ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) in collaboration with Asian Development Bank (ADB) has organized a training workshop on Identification of Potential Sites for Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) in Peshawar Valley (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).
The workshop was part of the support for the development of climate-resilient solutions for Pakistan’s agricultural and natural resources (ANR) sector in the province of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said a statement issued here on Wednesday.
The main objective of the workshop is to bring the stakeholders together and build their capacity for sustainable groundwater resource management in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
During his welcome remarks, Dr. Muhammad Ashraf, Chairman, PCRWR emphasized the need for maintaining a balance between groundwater abstraction and recharge.
He also shared that groundwater is a precious hidden resource, which needs to be used efficiently. Because, groundwater resource is under immense stress, due to the rapid increase in population and urbanization.
Moreover, groundwater quality is also deteriorating due to over-exploitation. Therefore, there is an urgent need to focus on rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge for the sustainability of the sector, he said.
He also highlighted different initiatives of PCRWR towards groundwater resources management in the country.
After the inaugural session, Dr. Naveed Iqbal, Director (Hydrology), PCRWR delivered a detailed presentation on methodology developed by PCRWR for establishing groundwater recharge sites in Islamabad with the help of CDA.
Dr. S.A. Parthapar, Consultant, Asian Development Bank (ADB) gave a detailed presentation on the data requirements for MAR. He also discussed different GIS-based tools for data acquisition pertaining to MAR.
During the capacity-building workshop, 12 professionals representing different departments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Agriculture, Irrigation and Public Health Engineering participated.
They also presented the data availability status pertaining to their departments regarding the identification of groundwater recharge sites in Peshawar Valley. Moreover, PCRWR also shared the details of available GIS-based data sets of Peshawar valley collected under a collaborated study completed with the support of HELVETAS-Pakistan.
At the end, Dr. Prathapar appreciated PCRWR for taking lead regarding groundwater recharge initiatives and developing various models for further upscaling to manage flooding and groundwater depletion issues.