalent amount of co2 is produced. the world cement industry is review vol. 4, 2019 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar jan et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 9-15 10 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 responsible for about 8% of the total co2, production (alaa et al,2014). the nano material have been widely used in all discipline of engineering mainly for improving the performance and productivity of structures and material. one of the aims of use of nano material in civil engineering has been, ensuring use of sustainable material. extensive research on use of nano material in modifying the properties of cement and concrete has been undertaken in last few years (sanchez and sobolev, 2010). in this research, the use of nano material in civil engineering material in improving its properties both in fresh and hard forms are discussed, on the basis of current state of research and knowledge. nano technology and material nano material is a material having one of its dimensions as billionth of a meter. nanotechnology is the re-engineering of materials and devices by controlling the matter at the atomic level (roco et al., 1999). the use of such material is mainly advocated and researched by the physics and chemistry fields to modify the properties of material (chong 2004). a more exact definition of the nano material can be found as the production with dimensions and precision between 0.1 and 100 nm. in medium terms, nanotechnology involves the study at microscopic scale (1 nm = 1 × 10 -9 m) (drexler 1981). the use of nano material has been adopted in all fields and research is underway extensively to use such material in the civil engineering projects. these applications include (zhu et al., 2004): i. the use of nano-particles, carbon nanotubes, and nano-fibers to increase the strength and durability of cementitious composites, as well as for pollution reduction ii. production of cheap corrosion free steel. iii. production of thermal insulation materials with performance of 10 times the current commercial options. iv. production of coats and thin films with selfcleansing ability and self-color change to minimize energy consumption the application of nano material in various fields of civil engineering is discussed further as follows: nano cement the ordinary portland cement (opc), which is also called type-1 cement, is the most widely used type of cement, which has the following major constituents given in table 1. some of the nano material used in concrete include nano silica, nano clays, nano titanium oxide (tio2), nano iron (fe2 o3), nano alumina (al2 o3), cuo, zno2 and zro2. nanomaterials in concrete will improve the pore structure of concrete, speed up the c-s-h gel formation and improve the concrete mechanical and durability properties. the use of nano silica improved the properties of concrete such as reactivity, strength development, refinement of pore structure and densification of interfacial transition zone. the large surface is of the nano material provide better bonds and better filler properties, which increase the density and strength of concrete (zaid et al. 2012). jan et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 9-15 11 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 table 1. composition of cement clinker (brown and brownyard, 1974) compound formula notation wt.% celite (tricalcium aluminate) ca3al2o6 [3cao·al2o3] c3a 10 brownmillerite (tetracalcium aluminoferrite) ca4al2fe2o10 [4cao·al2o3·fe2o3] c4af 8 belite (dicalcium silicate) ca2sio4 [2cao·sio2] c2s 20 alite (tricalcium silicate) ca3sio5 [3cao·sio2] c3s 55 sodium oxide na2o n 2 gypsum (calcium sulphate dihydrate) caso4·2h2o [cao·so3·2h2o] csh2 ≤5 some of the nano material used in concrete include nano silica, nano clays, nano titanium oxide (tio2), nano iron (fe2 o3), nano alumina (al2 o3), cuo, zno2 and zro2. nanomaterials in concrete will improve the pore structure of concrete, speed up the c-s-h gel formation and improve the concrete mechanical and durability properties. the use of nano silica improved the properties of concrete such as reactivity, strength development, refinement of pore structure and densification of interfacial transition zone. the large surface is of the nano material provide better bonds and better filler properties, which increase the density and strength of concrete (zaid et al. 2012). the use of micro nano clays in concrete has been tested in many ways to alter its properties both in the fresh and hardened forms. nano clays has improved the consolidation of the concrete with minimum energy and it could settle easily in the formwork (tregger, pakula and shah sp,2010, chang, shih, yang, & hsiao, 2007; farzadnia, abang ali, demirboga, & anwar, 2013, nehdi,2014). the use of nano clay particles has improved the flow-ability of and resistivity of self compacting concrete (scc). the water penetration depth was decreased and anti-corrosive properties in scc increased (styliani p, kevin p,2017). fig 2. sem of nano alumina (al2o3) [p. jaishankar and c. karthikeyan, 2017] titanium dioxide (tio2) is present in minerals like rutile, anatase and brookite etc. to is used in paints, cosmetics and drugs because of its low toxicity, semi-conductivity, high chemical https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19648189.2015.1096308?scroll=top&needaccess=true https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19648189.2015.1096308?scroll=top&needaccess=true jan et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 9-15 12 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 stability, availability and low industrial cost (hamdy and ion 2011). tio2 has historically been used the use of nano titanium (nt) has been used to later the properties of cement and concrete. nt has been used to increase the strength of concrete at later ages. the electrical conductivity of concrete was also decreased (zhen li,2017). the use of nt material has been extensively used in cement in recent research (diamanti et al. 2008, chen et al. 2012, jalal et al. 2012). iron oxide nano (ion) material were used for healing of concrete through immobilization of bacterial cells. ions were successfully synthesized using a co-precipitation method (seifan et al. 2017). in recent years, various bacterial and techno-biological processes have been widely used to repair concrete. wang et al (2012), tested the bio-self healing efficiency of bacterial cells in hydrogel for repairing concrete. van tittelboom et al. (2010) reported the positive effect of silica gels on protection of bacteria in the concrete matrix. these silica gels have, however affected the mechanical properties of concrete negatively (de belie 2016). the microscopic study of concrete has shown that ion has helped in healing the concrete. the influence of bio-agent on the water absorption of the concrete samples revealed that the presence of magnetic immobilized cells in concrete decreased the water absorption by filling the microspores and cracks (seifna et al, 2018). use of carbo nano tubes (cnt) in cement carbon nano tubes (cnt) are long cylindrical molecules made only of carbon atoms and discovered by iijima in 1991 (iijima, 2019). the use of carbon nano tubes in cement has exceeded many times in last decade. this is expected to reach usd 4 billion in next year. cnt are used for various improving various properties of concrete such as enhanced strength, stiffness and toughness without added weight, improved durability, increased functionality, reduced flammability etc. cnt has more specific area and high thermal and electrical conductivity (khare and bose, 2005). the young’s modulus of cnt is 50 time more than the steel and thus possesses high potentials for used as reinforcing material for concrete (rashad, 2017). one of the major challenges in use of cnts, its agglomeration which seriously affect the mechanical properties of concrete, therefore some mechanism for dispersion of the material in concrete will be required (saez de ibarra et al. 2006). wang et al. found that the addition of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (mwcnts), with surfactant ga and sonication treatment, improved the mechanical properties of cement composites (2013). it was reported that the incorporation of cnts increased compressive strength by up to 30% and flexural and tensile strengths by up to 50% (laura et al,2020). the use of multi-walled cnts (mwcnts) and single walled cnts (swcnts) when used can lead to prevention of cracks propagation due to high interfacial areas (b.han and x.ju,2011; m.szela,2019). the mwcnts improved the mechanical properties of concrete up to 29% at 0.03% by weight of cement. the lengths of cnts had limited effect on the strength of concrete. the scanning electronic microscopic (sem) images of mwcnts in concrete are shown in fig2. (mohamed o. m, 2020). jan et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 9-15 13 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 fig 2. sem images of long non-treated cnt-concrete batch of: (a) 0.03 wt% cnts’ content, and (b) 0.08 cnts’ content (mohammed,2020). in addition to use of nano material in producing concrete, these are used in preparing durable paints, self-cleaning glass coating etc. the thin sheet of nano material increased the life of paints against scratch and fatigues. conclusion nano technology and nano material offers a vast application in producing concrete and other construction material. the use of most commonly used nano material includes nano silica, nano clays, nano titanium oxide, nano iron and nano alumina. due to large surface areas of the nano material, the mechanical properties of concrete like compressive strength, tensile strength, modulus of rapture, fatigue and reduced cracks developments. the carbon nano tubes (cnts) are widely tested in concrete but its application has several issues. the use of coatings made from nanotechnology helps improve fire-resistance, corrosion protection, insulation, and countless other applications. more research is however required for use of nan technology and nano material in civil engineering material. references 1. a.m. said, m.s. zeidan, m.t. bassuoni, y. tian (2012), properties of concrete incorporating nano-silica, construction and building materials, 36. 2. alaa m. rashad, hosam el-din h. seleem, and amr f. shaheen, “effect of silica fume 3. and slag on compressive strength and abrasion resistance of hvfa concrete” international journal of concrete structures and materials, (2014), 8(1),69–81. 4. atakan v, jain j, ravikumar d, mccandlish l, decristofaro n, water savings in concrete made from solidia cement™. piscataway, (2014). 5. b. han, x. yu, j. ou, multifunctional and smart nanotube reinforced cement based materials nanotechnology in civil infrastructure, a paradigm shift, (2011), 1–47. 6. chang, t. p., shih, j. y., yang, k. m., & hsiao, t. c, material properties of portland cement paste with nanomontmorillonite. journal of materials science, (2007), 42, 7478–7487. 