Attachments
1. Introduction
Pakistan's latitudinal range contributes to significant variability in rainfall across different seasons. The country's climate exhibits a spectrum from arid to hyper-arid in its southern regions, while the northern half ranges from semi-arid to humid. Certain areas experience persistent dry conditions, rendering them vulnerable to drought throughout the year. Prolonged absence of precipitation can exacerbate these conditions, leading to widespread drought impacts. Historically, all provinces of Pakistan have grappled with significant drought events.
Apart from other natural disasters such as floods, cyclones, and earthquakes, drought sometimes get gradual onset, prolonged duration and sometime flash drought as sometimes heat waves emerge. Its affects are slowly visible and can extend across vast geographical areas, impacting a larger population as compared to other environmental hazards.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) established National Drought/Environment Monitoring and Early Warning Centre (NDMC) in 2004-05, following the severe drought of 1999-2001. The primary objective of NDMC is to proactively monitor drought condition nationwide and issue timely advisories/early warnings.
The NDMC operates a central office in Islamabad, complemented by four Regional Drought Monitoring Centers (RDMC’s) in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta. These RDMC’s serve as focal points for gathering, consolidating and analyzing drought-related data across the country. To enhance monitoring capabilities, Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) have been strategically installed, particularly in drought-prone areas.
NDMC has also Ordinary Rain Gauges (ORG) network across the country covering most of the vulnerable districts in the four provinces, as illustrated in Figure-1.