May 11, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

RAWALPINDI, May 10: A drought and Environment Monitoring and Early Warning Centre has started functioning in Islamabad, and would serve as a national hub for collection, consideration and analysis of drought related data. The Centre will be fully operational after the monsoon season of 2007.

Director-General, Pakistan Meteorological Department Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry told Dawn that the Centre, a federally- funded project, would be on permanent footings as part of PMD. He said that a weekly drought monitor would be prepared and disseminated in addition to flourishing research activities on drought related issues. The Centre would also help tailor preparedness plan to provide maximum protection against drought disaster, he added.

The PMD Director-General said that the drought monitors will be prepared using Standardization Precipitation Index (SPI) calculated from point rainfall data; NDVI from remote sensing; water availability in reservoirs; soil moisture data; river and stream flow data; field reports and sub-surface water situation.

Dr. Zaman further said that such early warning monitoring centres were also being established at regional level at Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar. The regional centers would collect data from the network stations in respective regions. These would also coordinate with the voluntary agencies operating the gauge stations and help them in running the stations smoothly. These centres would store and process the data and transmit it to the National Centre, Dr. Zaman said.

He said that snow-fall and availability of water in Northern Areas could also be monitored once the whole set-up was completed. At the moment occurrence of rain and snow is monitored through satellite.

An early warning system was a method of data collection that facilitates the detection and monitoring of disasters so that action could be taken to reduce the effects of the disasters in some way. The existence of the system suggests that mitigation is to provide those with power and ability to respond in a way that will ameliorate the effects of the disaster, explains a PMD paper.

At present, he said, Pakistan was threatened by the hydrological drought which occurs when an extended precipitation shortfall affects surface and sub-surface water supply, which is measured by monitoring stream flow, reservoir and lake levels, and groundwater. Explaining further, he said, hydrological droughts are usually out of phase with meteorological and agricultural drought since a time lapse occurs between deficiencies in precipitation and the lowering of reservoirs or groundwater.

Pakistan had 34 per cent less water during 2001 than the normal. At the time of its independence in 1947, the annual per capita water availability in Pakistan was 5600 cubic metres, in 2001 it dropped to 1200 cubic metres due to continued drought, according to research papers compiled by the PMD.

The establishment of drought monitoring and early warning system at federal and provincial levels is in line with the recommendation of a Saarc Workshop on Drought and Water Management Strategies held in Lahore a few years ago. Pakistan and most Saarc countries have faced worst crisis of their history due to abnormally low rains and snowfalls causing reductions in flow of rivers.