Activities in Pakistan

Background

 In Pakistan, the floods of 2010 caused massive damages in KP, Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan.  These floods, caused by extraordinary monsoon rains were described as the worst in the last 80 years.  The total number of affected people was estimated over 20 million; around 2000 lives lost and 2.0 million homes were damaged.

The country's efforts towards ensuring safe recovery are now in need of major upgrades using the remote sensing technologies, especially in connection to flood management decision making at a hierarchy of levels and its inter-relationship to flood hazard assessment and planning. An immediate assessment and upgrade of the forecasting systems especially along the Indus River is needed to forecast and assess the likely extent of damage caused by the recent floods. In parallel, there is a need for updating flood hazard maps in lower Indus areas where the flood protection dykes have been breached and areas have come under inundation to guide recovery and enhance national, provincial and local capacity to disseminate flood warnings, which would reduce potential catastrophic of future inundations.

As a result of series of discussion with the authorities of Pakistan, Japan and UNECO agreed among other to launch a project for "Strategic Strengthening of Flood Warning and Management Capacity of Pakistan", aiming to address following three inter-related focus areas;

1. Strategic Augmenting of Flood Forecasting and Hazard Mapping Capacity
2. Knowledge Platforms for Sharing Trans-boundary and Community Data
3. Capacity Development for Flood Forecasting and Hazard Mapping

Objective

The objective of the project is to reduce the human and socioeconomic impacts of floods in Pakistan, to improve the social, economic, and ecological benefits of floods, and to foster safer human settlements near flood plains through (a) strategic strengthening of the country’s flood early warning system, (b) development and implementation of flood hazard maps at the community level and (c) developing both international and local platforms for timely sharing of hydro meteorological observations.

Project Summary

Project Highlights

For the enhancement of flood forecasting capabilities by upgrading and augmenting the existing flood early warning system, "Integrated Flood Analysis System (IFAS)", which was developed by UNESCO and International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) in Japan, will be utilized.