Rapidly Melting Cryosphere Demands Water Storage Facilities In HKH Region: Experts

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Sep, 2024) The experts at a policy dialogue on the Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKH) region's increasing vulnerability to glacier melting on Wednesday underscored the urgency to increase water storage facilities to boost resilience against climate-induced disasters as rapidly melting cryosphere posed risks to the billions of people's livelihoods, lives and property.

The experts of diverse backgrounds made these remarks during the Policy Action Dialogue titled "Tackling Climate Change Impacts on Cryosphere, Water, food Security and Disaster Risk Reduction organised by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, and the Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change (CSCCC).

Opening the discourse, Senior Scientific Officer, Global Change Impact Studies Center (GCISC), Dr Arif Goheer said the changing climatic trends globally were casting grave impacts on the weather patterns and ecosystems across all the vulnerable regions.

He said however, increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was aggravating the climate change scenarios, whereas according to the GCISC estimates IPCC Report (AR6-based) future climate projections, the world temperature was projected to reach 5.5 degrees Celsius by the end of century which was half a degree Celsius more than the estimated projections.

Pakistan has 22.79 million hectares arable land whereas it has been unable to increase its cultivable land amid the conventional five major crops of rice, wheat, maize, cotton, and sugarcane that needed diversification with shifting weather patterns and transitioning climatic conditions, he said.

Chairman, National Seed Development and Regulatory Authority (NSDRA), Dr Asif Ali Khan while chairing the session said the Green Pakistan Initiative has been launched to restore and explore new areas on higher efficiency irrigation practices at a corporate model in the uncultivated wastelands across the country primarily in Balochistan and Cholistan areas but water was a limiting factor to ensure its success.

He pointed that the country's major crop scenarios and water productivity in terms of Dollars was the maximum gained in maize, mainly because of the seed as it's a hybrid crop and seed replacement was 100%. "We have to scale up Green Pakistan Initiative with major focus on water and seed quality," he added.

Tahir Yamin from the Punjab Irrigation Department said the water table was declining across Punjab as with reducing surface water availability groundwater extraction was expediting which resulted into declining the water quality at an alarming rate in Punjab.

He said Punjab had planned to select reservoir sites to sequester excessive floodwater wasted every year, whereas some 20 sites were selected on the eastern rivers of Ravi and Sutlej.

Zakir Hussain Dahri, DG PARC-SARC Karachi said the water management in Sindh was governed under Sindh Water Policy 2023 whereas the policy still required a proper implementation framework in the province.

Pakistan is frequently and severely hit by natural disasters, whereas the Indus Basin is one of the largest basins in the world whereas the British Era irrigation system is failing in the current scenario and needs to be replaced with a news system, he added.