Unified response stressed to create awareness about natural disasters

PESHAWAR: A one-day workshop on “Needs Gaps Analysis for National Disaster Preparedness and Response” in collaboration with NDMA, PDMA and UET Peshawar was held here on Monday.

The organisers said the workshop was aimed at bringing together experts and professionals to assess the policy gaps to garner global collaborations for innovative solutions effective in all aspects of disaster management.

Jannat Gul, PDMA DG, said to create awareness about natural disasters, a unified response is needed with the help of academia, government and civil society.He said, we do not have data of our local wisdom that has to be gathered by our Public Section Institutions to find out real life solutions.

UET Peshawar Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. Iftikhar Hussain said UET had worked with NDMA in the revision of seismic building code 2021 and helped the department with developing seismic hazard maps.

He said that in recent years we have witnessed the severe consequences of floods, earthquakes and climate change which call for a unified response for mitigation and response for devising disaster management strategies.

Prof. Dr. Khan Shahzada, Department of Civil Engineering, gave a presentation on the UET Peshawar’s role in disaster preparedness and response.

Dr Fazal Ahmad Khan, GIK Swabi rector, urged for exploiting AI-based solutions to deal with such challenges and create more awareness for policy making and engage academia to find AI-based solutions for a quick response and mitigate risks involved in Pakistan and across the world.He called for having a reliable data collection mechanism where universities are central to work on this area.

Dr Fazal Ahmad Khan said our graduates in the field hold more importance besides technology to suggest sustainable solutions.

He suggested starting a joint degree program in the field of disaster management and UET Peshawar need to be at the central place in offering the same program where policy level recommendations to the government.

Dr Muhammad Tayyab Shah, manager, Risk Assessment, NDMA, Islamabad, said Pakistan is in top 10 countries affected by and vulnerable to climate change according to the Global Vulnerability Index.

Therefore, he added, it calls for a more proactive approach which has been helped by NDMA.The NDMA has established 17 satellites with the help of national and international agencies including NASA, EU and Japan and SUPARCO.

All these will help us in getting remote sensing data and model models. The workshop included thematic sessions in which participants from NDMA, UET Peshawar, KUST, CDPM (UoP), MCE Risalpur, KUST, GIKI, Hazara University and Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan participated.The speakers gave presentations on different areas with respect to disaster management and collaboration.