The ecological footprint (EF) has been used as an environmental indicator in most of the past research. Due to the complex linkages between economic growth and human development, EF has been inadequately understood in policy making. This research attempts to investigate the impacts of economic growth, human capital, biocapacity, and urbanization on the factors affecting the ecological footprint (EF) of five South Asian countries. To provide empirical evidence, this study utilizes the annual data from 1990 to 2022 for Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The findings confirm the positive contribution of GDP, human capital, biocapacity, and urbanization to EF. The causality analysis shows feedback association between GDP and EF, human capital and EF, and biocapacity and EF.

Air pollution is one of the most serious problems affecting atmosphere quality and human health worldwide. For the current study, various satellites and modeled datasets, i.e., PM_2.5, SO₂, AOD, CO, and Ozone were used over Pakistan between January 2005 and December 2021. According to the spatial distribution results, these characteristics have peak values throughout central Punjab, western Baluchistan, central Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to wildfires, heavy traffics, and industrial activities. The seasonal variation of PM_2.5, SO₂, AOD, CO, and Ozone was calculated using monthly data. The highest value for PM_2.5 is 8.7 × 10–8 kg/m³ during the monsoon season, while the highest value for SO₂ is 1.4 × 10–5 kg/m² during the winter. Over Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, KPK, and Gilgit, AOD was between 0.7 and 1.0, CO was 127.2 ppb, and Ozone was 330.7 DU. Furthermore, we create correlation maps of AOD, CO, SO₂, PM_2.5, and Ozone and evaluate their high and low values relationship across Pakistan. We investigated the strongest ever observed 0.99 correlation between AOD and PM2.5. Despite this, we look at time series graphs to show the rising and falling pattern of these parameters from January 2005 to December 2021. Tables were also utilized to calculate the relative change in a number of significant Pakistani cities, including Multan, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Gujranwala, and Abbottabad, between January 2005 and December 2021.