Asian Disaster Preparedness Center with UN-Habitat is conducting a multi-hazard vulnerability and risk assessment in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistan to map the area’s vulnerability to natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding.

Focusing on the Chitral and D.I. Khan districts, the risk assessment supports the Provincial Disaster Management Authority as well as humanitarian and development agencies to improve disaster risk management, preparedness and contingency planning at the district level.


Restoration efforts in progress in Chitral in the aftermath of flooding.
(Photo: PDMA of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa)

The assessment will be utilized to develop a comprehensive disaster risk management strategy for the province, which has already established a provincial emergency operation center with modern communication equipment. The initiative will later be expanded to other districts.

“The provincial government is all set to conduct a similar risk assessment in all of the 26 districts of the province for which this ongoing project will be a valuable model to follow,” said Ms. Robin Haider Bukhari, Deputy Director of Training and Awareness at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority at a recent progress review meeting.

A large cache of important data and maps

ADPC, together with the Community Resilience Initiative, has partnered with UN-Habitat to conduct the multi-hazard vulnerability and risk assessment in two diversely different areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province to address the varying disaster risks they face. Chitral in the north is a mountainous area impacted by earthquakes, flash floods, landslides, and glacial lake outbursts, while D.I. Khan in the south of the province is regularly affected by riverine floods and droughts.

To date, the team has assembled and assessed a large cache of important data and maps, and will be conducting more field visits in the coming weeks to finalize the data collection prior to preparation of the final assessment report.

ADPC will also be conducting training and capacity building for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority and other government line agencies on risk assessments and mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction into the development process.