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Friday March 29, 2024

‘Floods: Advisory circles are opinion and not science-driven’

By Rasheed Khalid
September 05, 2022

Islamabad : Dr Hassan Abbas, water expert and founder of ZIZAK Private Ltd, has said that right now, Pakistan is entering into an erratic era with floods and droughts interspersed with each other making predictions about rainfall, droughts and Climate Change very uncertain.

Dr Abbas was giving keynote address at a Panel Discussion on ‘Preventing floods in Pakistan: role of planning’ organised here by Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS). Dr Abbas said that floods are based on hydrology and need to be studied with science. Climate Change is very important to understand as its prediction at the local scale is inaccurate. On the planetary scale, the rise in temperature leads to rise in moisture which in turn leads to increase in precipitation, he said adding that rearrangements of our climate models will take time before they can make accurate predictions. Pakistan needs to understand its natural, ecological system and manage accordingly, he concluded.

He said that canal banks and road and rail infrastructures have disrupted the sheet flow of water causing the flood waters to stand especially in Sindh. The stagnant water compounded the hardships for the people. From 2010 floods we did not learn much and are back in the same situation. He further stated that advisory circles in Pakistan are opinion driven rather than science driven which needs to be changed. Pakistan must fix its flawed development models because its impacts are socio- economically unsustainable and it needs to be addressed in a systematic manner, he stressed. Environment lawyer Rafay Alam said that Climate Change caused by greenhouse gases led to increase in temperatures especially in the period after the Industrial Revolution. Climate Change does not respect national borders, but today’s security systems are based on nation- states which are not capable to deal with environmental problems. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change puts focus on developed countries to help developing countries to deal with climate change. Going forward, he stressed that Pakistan is going to face erratic weather comprised of heatwaves, flash floods and droughts due to already existing greenhouses gases in the atmosphere.

He suggested that with better coordination mechanism between centre and provinces is need of the hour, which unfortunately even having 18th Amendments in place is missing. Moreover, the developed world needs to take responsibility and help the Global South deal with the crisis, he concluded. Dr Fouzia Parveen from Aga Kham University said that lack of policy implementation and government responsibility is causing problems in climate-induced disaster response in Pakistan.