‘Artificial rains to control smog can be high-risk mechanism’

Islamabad: The initial results of an ongoing study revealed that the use of artificial rains to reduce smog can cause uncontrolled flooding in urban areas of the Punjab province.

According to the details, the climate change ministry is currently working on a study to get to know how much artificial rains can be beneficial to control smog, especially in urban areas.

The study will be completed next year but the ministry evaluated the initial results that have shown that it needs tampering with nature to bring artificial rains.

When cloud seeding is done it brings artificial rain but there is no scientific procedure available that can stop this rain. If it never stops then it can cause flooding and create disastrous situations. The initial evaluation also pointed out the experience of Turkey that has recently used artificial rains to control fast-spreading forest fires.

The ministry made contacts with the Turkey government officials and asked them to share their experiences. The information revealed that when the Turkey government carried out cloud seeding it brought rains but it had no capacity to stop them due to which many parts of the country faced heavy floods. Three people died due to forest fires in Turkey but ten died because of floods caused by the artificial rains.

The initial findings stated that the government could trigger artificial rains but it would have no mechanism to stop them. The climate change ministry has been contemplating the use of cloud seeding technology in response to severe air pollution in Punjab, particularly Lahore.

An official said the Pakistan government would ask China to provide guidelines with regard to the process of cloud seeding because it has a lot of experience in this field.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam has said, “The artificial rains also carry risks of flooding so we will complete our homework before adopting this technology. We are also carefully examining the experiences of Dubai and Turkey that have recently used cloud seeding technology to bring artificial rains,” he said.