Daily Times

HYDERABAD: Pakistan Meteorology Department Director General (DG) Ghulam Rasool has announced on Tuesday to establish fully equipped weather station at Sanghar District within next three months to monitor the effects of extreme weather, a communiqué reaches here on Tuesday said.

The DG was speaking at a two-day consultative event, which attracted representatives of Sanghar district’s different departments, deputy commissioner, Chairman district council, revenue, academia, local environmentalists and national level authorities to discuss the vulnerability of areas and find local solutions.

Research and Development Foundation (RDF) organised the event with exposure visit on climate change for the senior government officials of district Sanghar in collaboration with Pakistan Meteorological Department, under a Kindernothilfe (KNH) and German Government’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) funded climate change adaptation program in Sanghar.

The event aimed to sensitise district government authorities to strengthen coordination and deal with natural calamities in the district, which has been declared prone to disaster.

The DG said they are already working to facilitate the government departments and relevant institutions to minimise the losses incur due to weather ups and downs.

The DG described climate risks and vulnerability of Pakistan, saying that Pakistan is among top countries in the world most vulnerable to climate induced threats. He said that there is immense need of awareness raising on climate change in the country.

New threats are yet to be witnessed from climate change, he added. This issue can not been not be tackled alone, as its magnitude is wide and affects many sectors, rather it is complex, first to be understood and later be addressed with multi-hands

RDF has been advocating and lobbying with district authorities and Met Department for the last two years. This demand finally has been accepted by Pakistan Met Department.

Following the announcement Deputy Commissioner of Sanghar Zohaib Mushtaq said they would provide piece of land at suitable place in the district to establish the important station.

The DC said that district Sanghar is leading in production of cotton in the country. The crop that is highly vulnerable to impacts of weather at present situation. A small amount of shower usually damages entire standing crop of cotton in the district. Thus there is need of meteorological station in district to educate farmers. He said that cotton producers needed to adapt to climate change thereby.

He said that have launched early warning system in the district with cellular network coverage, in order to spread early warning advisories to majority of communities and district officials. This would help in reducing disaster impacts.

Chairman District Council Sanghar, Khadim Hussain Rind spoke on the occasion and said that Sanghar produces cotton, rice, sugarcane and vegetables. For the better agriculture produce, farmers need to know weather and availability of water. This station would help them to be informed of weather changes, he said.

Sajid Gulzar, Country Coordinator KNH called it a very successful case study of a collaborative initiative of district administration Sanghar and RDF for capacity building of district authorities under a project which KNH and German Federal Ministry for economic cooperation and development is funding.

He said in the past there was very limited cooperation between NGOs and government, that led to trust deficit. He said that NGOs have to closely work with government in order to sustain the interventions and increase impact of development programs.

The newly weather station is expected to provide accurate and real-time weather information to help government and its partners follow emerging weather patterns and plan against disasters.

Published in Daily Times, August 9^th 2017.