ISLAMABAD, Dec 22 (Online): Pakistan is prone to natural disasters such as floods and landslides caused by heavy torrential rains, tropical cyclones, earthquakes and so on. Quite notably, every year Pakistan experiences heavy damages due to floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains duringthe monsoon season. Therefore, theJapanese government has been assisting Pakistanproactively, in the enhancement of weather surveillancecapacity through Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since the 1980`s,in order to mitigate the damage by flood.
Weather surveillance radars in Islamabad and in Karachi have already been put in place and a few othersare planned to be constructed in Multan and in Sukkur, in cooperation with Japan. These radars will cover almost the whole of Pakistan.
In addition, in 2019 the Japanese government through JICA has assisted in establishingthe “Specialized Medium Range Weather Forecasting Center” in order to enhance not only the weather surveillance capacity, but also weather forecasting capability for Pakistan.
An officer from the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), mentionedthat the “Capacity of weather forecasting has been enhanced by various Japanese assistance.We can now get exact positioning information of clouds through high-resolution imagesas compared to previous weather surveillance system. We can also provide advance weather information to local communities, identify heavy rain areas, andissue early warning to local residents living downstream of rivers which are expected to be flooded. Similarly, advance weather information can also be provided to the Islamabad international airport.”
A Japanese engineer also said, “I am glad that the weather surveillance radars withthe same state-of -the art technologies as those of Japan are utilized in Pakistan.”
