‘Climate change a big threat to water inflow of rivers’

LAHORE: Climate change has affected the water inflow of country’s rivers badly; this was revealed in an online meeting held to discuss the effects of climate change in Pakistan here on Wednesday.

The meeting was organised by Global Water Operators Partnership Alliance and was chaired by Managing Director Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) Syed Zahid Aziz as the Chairman Pakistan Water Operator Network.

MD Wasa said that Pakistan depends on water from melting glaciers and climate change has affected the water inflow of country’s rivers which were running dry. Zahid Aziz said that due to the smaller amount of water inflow in the country’s rivers, the pressure was shifting to ground water which was gradually depleting and its levels were going downwards.

He further said that climate change has also triggered a series of unpredictable torrential rains, which were causing urban flooding besides damaging the local crop pattern. MD Wasa told the meeting that in Pakistan Wasa Lahore was the first organisation which constructed underground water storage tank to combat the urban flooding. He said more underground water tanks were under construction and will be completed before the coming monsoon season.

“Wasa Lahore has also planned to construct a surface water treatment plant in the provincial metropolis to reduce the pressure on ground water’s extraction. Water experts from around seven different countries participated in the online meeting and shared their experiences regarding effects of climate change in their countries.

The participants agreed to hold the online conference regularly so that all the participating countries could learn from the experiences of each other and devise new strategies to combat climate change and its effects.