Evaluation of Flood Forecasting, Early Warning System and its Role in Flood Management in Indus basin, Pakistan

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of Flood Forecasting and Early Warning (FF&EWS) in the Indus basin, Pakistan. It is non-structural measures, used extensively. It forecast and disseminate of flood warning to the people that are exposed to flood. The aim of this paper to evaluates the effectiveness of early warning. The Indus basin were selected as the study to achieve the objectives. Data were collected from primary as well as secondary sources. The Indus basin was affected by numerous floods, however, the flood of 2010 and 2022 were the century worst flood. The analysis reveals that in Indus basin, flood warning is one of the non-structural mitigation measures. It is the sole responsibility of Pakistan Meteorological Department, which predict through an established weather radar stations covering the Indus basin. After flood forecasting, an important stage is disseminations of flood forecasting to the vulnerable communities. It share through a network of telemetric, fax and email with the related federal, provincial and concerned district government as early warning to minimize the risk in the flood prone areas in Indus basin. The major findings of the study highlights that, improper flood forecasting in the remote areas of Indus basin,  limited coverage by radar network, terrain and human encroachment has aggravated the consequences of floods.  By strengthening local level risk reduction capacity focus, need to be made at the union council and tehsil level to minimize the damages of flood. The study concludes that the study area is out of the range of existing flood forecasting. The effectiveness can be improved by addressing the challenges faced by the flood management line agencies. On the basis of analysis, suggestions and recommendations are formulated to improve flood forecasting and early warning system in Indus basin, Pakistan.