7. chen, j., kou, s., and poon, c., hydration and properties of nano-tio2 blended jan et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 9-15 14 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 cement composites. cement & concrete composites, (2012), 34, 642– 649. 8. de belie n, application of bacteria in concrete: a critical evaluation of the current status. rilem technical letters, (2016), 1:56– 61. 9. diamanti, m.v., ormellese, m., and pedeferri, m., characterization of photocatalytic and superhydrophilic properties of mortars containing titanium dioxide. cement and concrete research, (2008), 38, 1349– 1353. 10. elivn, g., nanotechnology for green building, green technology forum. garboczi, e. j, concrete nanoscience and nanotechnology: definitions and applications. in: 3rd international symposium on nanotechnology in construction, 2009 prague, czech republic. 81-88. 11. farzadnia, n., abangali, a. demirboga, r., & anwar, m. p, effect of halloysite nano clay on mechanical properties, thermal behavior and microstructure of cement mortars. cement and concrete research, (2013), 48, 97–104. 12. hamdy, a. and ion, t., nanocoatings and ultra-thin films: technologies and applications. cambridge, uk: woodhead publishing limited 13. iijima s. helical microtubules of graphitic carbon. nature. 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(2005), 4, 31–46. 17. laura silvestro, philippe jean paul gleize, effect of carbon nanotubes on compressive, flexural and tensile strengths of portland cement-based materials: a systematic literature review, construction and building materials, (2020), 264. 18. m. c. roco, r. s. williams, and p. alivisatos, nanotechnology research directions: iwgn research report, committee on technology, interagency working group on nanoscience, engineering and technology (iwgn), national science and technology council, (1999). 19. m. szela˛g, properties of cracking patterns of multi-walled carbon nano-tube reinforced cement matrix, materials 12 (2019) 2942. 20. mohamed a , ramzi t , ahmed, mohamed o. mohsen, ala a, impact of cnts’ treatment, length and weight fraction on ordinary concrete mechanical properties. construction and building materials, (2020), 264,2-10. 21. nehdi, m. l., clay in cement-based materials: critical overview of state-of-the jan et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 9-15 15 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 art. construction and building materials, (2014), 51, 372–382. 22. rashad, a.m. effect of carbon nanotubes (cnts) on the properties of traditional cementitious materials. constr. build. mater. (2017), 153, 81–101 23. saez de ibarra, y.; gaitero, j.; erkizia, e.; campillo, i. atomic force microscopy and nano-indentation of cement pastes with nanotube dispersions. phys. status solidi (a) (2006), 203, 1076–1081 24. sanchez, f. & sobolev, k., nanotechnology in concrete a review. construction and building materials, (2010), 24, 2060-2071. 25. seifan m, samani ak, burgess jj, berenjian a, the effectiveness of microbial crack treatment in self healing concrete. in: berenjian a, jafarizadeh-malmiri h, song y (eds) high value processing technologies. nova science publishers, new york, (2016), pp 97–124 26. seifan, m., sarmah, a.k., ebrahiminezhad, a. et al. bio-reinforced self-healing concrete using magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. appl microbiol biotechnol 102, 2167–2178 (2018). 27. styliani papatzani, kevin paine, inorganic and organomodified nano-montmorillonite dispersions for use as supplementary cementitious materials – a novel theory based on nanostructural studies. nanocomposites, (2017), 3:1, pages 219. 28. t. c. powers and t. l. brownyard, “studies of the physical properties of hardened portland cement paste,” aci journal proceedings, (1946), vol. 43, no. 9, pp. 101– 132. 29. tregger n, pakula m, shah sp. influence of microand nanoclays on fresh state of concrete. transportation research record. 2010;2141(1):68-74. 30. van tittelboom k, de belie n, de muynck w, verstraete w, use of bacteria to repair cracks in concrete. cem concr res, (2010), 40(1):157– 166. 31. w. zhu, p.j.m. bartos and a. porro, application of nanotechnology in construction, summary of a state-of-the-art report, journal of material and structures (2004), vol.37, p.649–58 32. wang jy, de belie n, verstraete w, diatomaceous earth as a protective vehicle for bacteria applied for self-healing concrete. j ind microbiol biotechnology, (2012),39(4):567–577. 33. wang, b.; han, y.; liu, s. effect of highly dispersed carbon nanotubes on the flexural toughness of cement-based composites. constr. build. mater, (2013), 46, 8–12. 34. zhen li, baoguo han, xun yu, sufen dong, liqing zhang, xufeng dong4 and jinping ou, effect of nanotitanium dioxide on mechanical and electrical properties and microstructure of reactive powder concrete, materials research express, (2017) 4(9). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 7 april 2019. revised/accepted: 11 june 2019. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20550324.2017.1315210 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20550324.2017.1315210 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20550324.2017.1315210 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20550324.2017.1315210 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20550324.2017.1315210 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20550324.2017.1315210 https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2053-1591 https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2053-1591 https://iopscience.iop.org/volume/2053-1591/4 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 1 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 journal of mountain area research modeling and analysis of magnetized chemically reactive fluid flow past over porous stretched sheet f. haq1*, m. u. rahman1 and s. hussain1 1 department of mathematical sciences, karakoram international university, gilgit, pakistan abstract the aim of this article to inspect the effect of nonlinear thermal radiation, heat joule, viscous dissipation and magnetic field on viscoelastic second grade fluid. flow is generated due to stretching of sheet. flow features are studied considering hydrodynamic boundary conditions. chemical reaction on the surface is further accounted. the flow governing nonlinear partial system of differential equations is obtained incorporating boundary layer assumptions. the dimensional model is made dimensionless by taking suitable transformations and then tackled via ham for convergent series solution. effects of flow controlling parameters on velocity, concentration, temperature, local skin friction coefficient, sherwood number and nusselt numbers are discussed by plotting graphs. main observations are listed at the end. keywords: fluid flow, porous media, ham *corresponding author (email: fazal.haq@kiu.edu.pk) 1. introduction magnetohydrodynamics(mhd) is a part of science which describes the relation between the magnetic fields and moving electrically conducting fluid. hydromantic phenomenon becomes more important due to its practical applications in engineering, physics chemistry and industries, like mhd throttles, automatic fuel level indicator, nuclear reactor, magnetometer, electronic motors and transformer. the origin of hydromantic was first time introduced by alfven[1]. later on several researchers investigated mhd effects on the flow over different geometries [2-7]. nadeem et al. [8] studied mhd liquid flow over shrinking sheet. analytical and numerical solution of mhd boundary layer flow problem over an unsteady stretching sheet is reported by sheikholeslami [9]. the flow field study near stretching sheet in boundary layer flow is an important process in fluid dynamics and engineering. the heat transfer process occurring in different engineering processes such as crystal growth, plastic sheets, glass fiber, polymer processing and metallurgy [10]. ghosh et al. [11] applied laplace transformation to study the behavior of flow of mhd viscoelastic incompressible fluid having small particles and moving between two parallel plates of infinite length. to investigate heat transfer in mhd viscoelastic fluid flow in presence of thermal radiation over a semi-infinite, non-isothermal stretching impermeable sheet with internal heat generation/ absorption, datti et al. [12] applied fourth-order rk-4 (runge-kutta-4) method. vol. 4, 2019 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article haq et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 1-8 2 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 analysis of dufour effects on mass and heat transmission in micro polar liquid flow over an isothermal sphere keller-box implicit technique is applied by beg et al.[13]. kamel et al.[14] used laplace transformation technique to study mhd flow of vertical permeable sheet of infinite length. chen et al. [15] used a central-difference scheme to deliberate the influence of involved physical parameters in governing equations power-law stretched sheet of non-newtonian power-law fluids past with surface heat flux. invent of modern high speed computers and development of new methods/techniques has a significant role in solving highly nonlinear problems. to solve nonlinear problems most of the researchers used analytical methods. these methods are reliable and have high convergence then other methods [16]. homotopy analysis method (ham) is one of reliable and efficient technique to get the analytical solution of nonlinear differential equations. ham was introduced by liao, as an analytical method for finding the solution of nonlinear problems [17]. khan et al.[18] studied heat transfer in magnetohydrodynamic sisko fluid through a porous medium. dufour and soret’s effects over a vertical stretching sheet on mixed convection of a viscoelastic fluid flow is studied by hayat et al.[19] using ham. to study the behavior of unsteady flow in case of heat transfer over stretching sheet rashdi et al.[20] used ham. maxwell fluids heaving mixed convection effects in a boundary layer over a vertical stretching surface is studied by abbas et al. [21] via ham. our main concern here is to scrutinize the magnetized flow of viscoelastic second grade fluid over stretched sheet. thermal radiation, viscous dissipation and heat source are considered in energy relation. concentration communication is modeled in view of chemical reaction. the impact of sundry variable on heat transfer, mass transfer, fluid velocity, temperature and concentration are analyzed through plots. 