Mitigating growing risk of glacial lakes outbursts in Northern Areas

Islamabad : The Ministry of Climate Change had conceived the idea of second phase of Glacial Lake Outbursts Floods (GLOF) some two years ago and hammered out the project proposal in support with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

This was said by the Media Director, Ministry of Climate Change Muhammad Saleem while talking to APP here on Friday.

He said that mitigating the growing risks from the glacial lakes outbursts in the country’s north Northern, implementation of the GLOF project’s second phase is being mulled over with relevant stakeholders including Global Environment Facility (GEF), UNDP-Pakistan, Pakistan Meteorological Department, Pakistan Flood Commission, National and Provincial Disaster Management Authorities, community-based organisations, which will cover 15 districts of Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, benefiting 29 million people.

The official highlighted that around 700,000 people will directly and about 30 million people will indirectly benefit from the project in many ways.

Spelling out the expected outcomes and benefits of the GLOF Phase-II, Mr. Saleem said that 95 per cent of households in target communities in KPK and Gilgit-Baltistanwill be able to receive and respond to early warnings about glacial lake outbursts and consequent floods in their areas and take the appropriate mitigation actions to save their lives and livelihoods.

It will address impacts of climate change and GLOF risks by preventing loss of lives and community infrastructure based on a holistic approach in all seven districts of Gilgit-Baltistan and five districts in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, thus, contributing to a climate-resilient sustainable development in the long-term.

Besides, 250 small-scale engineering structures will be established to reduce the effects of GLOF on livelihoods, such as tree plantation, controlled drainage and mini dams, 50 weather monitoring stations will be set up in GLOF-vulnerable areas to gather meteorological data in catchment areas and 408 river discharge sensors will be put in place to obtain river flood data, the spokesperson added.