Pakistan needs to adopt groundwater recharge wells technology as a national policy to counter urban flooding.
Following Pakistan’s recent climate-induced flooding the entire world is engaged to come up with certain solutions to simultaneously tackle drought and urban flooding to avoid human catastrophes in the future.
The country’s experts have forcefully recommended adopting groundwater recharge wells technology as a national policy to counter urban flooding and ensuing drought due to climate change.
The groundwater recharge well is an economical nature-based solution to recover aquifers and lessen the risk of urban flooding through modern indigenous technology available.
The Institute of Urbanism, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), along with the Pakistan Council for Research on Water Resources (PCRWR) organized a media fellowship on Harvesting Rainwater for Urban Flood Management.
Talking to the media, Chairman PCRWR Dr. Muhammad Ashraf said that the groundwater recharge solutions were the need of the entire country; particularly in the prevailing floods that occurred in an unprecedented fashion in Pakistan.
Dr. Ashraf added Pakistan was experiencing adverse environmental degradation as in one season it faced dryness and in other there were floods.
The rainwater storage solutions such as artificial lakes at housing societies or artificial recharge wells would help manage rainwater, he added, “60% agriculture use water is coming from groundwater resources. We will have to either reduce groundwater extraction or increase water table recharge”.
Moreover, Dr. Ashraf explained that watershed management was vital for flood and drought management however catchment area enhancement was also crucial for this purpose. The purpose of artificial recharge wells was to intercept rainwater near the catchment area and inject it into the groundwater well. “It will help save water from evaporation, ponding, and pollution.”
“Out of which 50 recharge wells have conserved 10 million gallons water which at first replenished the groundwater and then reduced Nullah Lai flooding. If the same 10 million gallons of water was dumped into Nullah Lai then it would have resulted in urban flooding and inundation of roads,” he highlighted, adding, “Today’s floods are due to this neglect of the dryland and rain-fed areas as it is a torrential rain flood this time.”
Meanwhile, Deputy Director General Water Management CDA, Sardar Khan Zimri said, “We have proposed the higher authority to adopt it at the grassroots or nascent level at community or household level for propitious results. In case, one cannot install it at home then it can be done on the nearby greenbelts.”