Author: admin

After the widespread destruction wreaked by the 2010 floods in Pakistan, it took the government five years to devise a comprehensive national flood protection plan. This ten-year plan envisioned several new infrastructural interventions including the construction of more embankments, dikes, spurs, retaining walls and diversion channels. This plan also identified the need to improve the largely neglected national drainage infrastructure. Many of these ambitious plans, however, remained confined to paper.

The massive devastation caused by the 2022 floods again prodded policymakers to reiterate the need for Integrated Flood Risk Management, which proposed pursuing a blend of ‘hard’ infrastructure and more nature-based solutions to minimise flood damages. Yet, the lack of attention paid to implementing such a holistic strategy was again evident given the havoc wreaked by the current monsoonal floods.

It is time for our policy planners and implementers to take the need for flood mitigation more seriously. Nature-based solutions merit particular attention as they offer the possibility of bolstering flood resilience without requiring a lot of capital, which is often secured via taking on more foreign loans. Pakistan already has some flood diversion and storage infrastructure in the form of barrages and canals, but these structures are heavily geared towards enabling irrigation rather than flood absorption. Varied experts have recommended building more flood retention reservoirs and reviving natural floodplains to ecologically manage the increasing intensity of climate charged monsoonal floods.

Attention has also been drawn to the possibility of channeling floodwater into ponds, wetlands or artificial lakes. ‘Floodwater harvesting’ or ‘managed flood retention’ can reduce peak flows downstream, thus lowering the risk of destructive floods. This stored water can then percolate down to aquifers via recharge basins to replenish depleted groundwater reserves and be pumped out for use during dry months. These are not merely theoretical suggestions.

Adelaide in Australia has created many recharge basins. Pakistan now seems poised to do the same via the ‘Recharge Pakistan’ initiative, which finally began its implementation phase last year. One major activity of this initiative is to create recharge basins and retention areas across DI Khan, Ramak, Manchar and Chakar Lehri watersheds. Lessons learnt from these efforts must be used to create replicable retention models which can be scaled up significantly to curb flooding.

Major rivers like the Indus carry enormous flood volumes, so creating a small number of small ponds or other retention areas will not be enough. Floodwater is also silt-laden, so ponds and artificial lakes will also silt up quickly and thus need regular maintenance. Also, creating new flood retention areas may require resettlement of communities, which is always a contentious process. However, these are not insurmountable problems, and adopting such nature-based solutions is much less damaging and disruptive than creating more concrete-laden dams or barrages.

Other innovations worth paying attention to include Chinese ‘sponge cities’ which aim to integrate green infrastructure (parks, wetlands, permeable pavements, green roofs) to absorb, store and reuse urban floodwater. In Karachi, some ‘sponge city’ principles are being piloted to reduce urban flooding. Lahore has set up some underground rainwater storage tanks as well. And Islamabad has established several groundwater recharge wells. If these initiatives yield positive results, then housing societies and commercial buildings could be required to invest in such measures to better manage flash floods and help stabilise urban water tables.

The private sector and civil society can also step forward to help devise more small-scale flood retention areas. Cumulatively, such efforts have the potential to not only make Pakistan more climate resilient, but more water secure as well.

By now everyone in Pakistan who watch TV should know the science and interrelationship of cloud and glacial burst, flash floods, deforestation and landsliding, hopefully the difference between Cusec as a measure of flow quantum and thus intensity, and MAF as the volume of water which flows through our rivers, floods or no floods. And if you know the science of it, one must also know the consequences, the catastrophe and the loss associated with such levels of water flow. One must also be able to thus place in perspective the politics associated with the issue of water between provinces or between states or the irony of it.

Here is a bit more of science – in fact there is much more but I don’t want to laden you with it; let that lie in the domain of specialists. The water flow in our rivers has reduced to around 100 MAF annually from 135MAF that they carried in 1947. Population growth and reduction in the flow together have pushed Pakistan in the category of water scarce nations. Of the 100 MAF Pakistan stores only 16 MAF in its dams and reservoirs which is abysmal.

