Climate Change and the Floods in Pakistan

The news from Pakistan is bad. 

After months of heavy rainfall and the summer melting of glaciers, nearly a third of the country is under water. The government says thirty million people are affected, an immense fifteen hundred people are dead, entire landscapes have been altered in the face of gushing torrents of water and damages from the floods are estimated at $30 billion .

Why have the floods in Pakistan caused so much damage to so many people? As we collide towards a future where climate change causes us to fundamentally change our way of life, the situation in Pakistan is a stark warning for what might become a fearsomely routine occurrence. 

The monsoon weather effect is unique to countries of South Asia and has been the muse for many songs that celebrate the bounties of the land, the scent of wet earth and the romantic summer rains. This time however, some areas in Pakistan have received rainfall in excess of 400% percent of the normal expectation. 

Added to this was the effect of the melting of glaciers in the north of Pakistan. As home to the most glaciers in the world outside the polar regions, climate change has expedited the melting of glaciers in Pakistan’s north.  Beyond this there was the excess water in the Kabul River that flows from Afghanistan into Pakistan. All these factors came together with the result being that the water was simply so much that there was nowhere for it to go and so it pooled on the ground, stormed houses and flooded cities. 

The greatest irony of this situation is that Pakistan is a water stressed country. According to the IMF, Pakistan is the third most water-stressed country in the world. Groundwater is the exclusive source of water needs in urban Pakistan especially in smaller, peripheral cities. As the population of this 232 million strong country continues  to grow, this is stressing the groundwater resources in Pakistan. Since groundwater accumulates over a process of hundreds of years of precipitation, there is no replenishment of these natural purifiers and the availability of water is decreasing rapidly in Pakistan’s urban centers. 

One would think that these increased levels of precipitation would be a source of much needed replenishment of natural reservoirs and support the agricultural base of the country. However, the last major dam or reservoir in Pakistan was constructed way back in 1975. There is no way for the country to control excess water and store it for lean times. Under the administration of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a much hyped crowd-funding program for a hydroelectric dam project was launched. While nearly $40 million were raised, the government spent $63 million advertising the project. Furthermore, raising a dam could cost as much as $14 billion. So at the end, the $40 million collected was just a mere drop in the bucket. 

The impact of natural calamities is also felt disproportionately across social and income lines. In the sprawling coastal city of Karachi, the Arabian crashes right next to the city. However, encroachments on drain-ways and the reclamation of land from the sea to create luxurious amenities like golf courses has subverted the natural drainage of water in the city and people living in the inner city regularly see their lives disrupted by extreme weather.

You can donate to the UN effort to assist victims of the floods in Pakistan using this link.