ISLAMABAD: Ms. Romina Khurshid Alam, Prime Minister’s Coordinator on Climate Change said that flood water management through the Recharge Pakistan program will be a crucial step for several reasons as it will help protect lives, property, environment and infrastructure from the devastating effects. the effects of floods and help to recharge the groundwater level. She said Pakistan regularly experiences seasonal floods, especially during the monsoon season, which pose a significant risk to human lives, property, agriculture and infrastructure. But managing this excess water can help overcome the risks and prove beneficial for the country’s socio-economic development, she added. Romina Khurshid Alam, who spoke as the chief guest at the launch of the ‘Reclaiming Pakistan’ program here, stressed that the present government is concerned about wastage of excess flood water during the summer monsoon season that gushes out of the country’s river system. unused for various reasons, especially inadequate storage facilities in the country. She further said that in response to this concern by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Recharge Pakistan is being launched to coordinate climate change and environment in collaboration with various national and international stakeholders to build the country’s flood resilience through natural adaptation for integrated flood risk . management. and conserving excess flood water to meet growing domestic, industrial and agricultural water needs. The Prime Minister’s Climate Adviser said, “Acquiring Pakistan is essentially a unique joint initiative as it would be implemented by various national and international development partners in close collaboration with the Ministry of Coordination of Climate Change and Environment, Governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Sindh and Balochistan. Romina Khurshid Alam while explaining the interventions to be implemented under the Recharge Pakistan program said that among other key flood risk management measures, wetlands will be restored to retain excess flood water and green infrastructure interventions will be implemented in the Indus Basin to the deteriorating situation continued. . flood risk and retention of excess floodwater for irrigation of agricultural and community land by slowing runoff. This would significantly help address the country’s climatic vulnerability to floods through adaptation interventions and integrated flood risk management, she added. Over the past century, the average temperature in the country has increased by 0.57°C and the average annual precipitation has increased by 25 percent, which increases the risk of floods, especially in the summer months, she emphasized. As a result, there has been a substantial increase in the incidence of devastating floods, landslides and droughts, which exceed the capacity of the country’s existing water infrastructure to avert any massive economic damage and loss of life, Alam added. The Indus River is experiencing floods with increasing intensity and frequency. Communities along the Indus, including the upper watersheds and downstream wetlands and floodplains, are disproportionately vulnerable because they depend on the river for food and water, as well as their livelihoods based on agriculture, livestock and fishing. “However, recharging Pakistan would be a significant initiative in flood risk prevention and would strengthen the country’s capacity to store water and improve groundwater resources to meet the needs of a galloping population, agriculture and industry,” the prime minister’s climate adviser pointed out. More importantly, through an integrated flood risk management approach that includes the restoration and restoration of waterways associated with wetlands and irrigation canals and the development of recharge reservoirs and retention areas, the project would directly benefit an estimated 680,000 people and indirectly support more than seven million people , most of them in rural and marginalized communities prone to flooding, the prime minister’s climate adviser said. Speaking on the occasion, a senior US Embassy official said that the US government, WWF and Coca-Cola were working together on the programme, which was the first ever large-scale project by the partners and the government of Pakistan. This initiative brought about a paradigm shift from concrete gray to green infrastructure such as earthen reservoirs and water bodies (wetlands) that would rehabilitate the watershed with a unique approach from upstream works to slowing water flow in watershed areas to save water and create green jobs , which would help directly support 680,000 individuals by securing their land, jobs and livelihoods and would benefit approximately 700,000 people once the project is implemented. The project sites included Ramak watershed in D.I. Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Chakar Lehir in Sindh-Balochistan and Lake Manchar and all these together would help restore 14,000 hectares of forested areas, contain greenhouse gas emissions, which would help meet Pakistan’s NDC targets, he said. “So much money is spent on mitigation, but adaptation is a slow, long-term approach to climate change. This is a unique initiative where the government, international climate finance and the private sector are coming together,” the US official said. Recharge Pakistan was a five-year US$77.8 million project involving the US government, WWF, Coca Cola and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which included US$1.8 million from WWF, US$5 million from Coca Cola and others US$5 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and US$66 million from the GCF, which were part of the total US$5 billion in GCF funding from the US. “His groundwater recharge initiative and people should think of it as a battery that needs to be recharged to ensure the survival of human life, which uses a science-based approach to capture rainwater, filter it and return it to the aquifer, which can be used for agriculture. wetland restoration and other purposes,” he said.