2. problem formulation in this study we consider 2-d boundary-layer flow of visco-elastic fluid over a stretching and electrically conducting sheet. the electrically conducting fluid through applied magnetic field 𝐵0 via thermal radiation, heat transfer characteristics is explored. furthermore joule heating and dissipation are also carried. let us assume that 𝑢(𝑥) = 𝑏𝑥 is strains velocity in flow (see fig. 1) direction and t and c are temperature and concentration of fluid. the governing equations in view of above assumptions are: 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑥 + 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑦 = 0, (1) 𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑥 + 𝑣 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑦 = −𝑘0 {𝑢 𝜕3𝑢 𝜕𝑥𝜕𝑦2 + 𝑣 𝜕3𝑣 𝜕𝑦3 + 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑥 𝜕2𝑢 𝜕𝑦2 − 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑦 𝜕2𝑣 𝜕𝑦2 } + 𝜐 𝜕2𝑢 𝜕𝑦2 − 𝜎 𝜌 𝐵0 2𝑢 − 𝜐 𝑘∗ u , (2) 𝑢 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑥 + 𝑣 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑦 = 𝑘 𝜌𝐶𝑝 𝜕2𝑇 𝜕𝑦2 + 𝜇 𝜌𝐶𝑝 ( 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑦 )2 + 𝛼 𝜌𝐶𝑝 (𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑥 𝜕2𝑢 𝜕𝑦2 + 𝑣 𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑦 𝜕2𝑢 𝜕𝑦2 ) − 1 𝜌𝐶𝑝 𝜕𝑞𝑟 𝜕𝑦 + 𝑄0 𝜌𝐶𝑝 (𝑇 − 𝑇∞) + 𝜎 𝜌𝐶𝑝 𝐵0 2𝑢2 (3) 𝑢 𝜕𝐶 𝜕𝑥 + 𝑣 𝜕𝐶 𝜕𝑦 = 𝐷 𝜕2𝐶 𝜕𝑦2 − 𝑘∗(𝐶 − 𝐶∞). (4) with: haq et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 1-8 3 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 𝑢(𝑥) = 𝑢𝑤(𝑥), 𝑣 = 0, 𝑇 = 𝑇𝑤 , 𝐶 = 𝐶𝑤 𝑎𝑡 𝑦 = ,0 (5) 𝑢(𝑥) = 0, 𝑢𝑦 = 0, 𝑇 = 𝑇∞, 𝐶 = 𝐶∞ 𝑎𝑠 𝑦 → ∞ . (6) where u and v denotes component of velocity,  is dynamic viscosity,  is thermal diffusivity, t is temperature, 𝜌 is density, 𝜎 is stefan-boltzmann constant, 𝑞𝑟 is radiative heat flux, 𝐵0 is magnetic field strength, 𝑄0 is heat generation/absorption coefficient, 𝐶𝑝 is the specific heat, 𝑇∞ is ambient fluid temperature, 𝑘∗ mean absorption coefficient, 𝐶∞ is ambient fluid concentration, 𝑘0 is short memory coefficient, d is diffusion coefficient and 𝜐 is kinematic viscosity. for radiation via roseland approximation we have: 𝑞𝑟 = − 4𝜎 3𝑘∗ 𝜕𝑇4 𝜕𝑦 (7) considering non dimensional forms of momentum, energy and concentration equations, the suitable dimensionless variables introduced are [15]: 𝜂 = √ 𝑢𝑤(𝑥) 𝜈𝑥 𝑦, 𝜓 = √𝜈𝑥𝑢𝑤 (𝑥) 𝑓(𝜂) , 𝜃(𝜂) = 𝑇−𝑇∞ 𝑇𝑤−𝑇∞ , ∅(𝜂) = 𝐶 −𝐶∞ 𝐶𝑤−𝐶∞ . (8) fig. 1: schematic flow diagram. the continuity equation is satisfied identically and the remaining equations take the form: 𝑓𝑓 𝑖𝑣 − (2𝑓 ′ + 1 𝑘1 ) 𝑓 ′′′ − 1 𝑘1 (𝑀 − 𝑘2)𝑓 ′ − 1 𝑘1 (𝑓 2 − 𝑓𝑓 ′′) = 0; (9) 𝜃′′ + 𝑃𝑟𝐸𝑐𝑓 ′′ 2 + 𝑘1𝑃𝑟𝐸𝑐(𝑓 ′𝑓 ′′ 2 − 𝑓𝑓 ′′𝑓 ′′′)+𝑅[3(𝜃𝑤 − 1){1 + (𝜃𝑤 − 1)𝜃} 2]𝜃′ 2 + {1 + (𝜃𝑤 − 1)𝜃}3𝜃′′] +𝛿𝑃𝑟𝜃 + 𝑀𝑃𝑟𝐸𝑐𝑓 ′ 2 + 𝑃𝑟𝜃′𝑓 = 0, (10) ∅′′ + 𝑆𝑐𝑓∅′ − 𝑆𝑐𝛾∅ = 0. (11) with: 𝑓 ′(0) = 1, 𝑓(0) = 0, 𝑓 ′(∞) = 0 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓 ′′(∞) = 0, (12) 𝜃(0) = 1 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜃(∞) = 0, (13) ∅(0) = 1 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ∅(∞) = 0. (14) where 𝑃𝑟 = 𝜈 𝛼 is prandtl number, 𝑀 = 𝜎𝐵0 2 𝑏𝜌 is magnetic field parameter, 𝑘1 = 𝑘0𝑏 𝜈 is the visco– elastic parameter , 𝑘2 = 𝜐 𝑏𝑘 ∗ permeability parameter, 𝛿 = 𝑄0 𝜌𝐶𝑝𝑏 is heat generation parameter, 𝑆𝑐 = 𝜈 𝐷 is schmidt number, 𝐸𝑐 = 𝑢𝑤 2(𝑥) 𝐶𝑝(𝑇𝑤−𝑇∞) is eckert number 𝛾 = 𝑘∗ 𝑏 chemical reaction parameter and 𝑅𝑒𝑥 = 𝑥𝑢𝑤 𝜈 is local reynold number. coefficients of skin friction(𝐶𝑓𝑥 ), nusselt (𝑁𝑢𝑥 ) and sherwood (𝑆ℎ𝑥 ) numbers are: 𝐶𝑓𝑥 = −2𝜏𝑤 𝜌𝑢2𝑤 , (15) haq et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 1-8 4 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 𝑁𝑢𝑥 = {− 𝑥 (𝑇𝑤−𝑇∞) 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑦 − 16𝜎∗𝑥 3𝑘𝑘∗(𝑇𝑤−𝑇∞) 𝑇3 𝜕𝑇 𝜕𝑦 }| 𝑦=0 , (16) 𝑆ℎ𝑥 = ( 𝑥 (𝐶𝑤−𝐶∞) 𝜕𝐶 𝜕𝑦 )| 𝑦=0 . (17) expression of shear stress 𝜏𝑤 at 𝑦 = 0 is: 𝜏𝑤 = 𝜏𝑥𝑦 |𝑦=0 = 𝜇𝑏𝑥√ 𝑏 𝜐 {𝑓 ′′(0) + 𝛼1𝑏 𝜇 (3𝑓 ′(0)𝑓 ′′(0) − 𝑓(0)𝑓 ′′′(0))}. (18) in non-dimensional form coefficient of skin friction(𝐶𝑓𝑥 ), nusselt (𝑁𝑢𝑥 ) and sherwood (𝑆ℎ𝑥 ) numbers are: 𝐶𝑓𝑥 𝑅𝑒𝑥 0.5 = −2{𝑓 ′′(0) + 𝑘1(3𝑓 ′(0)𝑓 ′′(0) − 𝑓 ′(0)𝑓 ′′(0))}, (19) 𝑅𝑒𝑥 −0.5𝑁𝑢𝑥 = − (1 + 4 5 𝑅{1 + (𝜃𝑤 − 1) 𝜃(0)}3) 𝜃′(0), (20) 𝑅𝑒𝑥 −0.5𝑆ℎ𝑥 = −∅ ′(0). (21) 3. solution procedure suitable initial approximations are chosen which satisfy the boundary conditions. following initial guesses, linear operators are taken and homotopic concept is applied to obtain solutions of nonlinear expressions. 𝑓0(𝜂) = 1 − 𝑒 −𝜂 , 𝜃0(𝜂) = 𝑒 −𝜂 , 𝜙0(𝜂) = 𝑒 −𝜂, (22) £𝑓 = 𝑓 ′′′ − 𝑓 ′, £𝜃 = 𝜃 ′′ − 𝜃, £𝜙 = ϕ ′′ − 𝜙. (23) with: £𝑓 (𝐶1 + 𝐶2𝑒 𝜂 + 𝐶3𝑒 −𝜂 ), £𝜃 (𝐶4𝑒 𝜂 + 𝐶5𝑒 −𝜂 ), £𝜙 (𝐶6𝑒 −𝜂 + 𝐶7𝑒 𝜂 ). where 𝐶𝑖, (𝑖 = 1 − 7) are arbitrary constants, the auxiliary variables ℏ𝑓 , ℏ𝜃 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℏ𝜙 have key role in regulating and controlling the convergence region of homotopic expressions. by plotting ℏ -curves suitable ranges of these variables are obtained. 3.1 convergence analysis homotopy analysis method consists of auxiliary parameters, which control and regulate the region of convergence for homotopic expressions. by plotting ℏ -curves (see fig. 2). appropriate values of ℏ𝑓 , ℏ𝜃 , 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℏ𝜙 are found in the ranges 1.6 0.3 f     , 1.4 0.4      and 1.6 0.3      table 1 shows convergence numerically. table 1: convergence analysis in case of ham when 𝑘1 = 𝑘2 = 𝑀 = 0.1, 𝐸𝑐 = 0.2, 𝑃𝑟 = 𝜃𝑤 = 0.01, 𝑅 = 0.03, 𝑆𝑐 = 0.7, 𝛿 = 0.02, 𝛾 = 1.0. order of approximations // (0)f / (0) / (0) 1 1.086 0.801 0.986 10 1.244 0.294 0.965 20 1.248 0.204 0.965 25 1.248 0.182 0.965 30 1.248 0.158 0.965 35 1.248 0.158 0.965 after 15th order of approximations we get convergence of eq. (9), after 30th order of approximations convergence of eq. (10) is obtained and 10th order approximation is enough for convergence of eq. (11). haq et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 1-8 5 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 fig. 2: ℏ -curves for velocity, temperature and concentration 4. results and discussion effect of involved variables versus temperature (𝜃) , concentration (𝜙) , skin friction (𝐶𝑓𝑥 𝑅𝑒𝑥 0.5) , nusselt and sherwood numbers (𝑅𝑒𝑥 −0.5𝑁𝑢𝑥 , 𝑅𝑒𝑥 −0.5𝑆ℎ𝑥 ) are highlighted in this section. the values of involved variables taken for plotting graphs are: 𝑘1 = 𝑘2 = 𝑀 = 0.1, 𝐸𝑐 = 0.2, 𝑃𝑟 = 𝜃𝑤 = 0.01, 𝑅 = 0.03, 𝛿 = 0.02, 𝑆𝑐 = 0.7 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝛾 = 1. fig. 3 explains the curves of 𝑓 ′ for 𝑘1. here for greater values of 𝑘1, 𝑓 ′ and its related layer is thicker .velocity 𝑓 ′ increases when 𝑘1 is increased. in fact liquid viscosity diminishes via an increment in 𝑘1 which yields higher 𝑓 ′. fig. 4 shows the variation in 𝑓 ′ against 𝑘2 . the thermal layer and 𝑓 ′ increase with the increase in 𝑘2. ultimately there is an increment in 𝑓 ′ for larger values of 𝑘2 . fig. 5 represents the effect of m on 𝑓 ′. larger values of m improves both velocity and related layer thickness. here we observe an improvement in 𝑓 ′. fig. 6 shows that 𝜃 and thickness of related layer diminish for greater values of 𝑘1.the effect of pr number on temperature distribution is depicted in fig. 7. the related layer and temperature distribution decreases as pr increases. importance of sc is shown in fig. 8. here larger sc increases the concentration and thickness of related layer. fig 9 witnesses that 𝜙 and thickness of corresponding layer decreases with the increase of 𝛾. fig. 3: influence of 𝑘1 on velocity distribution. fig. 4: influence of 𝑘2 on velocity distribution. haq et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 1-8 6 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 fig. 5: influence of m on velocity distribution. fig. 6: influence of 𝑘2 on temperature distribution. fig. 7: influence of pr on temperature distribution. fig. 8: influence of sc on concentration distribution. fig. 9: influence of 𝛾 on concentration distribution. fig. 10: effects of 𝑘1 and m on 𝑅𝑒𝑥 0.5𝐶𝑓𝑥. fig. 11: effects of r and 𝜃𝑤 on 𝑅𝑒𝑥 −0.5𝑁𝑢𝑥 . fig. 12: effects of sc and  on 𝑅𝑒𝑥 −0.5𝑆ℎ𝑥. haq et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 1-8 7 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 fig.10 show that larger 1 k and m corresponds to higher 𝑅𝑒𝑥 0.5𝐶𝑓𝑥. and associated layer. fig. 11 show that for larger  and r corresponds to higher 𝑅𝑒𝑥 −0.5𝑁𝑢𝑥. fig. 12 divulges the variation of  and sc against 0.5re x x sh  . higher values of  and sc reported higher 𝑅𝑒𝑥 −0.5𝑆ℎ𝑥. conclusions here we study nonlinear radiation and mixed convection aspects in mhd boundary layer visco-elastic 2nd grade fluid flow over a moving stretching sheet in a pours medium. the formulated equations are transformed to ordinary differential equations by taking suitable transformations. the solution of governing equations is obtained by using ham. it is observed that visco-elastic parameter effects velocity and temperature distribution, the velocity increases and temperature decreases in boundary-layer. this shows the effect of visco-elastic parameter. the magnetic field parameter increases velocity distribution it has no any effect on temperature and concentration. the prandtl number has no effect on velocity and concentration but it decreases the temperature distribution. the permeability parameter increases the velocity distribution. the renold number, ecrect number and 𝜃𝑤 have no any effect on velocity, temperature and concentration distributions. the schmidt number and radiation parameter 𝛾 decreases concentration distribution. references [1] alfvén, h., existence of electromagnetic-hydrodynamic waves. nature, (1942). 150: p. 405-406. 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[16] chen, c.-h., effects of magnetic field and suction/injection on convection heat transfer of non-newtonian power-law fluids past a power-law stretched sheet with surface heat flux. international journal of thermal sciences, (2008), 47(7): p. 954-961. [17] malik, m.y., et al., magnetohydrodynamic flow of sisko fluid over a stretching cylinder with variable thermal conductivity: a numerical study. aip advances, (2016), 6(2): p. 025316. [18] liao, s., on the homotopy analysis method for nonlinear problems. applied mathematics and computation, (2004), 147(2): p. 499-513. [19] khan, m. and a. shahzad, on axisymmetric flow of sisko fluid over a radially stretching sheet. international journal of non-linear mechanics, (2012), 47(9): p. 999-1007. [20] hayat, t., et al., joule heating and viscous dissipation in flow of nanomaterial by a rotating disk. international communications in heat and mass transfer, (2017), 89: p. 190-197. [21] rashidi, m.m., e. momoniat, and b. rostami, analytic approximate solutions for mhd boundary-layer viscoelastic fluid flow over continuously moving stretching surface by homotopy analysis method with two auxiliary parameters. journal of applied mathematics, (2012), 2012: p. 780415. [22] . abbas, z., et al., mixed convection in the stagnation-point flow of a maxwell fluid towards a vertical stretching surface. nonlinear analysis: real world applications, 2010. 11(4): p. 3218-3228. (2003) 3,154,026, may 15. