AN INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON RICE CROP IN PAKISTAN: A MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS.

Climate change is impacting the human life and allied activities throughout the world. In few regions, the impact is positive while in most of the others, it is negative. Pakistan is among those regions which are experiencing the change in climate in all parts of its territory. The current study is intended to investigate the impact of climate change on rice crop in rice-wheat zone of Pakistan. Data were collected from three districts of Punjab province and two districts of Sindh province. The selection of districts was based on the relative rice production rank of the districts in the country. Multivariate Linear Regression approach was applied to analyze the data. Three different models were used to investigate the impact of climate change on rice crop. The results showed that both rise in temperature and precipitation have positive impacts on rice crop. The present study could not quantify the level of increment in temperature and rainfall and its benefits for rice crop. There is further scope to identify the level beyond which it started impacting the crop negatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]