UNESCO Science Action Plan to Assist in Pakistan’s Flood Disaster

• UNHCR/A. Fazzina

A multidisciplinary team of six senior science experts from UNESCO and associated centres of excellence met leading scientific figures and heads of institutions in Islamabad resulting in an integrated, nationally owned, scientific plan to enhance short- and long-term capacity to manage floods and related geohazards.

The Plan addresses integrated flood and watershed management; groundwater resources for emergency situations, land slides and ground instability, and; education and capacity building. UNESCO will be working closely with Pakistan’s institutions to put this scientific plan into action.

Four priority early action areas have already been identified:

• A study of the current floods to try to explain scientific reasons why they became the worst in living memory and to identify ways in which such a disaster may be averted or minimized in the future;
• Restoring degraded early warning systems especially for forecasting flash floods;
• Identifying locations for safe groundwater extraction in flood affected regions;
• Identification of landslide risks in relief camp areas to guide community recovery;

UNESCO is an active member of the ONE UN partnership for early recovery efforts as well as for developing long term capacity for managing and averting disasters in future.

Related links:
::  International Flood Initiative
::  IFI official website
::  Global Center of Excellence for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM)
::  Available Space Based information for Flood in Pakistan (UN-SPIDER SPACEAID)
::  International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)
::  UNESCO's Islamabad Office (More)
::  UNESCO's response to the flood (More)
::  UNESCO's natural disaster reduction (More)

• Source:UNESCO SC
• 01-09-2010