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 10 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 journal of mountain area research optimization of the cropping pattern in central yasin district ghizer, gilgit-baltistan f. haq1*, e. ali1, s. hussain1 1 department of mathematical sciences, karakoram international university gilgit-baltistan, gilgit, 15100, pakistan abstract in this research study linear programming (lp) model is applied to determine the maximum profit from the three major crops (wheat, maize and alfalfa) in central yasin district ghizer, where agriculture is the main source of income, however, due to population growth the agricultural land is used to construct buildings, which has minimized the land for agricultural use. in such a challenging condition a method to suggest the cultivation of a maximum profitable crop is the need of time. therefore, lp model is an appropriate method to decide the profitable crop and to maximize the profit. the study was conducted employing quantitative method of research, with the purpose to compare the maximum profit per annum from the major crops, and to determine the beneficial crop among the three major crops in central yasin. all the farmers of the study area who grow the crops were the target population of the study and samples from the target population were selected using random sampling technique. data was collected by conducting survey in the study area, where selfmade questionnaires were distributed among the samples individually and responses were noted on the spot. the raw data is organized and analyzed using microsoft excel for lp model formulation. the result showed that the average land used for the cultivation of wheat, maize and alfalfa in the study area is 0.924 acres, 0.664 acres and 0.75 acres respectively. furthermore, results of the lp model showed that alfalfa is the optimal solution rather than wheat and maize, and it (alfalfa) gives an average annual net profit of rs.195634.488. keywords: linear programming; simplex method; optimal solution; cropping pattern. *corresponding author (email: fazal.haq@kiu.edu.pk) full length article vol. 5, 2020 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar haq et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 10-18 11 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 1. introduction linear programming (lp), is a sub-field of optimization theory, which itself is a subfield of applied mathematics, is a class of mathematical problems, in which a linear function is maximized (or minimized), subject to given linear constraints (nakhanu, toili, & nyongesa, 2015). here the word programming is a synonym for planning not a computer programming like java, c++ or other basic computer programming. linear programming is generalization of linear algebra. linear programming method finds the best solution to the real world problems if the problem is represented by mathematical equalities or inequalities. linear programming (lp) or linear optimization (lo) is an operations research technique which is widely used in finding solutions to complex managerial decision problems (ezema & amakom, 2012). all linear programming problems have the objective to maximize the profit or minimize the cost. furthermore, linear programing with simplex procedure is an appropriate method to optimize land allocation for rice, wheat, pulses and other crops, (sofi et al., 2015). in the same way, aparnathi and bhatt (2014) formulated linear programming model for optimal cropping pattern for economic benefits of mrbc command area in which surface and ground water were considered as decision variables. the findings of their study showed that linear programming technique is convenient method for obtaining optimal results. felix et al. (2013) used linear programming model to work out optimal crop combination between maize, soya beans and cotton crops for a rural farmer in zimbabwe. they compared their results with farmer plans, and the result showed that lp model produced an optimal crop combination that gives higher income where the income difference was 72.29%. furthermore, majeke (2013) addressed on the resource allocation problem in marondera, zimbabwe with the help of linear programming procedure. the crops considered were tobacco, maize, soya beans and potatoes. model result suggested that tobacco and potato crops were part of the optimal solution which gained acreage by 128% and 38% respectively whereas maize and soya beans were not part of the optimal solution. the lp result was compared with traditional method of planning and proved that lp model is most superior. the income difference was 35%. in the same way, ezema and amakom (2012) applied linear programming method in golden plastic industry limited, enugu, nigeria to optimize profit from the different sizes of pipe production. the result suggested producing only two sizes of the total eight “pvc” pipes. the industry should produce 114,317.2 pieces of 25mm by 4.5m conduit pipes and 7,136.564 pieces of 20mm by 5.4m haq et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020)10-18 12 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 thick pressure pipes per month, to obtain a maximum profit of n1, 964,537. likewise, afridi, ishtiaq, and ahmad (2009) applied linear programming model to allocate optimal land allocation for strawberry production in a sub-tropical areas; jandai and sarkai of nwfp. wheat and sugarcane were considered as a comparative crop. their findings were: (1) strawberry was cropped on 0.91 acres, wheat on 1.70 acres and sugarcane on 0.91 acres. (2) the gross revenue per acre was estimated at rs.154751, rs.16094 and rs.39059 for strawberry, wheat and sugar cane respectively. (3) the lp model results suggested that strawberry should be cropped on 0.68 acres and sugarcane on 2.8 acres to realize the maximum net revenue of rs. 161263 but wheat was not included in the optimal solution. moreover, khan et al. (2005) conducted a research study on 4652 thousand acres of the irrigated area in three districts of bahawalpur, punjab where the crops supposed under the study were wheat, maize, basmati rice, irri rice, cotton and sugarcane. the lp model recommended cultivating the cotton crop which gained acreage by about 10% and the overall optimal crop acreage decreased by 1.76%. lp result also showed that the optimal income was increased by 3.38%. similarly, hassan et al. (2005) collected primary data from four districts of dera ghazi khan division of punjab province by conducting a case study on 3913 thousand acres of the irrigated area, to determine the optimal cropping pattern, production and income level. linear programming method was considered as a suitable tool for this study and they took five major crops under consideration i.e. wheat, cotton, sugarcane, basmati rice and irri rice. the result of the lp model showed that cotton was the only crop which gained acreage by 10% at the expense of all other crops. the result also showed that overall optimal crop acreage decreased by 1.64% and the income increased by 2.91%. in the same way, hassan et al. (2004) designed linear programming model to optimize cropping pattern in faisalabad division, on wheat, basmati rice, irri rice, cotton, sugarcane, maize and potato. the results of the lp procedure showed that wheat, cotton and maize gained acreage by 5-10%. this result also showed that basmati rice, irrc rice, sugarcane and potato are the main losers. overall optimal crop acreage increased by 1.88% and optimal income was increased by around 2%. singh et al (2001) cited by hassan (2004), found that different water availability levels by applying lp model to suggests the optimal cropping patterns in the command of shahi distributary in uttar pardesh, india. it is a common observation and practice that farmers in the study area grow crops, using the traditional ways and past experiences rather than experimental results or modern means. as a result of which monitoring and haq et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 10-18 13 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 evaluation of the profit and loss in terms of investment and profit earning remains a problem. therefore, the present study was conducted to compare the maximum profit per annum from the major crops, and to explore the beneficial crop among the three major crops (wheat, maize and alfalfa) in the study area, using linear programming method. 2. objectives the objective of current study is to develop a lp model to maximize the net profit gained from three major crops wheat, alfalfa and potato in central yasin district ghizer 3. study area yasin valley of gilgit-baltistan is located at a distance of 137 km from central gilgit, and at a distance of 62 km from the headquarter namely the gahkuch, of district ghizer. the current population of the area is approximately 90,000 (gulistan, 2015). the present study was conducted in two of the villages of yasin, namely, manich and noh. the area was selected because of three main reasons. firstly, people of this area are associated with farming and they grow wheat, maize and alfalfa as source of both human and animal food and source of cash earning respectively. secondly, it was easily accessible because this area is the researcher’s home town therefore, it was cost effective for the collection of data, and thirdly, the time was limited. 4. major crops of the study area agriculture is the main source of income of the study area where wheat, maize and alfalfa crops are grown mostly. in addition to these crops; barley and vegetables are also grown. the vegetables grown are potatoes, tomatoes, onion, carrot and sonachal (malva verticillata), and so on. in the study area only irrigated agriculture and crops’ growing is possible. glaciers and seasonal snow deposits are the only source water reservoirs. the agricultural lands are prepared by using machinery (tractors). generally, farming is the profession of male in the study area and farming the occupation of almost 90% of the people. among the three major crops alfalfa is the only one which is a double harvesting crop. 4.1 wheat. wheat is grown as primary food crop in the study area, where the land owners (farmers) allocate major part of their land for the cultivation of wheat crop. the cultivation of wheat starts in the month of april while the harvesting starts in the month of august. the flour of wheat is used to prepare bread, which is the basic food of the local people and the fodder is used as animal’s food. 4.2 maize. maize is the second major crop after wheat. generally, maize is sown in the month of may and harvested in october. similarly, the flour of maize is used to prepare bread, which is the basic food of the local haq et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020)10-18 14 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 people and the fodder is used as animal’s food. 4.3 alfalfa (medicago sativa) it is an animal food source crop grown in the study area however; in the early juvenile stage some people use it as human food (vegetable) too. it is also grown as a cash crop in the study area. alfalfa is the only crop in the study area which is harvested two times per year. 5. data and method of solution this comparative study is conducted in quantitative paradigm; random sampling technique is used for the selection of samples, because random sampling ensures equal chance for each individual to be counted in the samples. first we used stratified sampling in which there were three major groups of farmers; the wheat growers, maize growers and the alfalfa growers, followed by simple random sampling to collect the data from the three types of farmers. randomly 300 farmers (100 for each crop) as sample were selected for this study. 