International moot on 'Himalayan Adaptation': Pakistan witnessing climate variability, conference told

Experts in an International Conference on Himalayan Adaptation, Water and Resilience Research on Glacier and Snow pack Dependent River Basins for improving livelihood vowed to join hands to mitigate the impacts of climate change and its variability by making integrated efforts of conducting research on mountains as it has an increasing influence on the stability of fragile mountain ecosystems and the livelihoods of 1.3 billion people from upstream mountain to downstream plain landscape.
Addressing the conference in New Senate Hall as chief guest, UAF VC Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said climate change has no boarders and setting up an independent ministry of climate change would certainly pave the way to deal with the issues posed by climate change. He said that Pakistan is witnessing climate variability as this year, reduction of wheat production up to 10-mound per acre forced the researchers to come up with better adaptation approaches and recommend out of the box solution.
He said contrary to the past many years, mango trees are not bearing many flowers that would hamper the production to manifold. He said that food security remains high agenda of the government but such unpredictable happenings could pose new challenges in meeting the objectives. He said this year Swat valley may not produce as much apples as it was due to climate variability.
Dr Khan said that an academic chair on climate change has been set up in USAID funded Centre for advanced studies in agriculture/food security and UAF scientists are making analysis of historic/current climate, as well as crop and economic data to determine the trends of climate change in the region and its likely impact on crop productivity and the economy. The project, he said, includes calibration and validation of crop models for wheat, rice and cotton, regional economic models, as well as quantification of the spatial and temporal yield variability and yield forecasting under future climate change scenarios.
Earlier in keynote address, Professor Dr Ashfaq Ahmad Chatha head of climate change chair presented a future climate picture and warned that there will be an increase of 2.8oC in day and 2.2oC in the night temperature from 2040 to 2069 that would further aggravate the situation with 5.0 oC and 5.5 oC respectively during end of the century that can affect the livelihood in a bad way.
Dr Chahtha said that data exists that could be used for future forecasting and planning keeping in view the past trends. He said that this year, the wheat production has reduced up to 10-mound per acre due to heavy thunderstorm and climate variability. He said that climate variability is hampering the whole agricultural system in the country and his team is working on agricultural, economic and climatic model to enable the farmers' strategies their cropping system accordingly. He said that through Agricultural Model Inter-comparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) of 43 countries of all continents, researchers are working to develop climate change scenarios for the region, make evaluation of DSSAT and APSIM models for simulating phenology, growth and yield of crops under different ecological zones, to estimate the impacts of future changing climate and economic scenarios on crop production and benefits to stakeholders in the region, indicating the best management options (package of production technology) for economically efficient production of crops using the model under the changing climatic and soil conditions of different agro-ecological zones of Punjab, Pakistan, and to find out the flaws in the models simulations and correction measures to improve them. He proposed that we need sow the wheat 15 days earlier than the prevailing trend so as to avert the devastating impact of climate change on its production.
He said the goals of AgMIP are to improve substantially the characterisation of world food security due to climate change and to enhance adaptation capacity in both developing and developed countries. Dr Philippus Wester, Chief Scientist Water Resources Management at the ICIMOD said that his organisation supports regional trans-boundary programmes through partnership with regional partner institutions, facilitate the exchange of experience, and serve as a regional knowledge hub. He said that they are strengthening networking among regional and global centres of excellence. He said that 1/3rd of the humanity dependent on Hindukash, Karakarm and Himalayan mountains and with the rising temperature melting glaciers are putting new challenges to the livelihood. He urged the participants to enhance the adaptation capacity as frequent floods, rising temperature, and hot leading redefine the whole landscape of agriculture. Dr Bashir Ahmad, Climate Change Programme leader NARC, and Director Water Management Research Centre UAF Dr Hamid Hussain Shah also spoke on the occasion.