KARACHI: The second international conference and workshop on dendrochronology (the study of tree rings for various purposes) was inaugurated at Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology in Karachi on Monday. The five-day conference is jointly organised by the Laboratory of dendrochronology at Federal Urdu University and is sponsored by the Higher Education Commission (HEJ).The conference is also a joint venture of USA and New Zealand. The Federal Minister of Science and Technology, Muhammad Azam Khan Swati presided the inaugural session. He urged students to get benefits from the relatively new discipline of dendrochronology. Tree rings and river waves It was stated in the conference that the ambitious Pak-US project has been running for more than two years. The project is regarding the Indus water flow with the help of tree rings and will be completed next year. The key findings will be shared by National and International agencies and will be highlighted in conferences, publications and seminars. Tree ring data will be archived in the “international tree ring data base.” Earlier, Dr. Connie Woodhouse from the University of Arizona presented her work about dendrohydrology as a tool for water management with respect to climate change. She informed the audience about her work on the Colorado River and the translation of tree ring data to gather water flow and drought information for the course of hundreds of years. Dr. Woodhouse told Dawn.com that Pakistan and USA were working on a joint research project of dendrochronology which aims to reconstruct the Indus river flow and to find climatic variations such as rainfall and drought. Speaking to Dawn.com, Dr Moinuddin Ahmed – the supervisor of the conference – said that tree rings are not only used to assess the age of a tree but also a powerful tool for water flow modeling, forest ecology and glaciology. Wood chips from archaeological sites can also be used for dating and other purposes. Dr Jonathan Palmer presented a paper about the potential of tree-ring research in Pakistan. He told Dawn.com that he visited Pakistan once or twice a year for the Indus water flow modeling project by using dendrohydrology. “We have only one or two hundred years of meteorological data of the Indus flow, but by using dendrochronology, we can assess the Indus river hydrology for hundreds of years.” To be continued on Eid day Experts and researchers from US, New Zealand and other universities of Pakistan will present their current work in the form of presentations and lectures. The dedicated team of the conference is committed that the workshops will be held after Eid prayers. Dendrochronology experts from Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh will present their papers in five days moot. Before lunch break, Federal Minister of Science and technology, Muhammad Azam Khan Swati, said that instead of imposing RGST, eight government sectors should be eliminated. “I have always been pointing out to the higher officials about the mismanagement and corruption in these institutes which is equal to 300 billion rupees a year.”