6. lp model formulation formulation is the process of translating real world problem into a linear program. to formulate lpm mathematically, four major steps were used as shown in figure 1. table 1 show that an average of 26 days are spent by per person and an average of 28 fertilizer bags are used to grow wheat crop in the study area, in one season. similarly, an average of 26 days is spent by per person and an average of 25 fertilizer bags are used to grow maize crop in the study area, in one season. for the alfalfa crop cultivation, the total person days were calculated to be 36 and 32 bags of fertilizer were used by the alfalfa growers. the output data were used to formulate linear programming model and carried out this model to find optimal land allocation. the standard lp model for the present study using this calculated data is modeled as following; haq et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 10-18 15 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020     1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 25 26 36 87 (labour constraint) 28 25 32 85 (fertilizer constraint) 33840x + 23517x +31084x 88441 (capital constraint) 2.338 land allocation , , 0 non-negativity constraint x x x x x x x x x x x x                   where, 1 x = indicates the land allocation in acre for the growth of wheat. 2 x = indicates the land allocation in acre for the growth of maize. 3 x = indicates the land allocation in acre for the growth of alfalfa. table 1: linear programming matrix activities wheat potato alfalfa objective function 33,375.43 25 28 33,839.57 30,423.545 26 25 23,516.455 83,676.99 36 32 31,084.01 maximize available  87  85  88,441 resources labor fertilizer capital units person days kg rupees land acres 1 1 1  2.338 7. comparison of results simplex method is used to solve the obtained mathematical model. the optimal result obtained for allocation of land from the lp model is displayed in table 2. the lp results are compared with the farmer’s decision is presented in table 3. lp results indicates that both wheat and maize are not the part of optimal solution. the overall findings of the study revealed that alfalfa is the most profitable crop as compared to the other two major crops namely, wheat and maize. furthermore, the findings of the study showed that the cultivation of alfalfa in 2.338 acres of land maximizes the net profit up to rs. 195634.488 per season/year. table 2: optimal land allocation suggested by lp model 𝑥1 = wheat (acres) 𝑥2 = maize (acres) 𝑥3 = alfalfa (acres) production 0 0 2.338 p=net profit rs. 195634.488 haq et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020)10-18 16 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 table 3: comparison of land allocation under lp solution with farmer’s plan crop s farmers plan(acr es) optima l solutio n (acres) plan percenta ge of farmers whe at 0.924 0.0 0.366 potat o alfalf a 0.664 0.75 0.0 2.338 348.63 0 total 147,475.9 65 195,634 .5 8. recommendations based on the findings of the present study the following recommendations as way forward are made;  alfalfa is a profitable crop which is a source of cash earning and income generation, therefore, it needs to be grown at maximum level in the study area.  the farmers of the study area needs to be given free of interest loans or subsidy by the government especially the agricultural sector to manage fertilizers and seeds of alfalfa.  farmers need to be trained by 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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 19 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 journal of mountain area research evolution of karakoram sequence, hunza valley ne pakistan: evidences from field mapping and micro-analytical work s. s. baig1, c. xue1, masroor alam2, naeem ullah1, m. alam3, s. a. hussain4 1 kunming university of science and technology, kunming, 650093, p. r. china 2 china university of geo sciences beijing china 3 government degree college gilgit, gilgit-baltistan, pakistan 4 chinese academy of sciences qinghai china abstract the karakoram metamorphic complex (kmc) in the southern karakoram block is one of the best examples of barrovian type metamorphism that comprises numerous exhumed metapelite units where a series of low to high grade (green schist to sillimanite facie) rocks are exposed. this sequence shows a complex polyphase history of metamorphism and deformation which offer deeper understanding of collision orogeny. karakoram metamorphic complex contains metapelites, metacarbonates, meta-igneous and amphibolite layers, cross-cut by granite sheets in the northern part. this complex is bounded to the north by the hunza plutonic unit which is the central portion of the massive east-west trending karakoram axial batholith and to the southwest by the main karakoram thrust (mkt). in this contribution, we provide detail geological mapping, petrography, geochemistry and micro-analytical work using electron prob-micro analysis in the central hunza valley. keywords: karakoram metamorphic complex (kmc), metapelites, tectonothermal evolution, magmatic gneiss. *corresponding author: (email: sher.sultan.baig@gmail.com ) 1. introduction since detachment from the gondwana supercontinent at c. 150 ma, the indo-australian plate has drifted in northward anti-clockwise path, covering c. 5000 km before colliding with asia [1]. beforehand, the southern asian margin was a passive margin in the permian [5) which converted into an active continental margin in the early to mid-cretaceous [3,4,5). first the closure of northern neo-tethys at c. 102–75 ma and then the southern, kohistan block subsequently collided, accreted and indented into asian plate margin at c. 50–55 ma [2,3], with both events causing barrovian-type metamorphism and magmatism on both plates. this collision resulted in crustal thickening, magmatism, polyphase metamorphism and deformation both along the northern margin of india (forming the himalaya) and along the southern margin of asia (forming the hindu kush, karakoram and the tibetan plateau) [6]. oceanic and continental platform sediments of the asian margin were subjected to low-pressure–hightemperature (lp–ht) andalusite–sillimanite grade metamorphism due to collision and emplacement of subduction related calc-alkaline granitoids of karakoram axial batholith [4,6]. this sequence actually comprises of late-paleozoic and earlymesozoic sedimentary rocks that have been metamorphosed during and following collision. understanding the evolution of the continental crust during the orogenic cycle, and elucidating timing of metamorphism is fundamental but challenging issues. karakoram metamorphic full length article vol. 5, 2020 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar mailto:sher.sultan.baig@gmail.com baig et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 19-27 20 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 complex (kmc) exposed various metamorphic units, which provide data on rocks exist along strike at various depths in the southern karakoram block today [5,7]. no focused work has been performed on paragneiss units. in this contribution, detailed geological mapping has been carried to kohistankarakoram convergence and collision. in addition, we discussed the metamorphism, tectonic evolution and implications of timing of poly-phase metamorphism. 2. geological framework the northern terrane of pakistan is composed of three major geological divisions. from north to south these divisions are 1) the karakoram block 2) the kohistan island arc and 3) the indo-pak plate. main karakoram thrust (mkt) is the western extension of indus tsango suture zone (itsz) that separates karakoram block to the north from kohistan island arc to its south with a small back arc basin trap in between them fig.1 [8,9]. the karakoram block is equivalent to qiangtang terrane of central south tibet [9]. within karakoram block of hunza valley, further three major zones are traversed, 2) a northern sedimentary zone, 2) a central hunza pluton (hunza plutonic unit; hpu) and 3) a southern metamorphic zone, karakoram metamorphic complex (kmc) [10]. the northern sedimentary zone comprised of paleozoic sedimentary carbonates and clastics extends from the khunjerab pass south to the granite contact near the villages of gulmit [10,11]. the central part of karakoram comprised of subduction-related granitoids of the hunza plutonic unit (hpu) (c. 95–105 ma), which is the central part of huge east-west trending karakoram axial batholith that divides sedimentary sequence to the north from metamorphic sequence (kmc) towards south [9]. several sets of cross-cutting leucogranite dykes intrude both the southern part of hunza pluton as well as the highest-grade metamorphic rocks (sillimanite-bearing gneisses) [6]. this early set of hunza dykes have been dated at c. 50–52 ma using u–pb zircon geochronology [6]. also of note is the sumayar leucogranite, which is a post-metamorphic igneous body showing sharp intrusive contacts against the host rocks, and exhibits a small contact aureole in them [6,7]. metasedimentary rocks of karakoram metamorphic complex (kmc) volumetrically dominate the southern margin of the karakoram crustal block. kmc is the southernmost part of karakoram block and the rock exposed here all considered being part of southern asian margin prior to india-asian collision [14]. with the initiation of subduction, magmatism and crustal thickening platform sedimentary protolith of kmc were subjected to low-pressure–high-temperature (lp– ht) andulasite grade metamorphism and with crustal thickening medium-pressure hightempertaure (mp-ht) staurolite to sillimanite-grade barrovian metamorphism and partial melting [8,9]. within the karakoram range, rocks exposed between main karakoram thrust (mkt) to the south and the karakoram batholith to the north are collectively called the kmc fig. 2 [12,13]. baig et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 19-27 21 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 figure. 1 schematic geological map of north pakistan showing the location of the hunza valley (black rectangle) within the karakoram range. (modified after fraser et al., 2001). kmc hosts metapelitic (schists and gneisses) massive marbles and lens/layers of amphibolite with interlayered migmatites, and cut by granite sheets in the sillimanite zone [1,3,10,12,14]. at few places in extreme north of kmc in upper sillimanite zone migmatites with distinct migmatites with layers of leucosome (1cm–28cm) and melanosome (1 cm–2m) are exposed. these migmatite are sedimentary derived high temperature melts (anatectic granites), and both leucosomes and melanosome have garnet and biotite schlieren. a series of ne dipping thrust faults control the geology and structure of the central hunza valley, which juxtapose various tectono-stratigraphic units against each other resulting in a general increase in metamorphic grade and age northwards. from north to south, these are the karimabad thrust, the aliabad thrust, the murtazabad thrust, the chikas thrust, the north nasirabad thrust, the south nasirabad thrust, and the main karakoram thrust (mkt). in the south main karakoram thrust (mkt) or northern suture zone (nsz) or shyok suture zone (ssz) divides karakoram block to the north from kohistan island arc towards south [6,7]. baig et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 19-27 22 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 figure. 