ISLAMABAD, April 16 (APP): The National Drought Management Centre (NDMC) has issued a drought alert and warned that due to lower rainfall and a heatwave situation the country may experience higher temperatures.
According to the alert the country overall received below normal (-21.6%) rainfall from January to April 2022. Due to a good amount of rainfall during January, the previous drought conditions became normalized.
The NDMC pointed out that in spite of intermittent rainfall spells for the rest of the months helped to sustain the normal conditions in the country.
Due to an abrupt increase in daily maximum temperature, a heatwave situation was observed from mid of March till the date and land surface temperature remained very high which affected the low rainfall region i.e., Sindh, Balochistan, south Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southern Punjab (Cholistan region).
Keeping in view the impact of heatwaves, the drought-like situation has emerged over most of the high-temperature regions of the country.
Most districts of the west to south-west Balochistan are winter rainfall dominant and rainfall amount varies between 71 to 231mm. The heatwave suppressed the moisture conditions and resulted in the severe drought-like condition in the Chagi district whereas moderate conditions have emerged over the Kharan, Nushki and Washuk districts of Balochistan. Similarly, mild drought conditions have arisen in most of Sindh, South Punjab and Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Keeping in view the climatology and current seasonal forecast of PMD for these areas, drought conditions may exacerbate and affect the agriculture, water resources and live stocks till mid of June 2022 (before the arrival of the summer monsoon).
Dry conditions may cause water stress in the cultivated lands/areas of the country due to the limited availability of irrigation water for Kharif crops. It is advised to all stakeholders to take pre-emptive measures for disaster-prone districts, NDMC said.
Farmers/agriculturists are advised to keep themselves updated on the PMD website http://www.pmd.gov.pk.
NDMC said it was continuously monitoring drought situations over the country and keeping the stakeholders and general public updated by issuing drought information on a weekly, fortnightly and monthly basis.
