Nature of natural disasters in Pakistan

[Naveed Yaseen]

Majority of disasters hydro meteorological in nature

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Our correspondent

Islamabad

Majority of natural disasters faced by the country are hydro meteorological in nature, appearing in the shape of drought, floods, salinisation, land erosion and storms.

Experts shared this information with the participants of a seminar titled ‘Linking Climate Change to Disaster Risk Reduction’, jointly organised by Oxfam and Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) here on Monday.

They said that repercussions of climate change were grave for Pakistan for its economic base was agriculture. “Climate change and consequent meteorological disasters can destroy the livelihood base of the majority of people,” said Dr. Syed Hussain Sajidin, consultant on climate change for Oxfam, in his keynote address.

The purpose of seminar was to get an insight into the nature of disasters in Pakistan and propose risk reduction strategies that are in sync with geographic and climatic conditions of the country. Various NGOs and concerned line departments participated in the seminar.

Participants were of the view that policies and decisions ought to be knowledge based. “While chalking out strategies it is imperative to take into consideration local knowledge and align it with modern scientific knowledge,” they said.

Commenting on the existing condition of research regarding climate change and natural disasters, the participants regretted that research sharing was non-existent in Pakistan. They stressed upon sharing knowledge to avoid replication and squandering of resources, time and energy.

Malik Shahbaz from SPO stressed on broadening research horizon to respond to the challenges of climate change in a better way. “Government can do well if it incorporates best practices of NGO modelling in its policy,” he said.

Javaria Afzal, of Oxfam, shared experiences and practices geared towards building knowledge and capacities of civil society to enable people to cope with natural disasters and mitigate negative impacts. Participants agreed that the media is interface between policy and community and can play an instrumental role in bridging gap between the two.

Representative of Global Change Impact Studies Centre Asma Rashid said that scientists and social scientist should avoid confrontation and make synergetic efforts to bring about change in policies and attitudes of government and people respectively about climate change.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=190286