2 lithological comparison of three crossections and distribution of major rock units (left). chikas–hasanabad (middle). sumayar–ulter and (right). dongdas–ulter. 3. analytical methods to determine characteristic mineral assemblages, mineral reactions and microstructural evidence for the sequence of deformation, metamorphism and tectonic setting of formation, thin sections of each sample were examined using an olympus bx51-p electron microscope at kunming university. wholerock geochemical analyses of all lithologies collected from the kmc were performed at the guiyang institute of geochemistry to acquire major element concentrations, whereas trace elements and rare earth elements (ree) were determined by lithium metaborate/tetraborate fusion–icp and lithium metaborate/ tetraborate fusion–icp/ms. electron microprobe analyses were carried out using a jeol jxa-8100 (oxford inca) microprobe housed at institute of geology chines academy of geological sciences (igcas) beijing , operating with an accelerating voltage of 15 kv, and a beam current of 2x10-8a/10sec which is equipped with four wavelength-dispersive spectrometers.. microprobe is equipped with four wavelengthdispersive spectrometers (eds) with accelerating voltage of 20kv and current 1.5x 10-9 a/sec. natural and synthetic silicates and oxides were used for calibration. representative mineral analyses are listed in table 1. 4. samples collection and petrography a total of 14 samples were collected from the hunza valley during field investigation, mostly from the upper sillimanite zone surrounding hasanabad, aliabad, and karimabad (figure. 2). out of these, a subset of 10 samples were selected for further epma and microanalytical work presented herein fig 3. baig et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 19-27 23 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 figure. 3 diagrammatic thin sections with spot selection points for epma. metapelitic members typically contain garnet (grt), biotite (bt), quartz (qtz), plagioclase (pl), kfeldspar (kfs), and sillimanite (sil), alongside accessory minerals apatite (ap), zircon (zrn) and ilmenite (ilm). sample hu-db-02, containing garnet porphyroblasts with diameter ranged between (1.5 – 5.5 mm), which are wrapped by a continuous foliation defined by biotite, sillimanite, quartz. matrix minerals include plagioclase, kfeldspar, graphite and quartz. these representative samples comprised six metapelites and four migmatites (four melanosome and two leucosome segregations). thin sections of each studied sample were examined to determine characteristic mineral assemblages and microstructural evidence for the sequence of deformation events. the detail mineral assemblages are mention in petrological section below. mineral abbreviations given below follow the guidelines of kretz (1983). samples are show in table 1. in almost all metapelites we observed ribbons of quartz and biotite that wrap the matrix (fig. 4). garnet porphyroblasts in metapelite (hu-gd-10) are up to 8.5 mm in diameter show well defined core–rim relationships, differentiated texturally by inclusion patterns. broad cores show very little chemical variation and contain biotite, muscovite, quartz, plagioclase (fig. 4). figure. 4 representative hand samples and thin section from metapelite sample in karakoram metamorphic complex (kmc). both samples are coarse-grained, foliated metapelites of the upper-sillimanite gnesiss, exposed at dibar and dhondas valley and have almost similar mineralogies and textural characteristics. sedimentary derived high temperature melts (migmatites) with both leucosomes and melanosome are exposed in the upper sillimanite baig et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 19-27 24 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 zone, north of karimabad. relatively massif melanosome forms (1 cm to 2m) thick beds contain mineral assemblages includes garnet (grt), biotite (bt), k-feldspar (kfs), quartz (qtz), plagioclase (pl), sillimanite (sil) and small amounts of chlorite (chl) and accessory muscovite (ms). in melanosome part coarse garnet, biotite flakes and quartzo-felspathic boudins are easily discernable with occasional concentration of sillimanite. abundance of biotite in this rock is notable which form distinct foliation in the rocks. leucosome are intensively foliated with large garnet porphyroblasts and even the inclusions in garnet are highly oriented and aligned along the foliation. the leucosome unit contains variety of minerals including garnet (grt), sillimanite (sil), and chlorite (chl) alternating with quartzo-feldspathic layer ranged in thickness from 1 – 26 centimeters. 5. results 5.1 geochemistry the metapelites exhibited moderate sio2 (57.42% and 64.90%), mgo (1.24% and 2.74%), na2o (2.81% and 3.24%), and k2o (1.94% and 3.85%) and cao (1.46% and 1.96%) contents, but high al2o3 (16.05% and 18.02%) and feot (6.38% and 14.71%) contents. on a chondrite diagram the trace-element contents are minor enriched in light rare earth element (lree) except hu-gd-11 which shows unusually higher hree with observable eu anomaly fig. 5). on primitive-mantle diagram, u and dy show enrichment pattern while sr, p and ti reflects significant negative anomaly. 6. discussion 6.1 tectonic evolution of the hunza karakoram plate convergence at island arcs, continental arcs, or continent–continent collision zones induces metamorphism, magmatism, deformation, and crustal thickening in the over-riding plate [13]. the long-lived metamorphism, coeval magmatism and anatexis can be interpreted as a result of the partial melting of the thickening crust related to the collision (14). as a result of india–asia collision, andean continental margin with multiple orogenparallel blocks from in east-west trend. during and following collision and compression, the sediments on southern margin of asian basin figure. 5 condrite normalized and primitive normalized diagrams for metapelites. (normalized values from sun and mcdonough 1989). metamorphosed. the partial melting of metapelites resulted in formation of sedimentary derived/s-type in situ migmatites with distinct layers of leucosomes and melanosomes, with the former containing garnet and biotite schlieren. garnet porphyroblasts are abundant, and greencolored aggregates of chlorite pseudomorph other peritectic phases, which we baig et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 19-27 25 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 table 1. representative samples and mineral assemblages from kmc. s.no sample # locality gps lithology mineral assemblage 1 hu-b-04-01 karimabad n: 36 20 30.2 e: 74 39 00.8 leucosome grt + bt + qtz + ms +sil + ch + kfs + di + tre 2 hu-b-04-03 karimabad n: 36 20 30.1 e: 74 39 01.5 grt-bt gneiss qtz + grt + pl + bt + kfs + ms 3 hu-b-04-04 karimabad n: 36 20 29.1 e: 74 38 49.1 qtz-bt gneiss qtz + bt + ms + pl+ grt 4 hu-b-30 karimabad n: 36 20 30.5 e: 47 39 00.8 melanosome bt + qtz + pl + grt + sil + kfs + ms 5 hu-b-33 karimabad n: 36 20 29.3 e: 47 39 01.2 leucosome bt + qtz + pl + grt + kfs + sil + tre + di 7 hu-db-16 murko, karimabad n: 36 20 13.1 e: 74 40 24.8 grt-schist grt + sil + qtz + pl + bt + ms 8 hu-gd-10 dhongdas n: 36 18 32.2 e: 74 41 19.9 meta-pellite bt + grt + qtz + ms + pl + kfs 9 hu-gd-11 dhongdas n: 36 18 35.6 e: 74 41 41.4 meta-pellite qtz + grt + bt + ms + ch 10 hu-h-01 hasanabad n: 36 18 07.2 e: 74 35 27.9 two-mica gneiss qtz + bt + grt + pl + kfs + ms 11 hu-hb-02 (a) karimabad n: 36 20 01.4 e: 74 49 38.7 grt + bt gneiss bt + qtz + grt + pl + ms 12 hu-hb-02 (a) karimabad n: 36 20 01.7 e: 74 39 33.2 qtz + bt gneiss qtz + bt + ms + grt + pl 13 hu-jo-15 karimabad n: 36 20 22.2 e: 74 39 25.6 grt-gneiss qtz + bt + grt + kfs + ms + pl +sil 14 hu-r-02 rahim yari n: 36 20 00.1 e: 74 40 32.5 meta-pellite qtz + bt + grt + pl + ms + sil 15 hu-r-05 rahim yari n: 36 20 05.1 e: 74 40 33.4 meta-pellite qtz + pl + bt + ms + kfs 16 hu-b-01 karimabad n: 36 20 26.2 e: 74 39 01.1 meta-pellite qtz + bt + ms + pl + grt + kfs 18 hu-db-08 dilbar, karimabad n: 36 19 58.6 e: 74 40 26.4 qtz + bt gneiss qtz + bt + pl + ms + crd?? baig et al., j. mt. area res. 05 (2020) 19-27 26 j. mt. area res., vol. 5, 2020 interpret to be kyanite, owing to the occurrence of relic cores with a light blue color. the karakoram range evolved into an uplifted this also reflects from whole rock geochemistry that the rocks contain high alumunia (16.05% and 18.02%) that reflects a shale or silty shale protolith for the metapelite unit. magmatic precursors were likely intruded into the proto-kmc crust during northern plate subduction and closure of the neo-tethys, but before the kia accreted to the asian foreland. sillimanite-grade metamorphism occurred south of the batholith during a high-temperature magmatic event, possibly associated with a large melt zone hidden at depth in the lower crust. this metamorphism is interpreted to be synmagmatism with that of major mid-cretaceous magmatism of hunzaplutonic unit [7]. field evidence proposes large-scale melting mostly occurred along the southern edge of the hpu and northern most part of kmc. this indicates the karakoram metamorphic complex recorded an upper amphibolite to lower granulite facies metamorphism. conclusions extensive field studies, mapping and laboratory work shows that karakoram metamorphic complex undergone polyphase barrovian type metamorphism. combining the new data with data previously carried by other authors (6) allowed us to resolve the tectono-metamorphic history of the kmc on a regional scale and use these data for an overall analysis of the regional metamorphism in the realm of the neotethys in southern karakoram block. we conclude that  the protoliths of karakoram metamorphic complex (kmc) are mostly carbonates (limestone + dolomite + marls), pelites (shales and mud stones) and little psammites (impure sandstone).  in almost all meta-pelites and migmatites garnet is floating inside the matrix.  the high grade rocks (sillimanite grade) are in the north in karimabad followed by well exposed migmatite restites  the presence of spinel within the garnet show deep metamorphism (>25 km within the crust).  the meta-pelitic rocks in kmc are normal upper amphibolite facie rocks, barely entering into granulite facies.  