KARACHI: The Federal Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC), Federal Flood Commission (FFC) under the Ministry of Water Resources, and WWF-Pakistan have launched a programme titled "Recharge Pakistan: Building Pakistan's Resilience to Climate Change through Ecosystem-Based Adaptation for Integrated Flood Risk Management" with a 30-year vision.
Recharge Pakistan will be a flagship programme to: increase water storage and recharge through wetlands, floodplains and hill-torrents management; build resilience of vulnerable communities through climate-adapted, community-based natural resource management and livelihoods; and forge a paradigm shift in Pakistan's climate change adaptation and flood risk management approaches.
The Recharge Pakistan programme consists of three phases, each of which spans 10 years. It will be implemented in selected sites, along the Indus River, across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh.
These sites will be selected based on flood risks, climate change projections, water storage and recharge potential, and the needs of local communities. This programme envisions that by 2050, ecosystem-based adaptation will contribute towards better climate resilience, water and food security, and sustainable livelihoods.
More than 10 million people, equivalent to around five per cent of Pakistan's population, will directly benefit from the programme while 20 million people across 50 vulnerable districts of Pakistan will be indirect beneficiaries.
Malik Amin Aslam, special assistant to the prime minister on climate change, while highlighting Pakistan's leadership role in addressing climate change under the prime minister's vision, stated that ecosystem-based adaption was the cornerstone of the government's climate agenda.
Commenting on this initiative, Ahmed Kamal, chief engineering adviser and chairman of the Federal Flood Commission (FFC), said that the project was the first of its kind, which would introduce flood management through innovations and result in strengthening of the social fabric of society.
Hammad Naqi Khan, director-general of WWF-Pakistan, said that in recent years Pakistan had become more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Incidents of floods were increasing in intensity and frequency in the Indus Basin, resulting in serious humanitarian and economic repercussions.
According to German Watch's long-term Climate Risk Index (CRI) data obtained from 1999 to 2018, Pakistan is among the top five countries affected by the impacts of weather-related events such as heatwaves, storms and floods among others.
Furthermore, Pakistan witnessed more than 152 major climate-related events and lost around $3.79 billion in terms of purchasing power parity. In addition, the country is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, with average per capita water availability at 964 m3 per annum and has been reliant on costly grey infrastructure flood and water management measures with limited efficacy.
The project will build Pakistan's climate resilience and water security through cost-effective ecosystem-based adaptation. To tackle the impacts of climate change and water security, Recharge Pakistan will contribute to the relevant policies and commitments, including the National Climate Change Policy, National Flood Protection Plan IV, National Water Policy, and Sustainable Development Goals.
It will lead to additional water storage capacity in wetlands alongside the river system to regulate water discharges during high floods and will promote local rainwater harvesting and development of small storages on run of the rivers during peak flows.
The key implementing partners and stakeholders include Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms; National Disaster Management Authority; Pakistan Meteorological Department, Global Change Impact Study Centre (GCISC); and provincial departments in Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020