On the Path of Water

The Urgency of Climate Resilience in Pakistan

If my house was about to be flooded or burnt, what would I save first? It is obvious that saving everything might not be possible. But what if a choice had to be made in selecting from family members whose lives were at risk? This question echoes the reality we face today, as climate-related disasters increasingly threaten our homes and communities.

The current floods are a stark reminder of the vulnerability we face. Our houses are burning, the pain caused is palpable, and the damage to lives is visible. In an emergency, one can only save what circumstances and proximity allow, what personal skills enable, and what the timeline and extent of the crisis permit. When unprepared for an ongoing emergency, these words become an absolute truth.

I pray that all lives remain safe. However, the reality is that we are still unprepared. Proactively preserving national or personal assets is prudent. Saving lives and securing the wellbeing of all citizens is an imperative responsibility.

Since 1947, Pakistan has experienced 28 super riverine floods (Federal Flood Commission and Pakistan Meteorological Department data). This in 78 years—an average of less than three years between them. The frequency has been increasing. This is a known, recurring climate event. Yet we seem surprised at their frequent occurrence and fail to prepare adequately. This is the reason why our riverine lands are fertile with alluvial deposits from the flood—ideal for agriculture, not for the development of housing schemes.

Water Management and Land Use

Water management and the maintenance of riverine floodplains is needed. Using unpopulated, non-politicised, non-corporatised, open land zones for emergency discharge of exceptional flood waters is of equal priority. These vast lands exist. They need to be aquifer recharge zones, national state properties, not privatised or corporatised land holdings. Their value is what is stored below the surface. They will be needed when the present cyclical and long-term droughts start.

This is the Anthropocene, the age of human-induced global warming and climate change. It is an incredibly intense moment in the human story. It impacts all of life that exists, but affects us to a point of criticality in our human existence—especially in Pakistan. This is a point in time that requires a fundamental shift in how we humans operate on our planet. But will we change?

I do believe that we in Pakistan have the opportunity to mitigate some of the ecological stresses present. This adjustment to our region's micro-climate can be effected by the creation of biospheres along the length of our rivers, mountains, and delta. Supporting nature in the path water takes in Pakistan will save lives and human economic enterprise. Nature’s systems must be able to function where waters flow.

In Pakistan, our responsibility for these climatic changes is small, but we are substantive recipients of these global forces. Climate change is here and has to be adjusted to, accommodated. There is no other choice. Where there is a choice, it is in how we respond. I pray that we choose well, that we make educated decisions. That our actions keep all safe, and create equity for all. The prayer is that we are guided to choose, and act on, knowledge-based solutions.

Deforestation and Governance Failures

About the forests in our mountains—yes, we all should be worried. Social media has facilitated the sharing of those horrific videos and images of rivers full of felled trees. Intense rainfall is washing down logs that have been cut by our people—from their own mountains. The felled logs roll downhill, flowing with the deluge. They are smashing houses, crushing bodies and shattering lives. This has occurred due to a need for winter fuel, and for the purpose of short-term business profit.

The ultimate cause of this is an abject failure of governance and education. The forests of our plains and delta are of equal concern. There, the removal of trees and productive orchards, to create space for the business of developers, has been brutal. About the cutting of Karachi's tall mangrove forests; I stand as witness.

When rivers break their banks, it concerns us all that global warming is melting glaciers, and causing massive runoffs. The warmer climate has changed the intensity and pattern of monsoons. The waters are flowing downstream, carrying debris. Currently, as I write, a violent plug-flow surge has entered the plains. Suddenly rivers are inundated, overflowing, reaching densely inhabited agricultural and urban lands. We see with trepidation this ongoing phenomenon. These areas are at high risk, especially wherever the floodplains have been narrowed, populated or filled in—developed.

The Cycle of Flood and Drought

Rains are causing a deluge, followed by flooding, followed by drought. All followed by immense suffering. The cycle will continue. The aftermath of rains will see urban areas filling with stagnant water, and overflowing sewage. In rural areas crops will rot in fields. Disease vectors will bloom: mosquitoes, bacteria, fungi. Contamination of water sources will make drinking water a rarity, both in towns and on farmland villages. A profitable market for bottled water will emerge.