upper amphibolite facie metamorphism of impure limestone has produced calc-silicate rocks and gems.  during the late phase peak metamorphism the gneiss went partial melting of meta-pellites resulted in formation of leucosomes (1–28 cm) and melanosomes (1cm–2m). references [1] broughton, r. d., windley, b. f., jan, m. q., reaction isograds and p-t estimates in metasediments on the edge of the karakorum plate, hunza, n. pakistan. geol. bull. univ. peshawar, 1985, 18, 119-136. 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[13] rolland, y., carrio-schaffhauser, e., sheppard, s.m.f., pecher, a., esclauze, l., metamorphic zoning and geodynamic evolution of an inverted crustal section (karakorum margin, n pakistan), evidence for two metamorphic events. international journal of earth sciences, (2006), 95, 288–305. [14] searle, m. p., khan, m. a., fraser, j. e., gough, s. j., jan, m. q., the tectonic evolution of the kohistan‐karakoram collision belt along the karakoram highway transect, north pakistan. tectonics, (1999), 18(6), 929-949. [15] wallis, d., phillips, r.j., lloyd g.e., evolution of the eastern karakoram metamorphic complex, ladakh, nw india, and its relationship to magmatism and regional tectonics. tectonophysics, (2014), 626 (2014) 41–52. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 5 april 2020. revised/accepted: 3 june 2020. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sample paper manuscript preparation 24 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 journal of mountain area research multi-hazard risk assessment of qurumbar valley, ghizer, gilgit baltistan, pakistan s. k. ali shah3, g. khan2, *, s. ali1,4, j. a. qureshi5, n. habib3, a. khan5 and s. s. baig5 1 key laboratory of tibetan environment changes and land surface processes, institute of tibetan plateau research, cas, 100101beijing 2 xinjiang institute of ecology and geography, chinese academy of sciences 3 pepperdine institute gilgit, pakistan 4 university of chinese academy of science, 100101beijing 5 kunming university of science and technology yunnan, china abstract being located in a seismically active zone, these mountain valleys are exposed to different hydro-meteorological hazards like rockfall, debris flow, landslide, ice avalanches, and glacial lake outburst flood (glofs). the present study is to investigate different multi-hazards and their prevailing risk in the particular area of qurumbar valley ishkoman. in the mid-nineteen and twenty centuries at least six devastating glacial lake outburst floods (glofs) has been recorded, initially, only the qurumbar glacier was considered as the main cause of this outburst flood, later field investigation and interview from local inhabitant revealed that nine more tributary glacier are existing in the area. the recent outburst of flood in the badswat area of qurumbar ishkoman is also considerable, submerging 12 houses and a stretch of roads. apart from it, the physical vulnerability of the area is increasing, as new areas are being used for housing with the increase in population. the study area is exposed to several other natural hazards like rock fall, debris flows, ice avalanches, and bank erosion. the present study is based on quantitative and qualitative approaches in assistance with gis/rs an emergent application. the following methodologies were adapted to gather the primary and secondary data for gis/rs processing. the primary data comprises gis data and procurement and development and field data. the field data contain ground-truthing /validation. the community-based hazard vulnerability risk assessment (hvra) was also carried out to know about human perception. secondary data has been collected from different literature. both the data were put into gis for the processing which gives us our final developmental tools in the form of maps. the hazard and risk map of the qurumbar ishkoman depict that flash floods, debris flow, bank erosion, and glofs account for major hazards in qurumbar valley. it is concluded based on our outcomes i.e., hazard and risk maps that earthquake is the main hazard of the area while flash floods, glofs, debris flow, bank erosion and the bank collapsed are the main hazards of the area. it is very important to systematically integrate map information into the planning and management process which contributes to a safer environment. keywords: glof, hazard, risk, hvra, qurumbar, gis&rs *corresponding author: (email: gareewwf@gmail.com) 1. introduction 1.1 background hazards are threats that have the potential to harm people, livelihood and the environment. risk is the measure of the possibility or the probability of the harm, causalities or losses of lives as a result of a hazardous event. in the world there are various areas which are uncovered to several types of vol. 4, 2019 http://journal.kiu.edu.pk/index.php/jmar full length article mailto:gareewwf@gmail.com shah et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 24-31 25 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 natural hazards each with their own (spatial) character. all the geological, physical, and meteorological activities output spell-out in the form of geophysical and hydro-meteorological hazards which include landslides, glof, land erosion, debris flow, flooding and earthquakes posing a continuous threat on the local residents as well as to the environment. the increasing population vulnerability to these multiples hazards is intensified by socio-economic factor like poverty, unavailability of land use methods and lake of awareness resulting in seismically weak housing stock in disastrous prone areas ultimately expose the communities more to these natural hazards. pakistan generally gilgit-baltistan particularly fall in disaster prone zone. being located in seismically active zone, the mountain valleys in northern pakistan are always prone to hydro-metrological hazards like landslides, rock fall, debris flow, snow or ice avalanches, glacial lake outburst floods (glof), flooding and erosion. climate changes induce hydro-meteorological and geo hazards are key concern in asia and their impact on life, livelihood and environment has been increased in gilgit-baltistan in general and in qurumbar valley in particular. the research project is implemented in specific location (qurumbar village of district ghizer tehsil ishkoman). the local population is heavily exposed to these natural phenomena. the physical vulnerability is also increasing with the passage of time as new areas are used for housing, business and agriculture which are at risk from natural hazards. beside the population’s exposure to natural threats the socio-economic conditions in qurumbar valley are unfavorable. an important issue in the whole northern area is an indication of an unfavorable climate which is constantly changing having impact on nature [1]. peoples notices change in snow fall (stronger event with subsequent avalanches), more frequent thunderstorm as well as earlier start of hot and dry season. beside the normal natural events which occur frequently having limited geographic extent, a number of past historic (catastrophic) events like the 1893 and 1905 qurumbar glacier lake outburst floods (glof), or the 1858 sarat rock avalanche with subsequent catastrophic lake outburst flood occurred in northern areas and destroyed numerous villages along the main river downstream, [2]. recently a glacial lake outburst flood (glof) in badswat valley of tehsil ishkoman has blocked the flow of qurumbar river, forming a lake, which have submerged 12 houses, and destroyed a stretch of road. efforts to transport aid items to the effected region are hindered by the destruction of road, while fear of potential flood that might be caused if the lake barrier break has also increased among the peoples living downstream. gis and rs are modern tools to minimize the hazard impacts. destructions from natural hazards and disasters can be reducing by proper monitoring, assessment and mitigation of natural hazards. gis is also helpful in mapping of hazardous areas [3]. one of the general’s aims of the study is to identify multi hazards prevailing in the area and finally formulating different maps like risk and hazard maps for landuse planning and emergency management which are also helpful for assessments, monitoring and mitigation of hazards so to reduce the risk of hazards. shah et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 24-31 26 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 figure 1: location map of study area (qurumbar valley) 1.2 study area the qurumbar valley (figure 1) is situated in the eastern hindukush (36⁰ 30′-36⁰ 45′ n73⁰ 45′ -74⁰ 10′ e). the highest catchment area is the peak kampir dior (7168 m) belonging to the western corner of the batura yashkuk mountain group. the 90 km long qurumbar valley initiate in the qurumbar pass (4250 m) and drain near to the immit into the ishkoman valley and at gahkuch into the gilgit river. the topographic setting of the valley courses changes again and again with the passage of time between expansive, basin-like valley sections and narrow gorge like valley sections. qurumbar valley lies in the dry temperate zone where average rain fall is less than 200 mm per year and mono cropping is practiced. approximately 93% of the total qurumbar population is engaged in agriculture activities. other sector of the economy comprises of livestock, forest product, handy craft production, business and trade and transport. the long-term weather pattern in high mountain is subjective by the board circulation pattern and linked with the position in continental mass and the immediacy to the ocean [1]. there are four meteorological stations in gilgit-baltistan that are providing information on different aspect of weather. [4]. weather data study from 1980 to 2006 revealed that bunji, skardu and gupis with an increase of mean temperature was observed. during monsoon the western himalaya mountains act as a fence for vapor laden winds, these mountains received more annual precipitation than north mountains of the gilgitbaltistan [5]. 