Per one estimate, this year with excess rainfall in catchment areas, augmented by cloud and glacial burst, the water that will flow or spread through our rivers will be in the order of 185-195 MAF. Almost twice the amount usually carried. Sadly, it will cause, and has already, caused loss of precious lives, home and hearth, livestock and devastation of the crops which were under cultivation causing cumulative loss of billions of dollars in relief, rehabilitation, recovery and economic loss, making deficiencies in food, health and exports an existential challenge. What is more, almost all of the water will either flow into the ocean — none being preserved and stored, because we have no storage facilities — or stand idle in perfectly good agricultural fields turning brackish over time and salinating our lands. This is quadruple whammy.

And yet we may not have seen such a consequence. Most of it, if not all, is through adverse human intervention and even poorer leadership which has persistently failed to comprehend the challenges that now stare us in the face and have caused immense devastation. From science must emerge the art of management as well as leadership but only if the science of it is first well understood. 185 MAF flow in the rivers will anyway be too much to carry for any river system if the inherent capacity is far lower but there is a case to be made for appropriate infrastructure to manage and control the flow in floods.

Usually, the rivers are a stream only for most of the year. Is there a case permitting controlled dredging by the construction companies and builders to remove the layers of sand that have almost filled the rivers till their upper edges where water above the holding capacity will spread out? Similarly, the embankments can be deepened and reinforced to contain the water flow. Just as we desilt canals in the off season, let this be a recurrent work on the rivers too. Incremental improvement will help mitigate a super-flood.

Next is channeling the water flow. There was a huge furor on digging Thar canals in parochial characterisation of a common national asset. Just as we have deferred nay obviated the thought of Kalabagh Dam in our consideration, we gave up on digging more canals.

The Sutlej came to life in a ferocious return and remains the river in fury as the rest have tended to settle down. With a canal system for and through Thar, it would have made for a perfect water reserve. Further, it would turn arid land cultivable over time with right treatment. Of course, the canals would take a long time building and the waters would have done what they did through the channels that exist at this time but as climate threatens perpetually there will be more such deluges. Maybe we will be able to store better and save better and be better and rationally ready to mitigate the loss and use it as an opportunity to benefit out of.

Canals in Thar will still lie in Thar and should be designed to carry and distribute water when even Indus can hold it in its banks. Climate change will make that possible more often than we like. Should bane not turn into a boon with little innovation and breaking out of stereotypical shackles? Dams, reservoirs and canals remain the primary sources of mitigating floods and storing water. They must remain our topmost priority for the deluges that will now be the routine.

Urban flooding is the result of unplanned urban growth without compatible infrastructure. Our roads, water and electricity, and sewerage infrastructure in cities can only support so many people. Our cities have only grown in multiples outrunning their capacity. Karachi is a prime example. It will be very difficult to dislodge people now but whatever main arteries of water and sewage remain will need seasonal clearing to keep them functional and running. These are known steps but are never paid attention to by municipal authorities. Even routine administrative function can ensure this little is done.

Subsequently, over time, planned distribution of populations that crowd our city choke points need to be relocated. Infrastructure to support such dislocation must be built in parallel. Rural to urban migration must be curbed. For it, money needs to be spent equitably in all areas to enable growth and job opportunities closer to population points.

Climate change is a constant. It isn’t going away. It will define the environment in which humanity will need to coexist. It will rain even more next year and cause severer floods. Infrastructure will take time to develop. Meanwhile, what shall our flood mitigation strategy be with what we have? Can we put in place improved water aquifers to channelise urban flooding into useable storage, at least in Lahore where some sort of rudimentary infrastructure exists?

Institutions such as Flood Control Commission or a similar entity along with better equipped and better led Disaster Management and Mitigation Authority at Federal and Provincial levels need to be established. It can be enhanced later to include all types of contingencies needing emergency rescue and relief measures. It should be a specialist-manned and specialist-led entities. We have played enough by keeping generalists in the lead in our bureaucracy. It is time to make that change.

We are not short of resources or structures, just that over time we let those structures decay with inattention and lack of scrutiny to keep those relevant. It is time to revamp the entire governance paradigm if we must retain the integrity and relevance of government with the people of Pakistan. We can’t give them health or education, we should at least be able to save their lives when catastrophes strike.