Answer:

Explanation:
Let T be the number of years since the start of the study and y be the area that the forest covers in
.
We have been given that at the beginning of an environmental study a forest cover an area of 1500
. Since then this area has decreased by 9.8% each year.
We know that an exponential function is in form
, where,
y = Final amount,
a = Initial amount,
r = Decay rate in decimal form,
x = Time.
Let us convert 9.8% into decimal as:

We have been given that initial value (a) is
.
Upon substituting our given values, we will get:


Therefore, our required exponential function would be
.