ISLAMABAD: Effective management of river basins and development of wetlands along the major tributaries should be the vital part of the strategy to reduce the flood risk especially during monsoon season, a senior official of the Ministry of Climate Change said on Monday. Media and Communications Deputy Director Mohammad Saleem said, “Such measures can also increase underground water resources, which are fast depleting.” He said, “Of all the devastating impacts of climate change being experienced by the country, floods are proving to be more destructive, causing socio-economic losses of worth billions of rupees.” He said the present government is aware of the climate change-induced flood risk in the country and is taking all practical measures to mitigate its impacts on the lives of people, their livelihoods, and public infrastructure, particularly agriculture. While talking about recent visit of a Pakistani delegation to the Yangtze River basin in China, Mohammad Saleem said the main objective of the visit is to see how the Chinese manage flood plains and wisely use floods for economic and environmental benefits. He said, “It was surely amazing the way China has managed to mitigate the flood risk in the Yangtze River basin spread over catchment’s area of 1.8 million square kilometres. This offers great viable lesson for Pakistan to make the flood-prone Indus River basin the flood-proof river basin in the light of the Chinese experience.” Saleem said that it was learnt during the visit that effective river basin management and restoration of wetlands could help significantly to mitigate flood risk being faced by Pakistan. He said, “The country desperately needs more reservoirs to increase its water storage capacity, and called for conservation awareness campaigns, the introduction of drought-tolerant crop varieties and more economical irrigation.”