26/11/ · Devastating floods in Pakistan UNICEF/UN/Sami Malik Torrential monsoon rains triggered the most severe flooding in Pakistan’s recent history, washing away villages 6/09/ · Some areas in Northern Pakistan received more than three times their annual rainfall in a matter of 36 hours. Gushing quickly down the tributaries into the Indus River, the 9/02/ · Every year in Pakistan flood causes huge devastation. The after-effects of the flood are more than worse. People who used to live near the river banks lose their lives, their
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Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, Australian National University, Australia. There are many questions emerging from the recent floods in Pakistan, ranging from attempts to understand the atmospheric phenomena behind the downpours to the search for where ultimate responsibility lies for the ensuing human calamity. This short essay investigates some of those questions. A pinch of geography is necessary to explain why Pakistan received such an extraordinary amount of rain during this rainy season. The Indian monsoon can be understood as a giant sea-breeze, with ocean moisture sucked in by rising hot air over the South Asian plains.
This year, as the jet stream became stationary, unusually hot summers led to the breakout of wildfires in Western Russia, and unprecedented rains poured down the slopes essay on floods in pakistan the Western Himalayas. The blocking event coincided with the summer monsoon, which brought unusually heavy amounts of rain on the mountains that girdle the north of Pakistan. The intensity of the localized rainfall was fantastic — four months worth of rainfall had fallen in just a couple of days. Some areas in Northern Pakistan received more than three times their annual rainfall in a matter of 36 hours.
Gushing quickly down the tributaries into the Indus River, the rainwaters gave rise to floods of catastrophic proportions, essay on floods in pakistan. Given the immensity of the downpours, some flooding was inevitable. Yet rivers are essentially channels to drain out water; being one of the largest rivers of the world, the Indus should have been able to carry out the excess waters into the Arabian Sea which it joins near Karachi, essay on floods in pakistan. Why could the river not flush out the excess waters? This is where human intervention — in terms of water resource planning and infrastructure development — played an important role in the floods, essay on floods in pakistan. To increase the area under irrigation in Pakistan, more and more of the waters of the Indus River have been diverted in recent decades into nearby farms.
Many of these farms are owned by the richer farmers who have, with state support and over the years, built levees or embankments along the river to protect their farms from the occasional floods. Yet each human interference into a natural river system has its consequence: when excessive amounts of water are drawn out of its channel, a river channel becomes less efficient and loses its ability to quickly move the water. When levees are built along the banks, the sediments get deposited on the river bed, which gradually rises above the surrounding plains. Not only does this enhance the flood risk, the levees standing as walls also make it difficult for the floodwater to return back essay on floods in pakistan the channel once it has spilled over.
In the last few decades, essay on floods in pakistan, water and irrigation infrastructure within the Indus system has increased in size and number. Indeed, over two thirds of the Indus flow is now diverted for irrigation. A number of tributaries also join the Indus from the west. These are fast-flowing hill torrents that bring down huge quantities of silt during the monsoons because the Himalayas is one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world, rivers that originate there like the Indus bring down enormous quantities of sediments in the form of sand, silt and clay. With funding from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, a series of barrages have been built along the hill slopes to prevent their waters from reaching the Indus. When many of these barrages failed, they added waters to the already inflated Indus and contributed to further worsening of the flood situation.
Besides the frozen jet stream that caused the unusual rains, then, it is the water infrastructure on the Indus River and its tributaries that are to blame for the scale of human impact of the floods in Pakistan. They created a false sense of security amongst the rural peasants, whose lives and livelihoods were washed away in the floods. Water planning as it has been practised in Pakistan certainly carries benefits for some segments of the rural communities, specifically those rich farmers who own the farming lands. The political ecology of the water infrastructure is such that those who benefit from them are usually not those who suffer from the floods; although the water resource planning is done in the name of improving the lot of the poor, it is they who suffer most when the technology fails.
If something good can at all come out of the enormous human tragedy that Pakistan has been confronted with, it should be a rethinking of river development and planning not only in that country, but entire South Asia. No one could have possibly predicted or prevented the floods. It was by all measures an unusual natural event exacerbated by human folly in terms of water resource planning and development. One can, however, certainly ensure that the magnitude of its after-effects was within human ability to deal with. Unfortunately the Pakistani government is poorly equipped to deal with the human aftermath. This is where all of us as individuals can play a role. We still have the time to help the flood-affected people, and assist them to rebuild their lives. Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt is a Fellow at the Resource Management in Asia Pacific Program at the Australian National University.
Kuntala researches water and mining, essay on floods in pakistan, gender and development issues in South Asia. Her publications include Water First: Issues and Challenges with Nations and Communities in South Asia jointly edited with Robert Wassonpublished by Sage in The views expressed in this article belong to the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Global Water Forum, the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance, UNESCO, the Australian National University, or any of the institutions essay on floods in pakistan which the essay on floods in pakistan are associated.
Please see the Global Water Forum essay on floods in pakistan and conditions here. Special essay: Pakistan floods. September 6th, Share on Essay on floods in pakistan Tweet.
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26/11/ · Devastating floods in Pakistan UNICEF/UN/Sami Malik Torrential monsoon rains triggered the most severe flooding in Pakistan’s recent history, washing away villages Essays on Floods In Pakistan Flood In Pakistan The intensity of the localized rainfall was fantastic – four months worth of rainfall had fallen in just a couple of days. Some areas in Essay on Flood in Pakistan The recent floods in various parts of Pakistan have caused unprecedented destruction. Due to the high level of water, it has become difficult to escape.
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