Speakers Emphasizes Effective Strategy To Meet #ClimateChallenges In #Pakistan
#HYDERABAD: Speakers at an international conference have emphasized the need for the formation of an effective strategy to meet the challenges of climate change, which caused heavy losses of life and property in #Pakistan.
They emphasized this while addressing the inaugural session of the three-day international conference on “Integrated flood management under changing climate scenario” organized by the US-Pakistan Centre of Advance Study in Water of #MehranUniversity of Engineering and Technology, in collaboration with #XinjianInstitute of Ecology and Geography and Chinese academy of Sciences.
Vice Chancellor Mehran University Dr Taha Hussain Ali who inaugurated the conference and said that unfortunately, the policymakers learnt no lesson from huge economic losses, casualties, and mass migration as a result of floods in the year 2010.
With the passage of time, the displaced families built their houses in the same place which was inundated by floodwater, particularly at the natural river drains, he said and added that it causes heavy losses to the life and property due to flood in the year 2022.
He emphasized the need for an effective system that could meet the challenges of natural disasters as a result of climate change so that people could not experience heavy losses of life and property which they faced in the years 2010 and 2022. There is a need to clear the natural passage of the river water with the improvement of the system, he said.
The representative of the International Water Management Institute Lahore Dr. Muhsin Hafeez said that flood 2022 had caused losses of 30 million USD, claimed over 1700 lives, and badly affected around 33 million people in the country.
Besides, he said that the country also lost a huge quantum of water as there is no facility to store the #floodwater adding that Pakistan has an improper water management system despite having an agriculture-based country.
The ineffective weather warning system was one of the reasons for heavy losses to life and property in Pakistan in the year 2022, he said and claimed that the weather warning system is much better in Afghanistan as compared to the system which is being used in Pakistan.
He underlined the need for effective water management in order to address the issues of food security, energy and water adding that researchers should also play their role in the preparation of effective weather warning systems in order to avert the losses experienced in the past.
The Chief Executive Officer of HANDS Dr Tanveer Ahmed Shaikh said that recent floods proved the irrigation system in Sindh poor adding that the performance of national and provincial disaster management authorities was also found dissatisfactory. The flood of 2022 had exposed the performance of concerned authorities and there is a need for the preparation of an effective system that could avert the natural disaster that wreaked havoc in the past, he added.
Director #USPCAS-W Dr Rasool Bux Mehar informed that besides online lectures from researchers and experts from China, America, and Japan, 60 research papers selected by the organizers will also be read out in the different sessions of the conference.