As waters subside, some rural areas will be left with a layer of moist, fertile soil. Other areas, and probably many—especially in Sindh—will be left with a covering of saline water that has mixed with salts that are re-settling on the surface. This can make the land uncultivable. When the sun evaporates the water, vast fields of cracked clay or white salt crystals, snowlike, will coat the farmland. If it's clay, a minimum of a full planting season would be required for the land to be arable and productive again. If the coating is subsoil salts, recovery may take years, or even longer.

Building on Vulnerable Lands

When one makes a housing society, a home, or farms on a wetland, floodplain, low-lying lands, or on a river bed, one has to be ready for floods. One has to accept that waters, riverine or sea, will enter communities and houses. Is the solution draining of the swamp? Or the building of dykes?

When one places oneself in the way of water, one must be prepared to be swept away. When one builds on a river bank, restricting its natural movement, one must know that its edge is not static, stable, or a place of permanence. This is so very visible nowadays in our stunning mountain valleys, or on our still fertile lands, where the rivers embrace arable land. We have seen entire buildings disintegrating and being swept away.

When one removes trees whose roots hold soil together—be it on a mountain, river bank, or a delta—one should be prepared that the ground will be shorn away. Have no doubt that the soil under the construction sites on such lands will erode, flood and destroy these "development projects." This is a basic principle and an undeniable truth of geography. It destroys the people who desire homes there. Houses-homesteads will drown.

But many of us humans do not seem to believe in this, in the elemental power of nature, or in our own understanding of the sciences. This is to our own peril.

Protecting Nature and Ensuring Sustainable Development

Let me bring you back to the habitat of my comfort, my home in the intertidal forest lands of the delta and beyond. This space stretches to both the east and the west of Karachi. There is a problem here as well. It is endemic, urgent, and spans provinces. I reiterate the urgency of protecting mangroves. These are nurseries of our fisheries and protectors of our shores. The communities of intertidal forests that are still present are protected on paper, by policy and law. But of what use is it, if policy is not implemented and the forests are not actively protected? Evidence keeps surfacing of their sacrifice, for commercial, residential, and industrial development. Some of the areas, it seems, even for the production of sea salt. The callousness of business enterprises is astounding. What is required is the active enforcement of policy. Is this being done?

Upstream, salt is leaching into our subsoil sweet water reserves, our aquifers. Water purification plants on industrial scales are pumping residue of the reverse osmosis process back into the same aquifers. Its production for sale is already loading the subterranean water reservoirs with salt, residue chemicals, and unwanted minerals. This is apparently not only for bottled water, astonishingly, it seems for agricultural use as well. In short, if these activities are continued, then we will poison our own waters. This is the future source of water for Pakistan. Readily available arable water will run out. Potable water will become more expensive, and unfortunately it has already become exclusive.

The Way Forward

Industrial pollution from the few industries present today is already contaminating our waterways and lands. We need to ensure that at the very least, industrial and agricultural chemical contaminants are not added to our terrestrial rivers and aquifers.

There is no option but to adapt quickly. Water conservation, replanning its storage and distribution systems need to be undertaken urgently. Halophytic farming, gene splicing, and tissue culture need to be understood. This knowledge too needs to be equitable, and open source, not proprietary. It is imperative to create salt water-resistant food crops, and let our farmers grow them. This is critically needed for food security for our people. Many such policies do exist. The ones that don't must be created—and urgently implemented.

The response that is needed has to be consequential and profound. It is not presently so. Decisions must be made. They have to be based on science. And have to be equitable, ones that transcend beyond personal, family, tribe, politics, or profit—personal or otherwise.

Human altruistic behaviour does exist. It is perhaps the saving grace for our species. There are so many wonderful examples, especially the ones that build capacity. However, the effectiveness of "charity" is by the very nature of "nondirectional philanthropy" limited, especially in its long-term sociological and economic impact.

The sustainable way forward is to create progress and systems that work with nature. Lessons need to be learnt. Nature needs to be observed, heard, understood. Teams of subject experts need to be assembled. Their considered, independent advice heard, policies reworked, and then implemented.

I strongly believe that we in Pakistan have the expertise to achieve this through our citizens. There is a way forward. Work with nature, not against it. Make biospheres on our waterways. Create and actively protect nature reserves. Focus on STEM education, create more Pakistani scientists. Develop self-sufficiency and believe in self-respect.

There has to be a profound change in the way we Pakistani citizens see ourselves in the global society. It is critical for us to know how we need to position ourselves in our space, this incredible land that is Pakistan. This portion of land that we inhabit on this rare and valuable planet Earth.