Flood forecasting stations on 5 K-P rivers

Will help forewarn residents and improve coordination among departments

PESHAWAR:

With monsoon rains lashing parts of the province, the government has decided to install flood forecasting stations on five major rivers of the province.

These stations will help improve pre and post-disaster coordination and communication amongst the different departments. More importantly, it will forewarn people living along the banks of these rivers and in other areas prone to natural disasters, about impending floods.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said that work is underway on revamping the provincial emergency centre, apart from the development of a Management Information System (MIS) for the department.

It added that the PDMA and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Irrigation Department will work together to install these flood forecasting stations on all the five major rivers and two nullahs in the province at Khawzakhela on River Swat and River Panjkora, in Charsadda on River Kabul, in Mardan on the Kalapani Nullah and in Peshawar on the Bhudani Nullah and the Munda headworks.

These stations, which will run on solar power, will cost a total of Rs60 million.

Once complete, these flood forecast stations will be the first systems of its kind in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2020.