Islamabad, Sep 10: Romina Khurshid Alam, the prime minister’s coordinator on climate change, stated on Tuesday that Pakistan frequently sees seasonal flooding, particularly during the monsoon season, which presents serious dangers to infrastructure, agriculture, human life, and property.
However, she continued, controlling this excess water can assist mitigate the risks and benefit the nation’s socioeconomic advancement. Speaking at the “Recharge Pakistan Programme” launch event as the chief guest, Romina Khurshid Alam emphasized that the current government is worried about the waste of excess floodwaters that come down the country’s river system during the summer monsoon season. These floodwaters go untapped for a variety of reasons, most notably a lack of storage facilities.
She goes on to say that in response to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s concern, the climate change and environmental coordination is launching the Recharge Pakistan program in partnership with various national and international stakeholders. The program’s goal is to increase the nation’s flood resilience by implementing nature-based adaptation for integrated flood risk management and conserving excess flood water, which can then be used to meet the country’s expanding water needs in the industrial, agricultural, and domestic sectors.
She said that managing floodwater through the Recharge Pakistan Programme would be an important step for a number of reasons, including helping to recharge the groundwater level and protecting infrastructure, property, the environment, and people from the destructive effects of flooding.
The climate aide to the prime minister stated, “Recharge Pakistan is essentially a unique collaborative initiative as it would be implemented by various national and international development partners in close collaboration with the governments of Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and the climate change & environmental coordination ministry.”Romina Khurshid Alam provided an explanation of the Recharge Pakistan Programme’s planned interventions.
Through integrated flood risk management and nature-based adaptation strategies, this would greatly help the nation deal with its flood-caused climate vulnerability, she continued.She emphasized that the nation’s average annual temperature has climbed by 0.57 C and its average annual precipitation has grown by 25% over the past century, both of which have raised the risk of flooding, especially during the summer.
Devastating floods, landslides, and drought events have become more frequent as a result, exceeding the ability of the nation’s current water system to prevent significant economic losses and human casualties, according to Alam. Floods on the Indus River are happening more frequently and with greater intensity.
Because they rely on the river for food and water as well as their livelihoods from agriculture, cattle, and fishing, the communities along the Indus are disproportionately susceptible. This includes upstream watersheds and downstream wetlands and floodplains.
The PM’s climate advisor emphasized, “However, the Recharge Pakistan would be a major flood risk prevention initiative and boost the country’s water storage capacity and improve groundwater resources to meet galloping population, agricultural, and industrial needs.”
More importantly, the project would directly benefit an estimated 680,000 people and indirectly support over seven million people, the majority of whom live in flood-prone rural and marginalized communities, through the use of an integrated flood risk management approach that involves the development of recharge basins and retention areas, as well as the restoration and rehabilitation of water flow paths connected to wetlands and irrigation water supply channels, according to PM’s climate aide.
During the event, a senior US Embassy official stated that the US government, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and Coca-Cola were working together on the program, which was the partners’ and the Pakistani government’s first large-scale endeavor.
With a unique approach of working upstream to slow down waterflow in the watershed areas to conserve water and generate green jobs that would help support 680,000 individuals directly by securing their lands, jobs, and livelihoods, the initiative was bringing about a paradigm shift from concrete-grey to green infrastructure, such as earthen water ponds and water bodies (wetlands), which would rehabilitate watersheds. Approximately 700,000 people would benefit after the project was implemented.
According to him, the project sites included the watershed area Ramak in D.I. Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Chakar Lehir in Sindh-Balochistan, and Manchar Lake. Taken together, these would aid in the restoration of 14,000 hectares of forested areas and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, helping Pakistan reach its NDC targets.
While mitigation costs a lot of money, adaptation is a gradual and long-term solution to climate change. The US official stated, “This is a unique initiative where government, international climate finance, and the private sector will yolk together.”
Recuperate The US government, WWF, Coca-Cola, and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) collaborated on a five-year, $77.8 million project in Pakistan. The project’s funding amounts included $1.8 million from WWF, $5 million from Coca-Cola, an additional $5 million from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and $66 million from the GCF, which was a portion of the $5 billion in total US funding to the GCF.
The groundwater recharging initiative, he explained, “uses a science-based approach to capture rainwater, filter it, and return it back into an aquifer which can be used for agriculture, wetland restoration, and other purposes. People should think of it like a battery that needs to be recharged to ensure survival of human life.”
