GEO-HAZARDS IN PAKISTAN: PRESENT SCENARIO AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

Pakistan is situated in South Asia, between its most of area is arid and semi-arid. It has snow clad mountains. It has most of the highest peaks in the world. It is a paradise for the mountaineers and trekkors. Its Indus Basin enjoys one of the largest irrigation network. Its most of the parts lie in seismic hazard zones. It has been experiencing natural hazards like floods, droughts, cyclones, volcanoes, tsunamis, landslides, mudslides avalanches and earthquakes since pre-independence. Indus Basin confronts severe floods regularly encompassing heavy losses of life and property. Provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtoun Khwa undergo heavy floods especially in monsoon period (July-Aug). Certain parts of Sindh and Balochistan provinces come across floods almost every 10 years. Climate change has negative impacts on monsoon rains and snow melts and it is both severly affected country in the World. Pakistan had faced earthquakes quite often since the 1935 earthquake of Quetta. The worst ever earthquake of 2005 had impacted many areas of Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa Province and Azad Jammu Kashmir with colossal losses of 73,338 human deaths, 3.5 million homeless, 600,000 houses destroyed and 2,393 km roads 92 bridges damaged. Sindh Coastal areas along Arabian Sea had come across severe cyclones in 1993 and 1999. Similarly sea water intrusion has appeared in coastal areas of Thatta and Badin landslides and mud slide cause huge losses of life property in the northern hill tracts of Pakistan. There is dire necessity of managing the said natural disasters in a sustainable manner. National level policies, plans and action strategies need to be formulated for each geohazard. The hazards should be prevented, minimized and controlled with a view to avoid huge losses through disasters. Disasters should be professionally managed during pre-disaster, during disaster and post-disaster periods. Rescue, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction operations should be undertaken with active participation of stakeholders. Finally there is pressing requirement of implementing mitigation measures which are environment friendly, socially acceptable and economically viable.