STAFF REPORT PSR: Natural scientists and environmentalists say that communities involvement can mitigate the negative effects of glacial lake outburst floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwas higher regions, preventing loss of lives and properties.
At an orientation workshop of a newly-launched project, they said that the human and technical capacity building of the provincial public sector institutions dealing with climate change would enable them to understand and take measures for the prevention of disasters because of glacial lake outburst floods.
“Warming trend in our region is greater than the global average, which is increasingly becoming obvious since 2009,” Wajid Ali Khan, Provincial Minister for Environment told the participants of the workshop.
The project “Reducing Risks and Vulnerabilities from Glacier Lake Outburst Floods in Northern Pakistan”, funded by UNDP, has been launched to minimise risks of natural disaster as a result of floods caused by a glacial lake outburst.
“Few avalanches, massive landslides, floods, and cloudbursts during the last one decade wreaked havoc in Pakistan and now the glacial lakes have been posing an imminent threat of floods,” said the minister.
Mujtaba Hussain, National Project Director, said that the project is aimed at developing human and technical capacity of public institutions to address immediate threats to vulnerable communities enabling them to understand and respond to glacial lake outburst floods.