SOP for Flood Forecasting & Early Warning - UNESCO Islamabad

WAPDA's telemetric system is an important source of hydrological data for the flood forecasting
purposes.
(ii) This is supplemented by the manually observed data from the Surface Water Hydrology
Project of WAPDA. In addition to data measurement sites at the main rivers, the Irrigation
Department also maintains limited network of manually observed hydrological stations at barrages
and important nullahs. This data is utilised for forecasting the floods in these nullahs, which
besides causing damage to the adjacent areas, contribute substantially towards the main river flows
during major floods.
(iii) Cross Border Data: Pakistan has a unique flood forecasting problem in the season that
flood generating rains occur across the border (in India and held Kashmir) and as a consequence
floods flow down into Pakistan. This situation calls for obtaining the hydrometerological data of
important river sites from across the border. This has been provided in an agreement between
Pakistan & India (through the respective Commissioners for Indus waters). The agreement which
is renewed annually, provides for the supply of river flows data of the selected sites at Sutlej, Ravi,
Chenab and Jhelum rivers on the basis of reimbursement of the actual cost of data measurement
collection and transmission to Pakistan. Generally the arrangement works satisfactorily, except
when the data measurement sties in India/held Kashmir, are subjected to such severe floods which
may cause interruption of the data communication system as it happened in 1988 flood season.
(iv) Provincial Irrigation Departments (PIDs) are also actively involved in the flood mitigation
process from the warning dissemination to the flood fighting stage. Flood fighting is mainly done
at the Divisional level by the concerned Executive Engineers, while the overall flood related
functions are looked after by a Superintending Engineer, who is designated as the Director Floods
and Secretary Flood Commission.
(v) Pakistan Army’s Corps of Engineers is involved in the flood relief operations and
breaching of the flood bounds as and when required at the advice of the Provincial Irrigation
Departments. Lately, however, Punjab Irrigation Department has decided not to involve Army in
the breaching operations and instead to use bulldozers for creating the breach.
(vi) At the Federal Government level, most of the flood management functions are planned and
executed by the Ministry of Water & Power through the Federal Flood Commission (FFC), which
provides the necessary Support to the provinces in the flood fighting process. FFC provides both
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