Experts call for effective management against flash floods

Islamabad: Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, the Executive Director of Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) has said that the blockade of waterways due to illegal construction after flooding in hill torrent prone areas is inflicting heavy losses to infrastructure, livelihoods and human lives.

He was speaking at a one-day roundtable titled: "Climate Resilient Water Governance Approaches for Hill Torrent Management in Pakistan", organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Tuesday in collaboration with Pakistan Rural Support Programmes Network (RSPN), and DAI.

The roundtable aims to stir result-oriented dialogue among the public, private sector, and civil society stakeholders to mull over hill torrents' floodwater governance issue. The roundtable incorporated community perspectives from representatives, who joined from hill torrent affected areas from D.I. Khan, Rajanpur, Swat apart from Sindh and Balochistan.

Dr Suleri said that population explosion, deforestation, and urbanisation are the major causes of fading away of water management systems and infrastructure. He added that the temperature systems of La Nina and El Nino effects and weather change had already increased precipitation to an erratic level.

“SDPI’s climate change and water management teams are closely working on these areas, and it's impacts that were above normal on girls, women, children and others,” he said. Mr Ahmed Kamal, the Chairman of Federal Flood Commission (FFC), said Pakistan has been facing the worst flooding due to reverse monsoon activity as monsoon used to start from Tarbella, but in 2022 the low pressure was built up in Sindh province that caused abnormal rains in Sindh and Balochistan.

The sporadic flooding in September 2022 in Swat and Kabul river also caused flooding in the areas, he said, adding that in Koh-e-Suleiman Range, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan areas hosted 11 hill torrents that caused havoc. He noted that the total water storage capacity of the country was 3.43 million acres feet that comprised three dams, i.e. Tarbela, Chashma, and Mangla. He underlined that the country's priority was low towards mitigating natural disasters that needs to be addressed. In 2022, he said monsoon season not only prompted the public sector but also the civil society, community and private sector at large to better manage the hill torrents water.

"More than 6,000 bridges have been established in the hill torrents' prone areas. However, it was ill planned, and poorly implemented as the water flow overtopped the capacity of built structures," he said and stressed the need to establish public, private sector and community nexus in this regard.

Darren Saywell, Senior Lead Specialist, Water Security, Sanitation and Hygiene (WSSH) at DAI Global, said the context of the discussion is important as it is based on the improvement in water management, climate resilience, and Green Pakistan movement that is crucial for the country's climate resilience.