1.3 historical profile : a few remarks on glacier lakes and dams in the qurumbar valley are mentioned in the form of travel descriptions by hayward [6], biddulph [7], drew [8], stein [9], schomberg [10]. kreutzmann [11] investigated the settlement history of ishkoman valley with particular attention to the influence of glacial flood on the settlements pattern. in the framework of a wider study on landslideinterrupted fluvial system [12] provide the first overview of qurumbar glaciers barriers. at least six major flood events occurred in the year 1844, 1860/1861, 1865, 1893, 1895 and 1905 in the qurumbar valley [13], from which the 1905 flood supposed to be the most devastating one, the qurumbar glacier was primary made responsible for the outburst, but the actual origin of the flood was unknown. geomorphic field investigation and further studies in assistance with the interview from the locals reveled that nine tributary glaciers in the qurumbar valley had blocked the main valley in former times. gilgit-baltistan possess unique topography and climate conditions which are building the basis for extensive natural processes like floods, debris flows, rock fall, or landslides and earthquakes. every year these hazards are directly threat to life, livelihoods and ecosystem, ultimately emergency situation demands relief and rehabilitation [14]. ghizer district of the shah et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 24-31 27 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 gilgit-baltistan is vulnerable to various natural hazards and disasters including earthquakes, flash floods, debris/mud flow, land/rock slides, and glacial lake outburst floods (glof) avalanches, terrain movements and less intensity [15]. common hazard of the qurumbar valley are flash floods, debris flows, rock falls, land sliding, erosion, cloud burst, thunder lightening and mud flow. 2. data and method the study is primarily based on qualitative and quantitative research in assistance with gis/rs an emergent application. in order to gathered secondary data various sources have been consulted. the whole work of multi hazard and risk assessment has been undertaken by looking into the disaster of the past, potential hazards of today, vulnerability analysis of people, coping capacities of communities, and fragility of environments. 2.1 data primarily remote sensing data acquired from http://glovis.usgs.gov which is further processed using of gis/rs techniques (arcmap and envi). advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (aster) digital elevation model (dem) was also used in this study. furthermore, google earth images and field data is used for accuracy and correlation of our results with our results in order to make a good hazard and risk maps. the field various geomorphic features haven been identified that give us clue about the possibility of hazardous process. secondly in the field we also analyze the features which give us indication about past activity in a particular location). furthermore, following task have been performed at every location in order to collect real data: specifically;  geomorphic features (debris slopes, fresh or weathered boulders at the foot of a steep cliff, shape of valley) have been examined. at the same time aerial photograph has been taken.  mapping of potential hazards and their location on global positing system (gps) reading in geological perspective has been done for various localities that were reportedly more vulnerable to natural hazards.  hazards/events name have been noted and have been located on base map with risk level mentioned as high, low, inferred, potential or unknown.  human perception (community baseline from community-based hazard vulnerability risk assessment (hvra)) interviews with key informants had been done in order to know about the extent and damages caused by various natural hazards. 2.2 method kienzholz [16] analysis hazards assessment based on independent methods were used for this study.  past event: this method let us know about the magnitude (size, extent) of a particular event occurred in a particular place. based on several data of past event a time series can be framed for a particular place. the local peoples who are the witnesses of the events (usually elderly citizen) can provide us necessary information related to past event. we can also consult literature for this purpose.  field evidence: the occurrence of a hazardous process in a particular place often left geomorphic indication which helps us to indicate the hazardous process. these geomorphic features are often examined closely which includes aspects like slope, http://glovis.usgs.gov/ shah et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 24-31 28 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 bedding, or other parameters of rock and debris slopes. apart from that in the field we also encountered features that are related to some past event occurred at that particular place (e.g. at the foot of steep cliff, we found fresh or weathered boulders, the shape and extents of debris fans indicate debris flow activity in the past). 3. results and discussions 3.1 hazard analysis qurumbar valley is mainly affected by the following type of hazards: flash flood, debris flow, rock fall, bank collapse, glacial lake outburst flood to name some. under extreme condition snow avalanche may occur. the distribution of thee hazards clearly depend on the relief (figure 2). remote hazards: the area is covered by various glaciers. as the past profile indicate that so many catastrophic glacial floods have occurred in the past blocking main qurumbar river causing massive damage to downstream area. glofs and flash floods mostly recorded from qurumbar glacier due to climate change. this event has been increased in the valley in 2009-2010 and ultimately increased rate of river bank erosion along bank river. lower area along the river bank is highly vulnerable for flash flooding while the streams floods impact on agri-land is considerably in the qurumbar valley because the land is adjacent to the streams and the rivers. local hazards: among the local hazard rock fall is the widest spread phenomenon in the village. all small and large stream of the valley bring load of mud, rock and debris downstream of the valley. bank collapsed is more common near the down slope end of the village. the rate of failure is directly related to human activities, like flood irrigation, construction activities and seepages. vulnerabilities assessments: during the study mainly, the vulnerable elements were identified and mapped. as far as socio-economic vulnerability of qurumbar valley is concerned, it is not good comparatively other valleys of district ghizer. access to the health facilities and other basic needs are big issue for local communities during emergency situation but they access some facilities in chatorkhand valley tehsil head quarter of ishkoman valley. awareness regarding health and hygiene, environment and natural disaster is satisfactory but lack of financial resource is the key concern. poor people are surviving in the risk areas and they don’t have option to change the vulnerable area. moreover, they build their houses along the river bank and in other hazardous zone areas. capacity assessments: despite having awareness about the natural hazards in their surrounding yet seldom applies the knowledge and awareness in their plan toward future. the capacity to cope with risk and disaster are not too different from one, location to the other in qurumbar valley. the preparedness of individual’s households for immediate disaster response is very small. local community self-help is structured is some valleys. verts and certs teams are active in some valleys in order to cope with sudden events. these are major findings of the study.  qurumbar has been badly impacted by flash flood and glofs in the past but bank erosion is continuous hazards for productive agriculture land.  qurumbar glacier and other glacier existing in the study area are susceptible for climate change and can caused glofs in the future. shah et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 24-31 29 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019  flash flood affects the living zone along the bank of the river and poses a serious threat on productive land.  seasonal water flow from the creeks is yet another potential hazard with probability of making larger impact on productive land.  bank collapse along the ghizer river is subjected to seasonal fluctuation of water level.  clues about active landslides were not admissible in the study area. the study area lies in zone 3 according to micro-seismic zone of pakistan by [17]; [18].  earthquakes related to mbt doesn’t have a harsh impact on the area though earthquakes related to main karakoram thrust, main mantle thrust, raikot fault and stak fault can pose seismic hazard to area under study, but according to people not a single structure was collapsed in the historical events yet the risk persist. figure 2: hazard map of qurumbar valley 3.2 use of hazard map for sustainable development and hazard risk management strategies, it is very important to know how to use these developmental tools i.e., hazard and risk maps (figure 3). in the following areas of interest these maps can be used as developmental tools: a. prevention of further risk and adaption to the changing environments:  probability of occurrence of certain hazard depicting by the maps with scientific clues and logics with be share with communities in their native language.  these maps can be used as a tool for land use planning at local village level.  can be used to raise the awareness and building the local capacities of communities. b. reduction of existing risk  in overall risk management, prioritization of risk and their risk reduction can be done.  preparedness of local communities can be enhanced by using risk or over view maps.  via these maps’ prioritization of vulnerable sites for mitigation can be traced.  after identifying vulnerable elements in hazard map which make a particular area susceptible for future danger, are addressed by putting protective wall considering the magnitude of the process like in case of flooding figure 3. risk map of qurumbar valley conclusion in the study area the vulnerabilities are relatively high and the capacity to cope with the risk and disaster is low. the overall information about prevailing risk in their surrounding is low and the shah et al., j. mt. area res. 04 (2019) 24-31 30 j. mt. area res., vol. 4, 2019 awareness for risk reduction is very limited. as hazards are changing and vulnerabilities are developing in one way or the other so risk is not constant. a clear indication of impact of climate change on hazards condition can be imagining. the likelihood of slope dependent process like debris flow, rock fall, flood increase with more humidity. on the other hand, more humidity is favorable for growth of vegetation. more dense vegetation cover would then constitute, in contrast, more instability of slopes and banks. with the increase in temperature, the melting of glacier is expected with which the development of lake is possible. such lake develops relatively fast and can break our producing catastrophic flood (glofs). this dilemma is very important in my study area context based on historic context and future planning. the physical vulnerability is remarkably increasing with the passage of time. with the increase in the population many new houses and infrastructure were built in unfavorable conditions. such kind of ill-planned developmental intervention can result in sever disaster with serious impact. on the other 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[18] undp, regional glof risk reduction project in pakistan, (2007). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. received: 6 june 2019. revised/accepted: 30 july 2019. http://www.glof.pk/index.php/knowledge-products http://www.glof.pk/index.php/knowledge-products http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/