Islamabad: Pakistan’s escalating susceptibility to climate change-induced catastrophes requires immediate and comprehensive measures at every level, as the growing incidence of inundations, increasing temperatures, and worsening water quality endanger the nation’s food security, water resources, biodiversity, and livelihoods.
While inundations have taken center stage in national dialogues, increasing temperatures, diminishing forest cover, and inadequate governance capacities pose equally substantial hazards, undermining resilience. This emphasizes the importance of ensuring policy execution, proactive administration, augmenting national water storage capacity, sustainable water resource administration, improving early warning mechanisms, and strengthening local capacity to lessen the impact of calamities.
These observations emerged from a roundtable discussion, “Floods in Pakistan: Building Resilience and Insights for Future Planning,” hosted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Islamabad. The panel comprised climate and sustainability specialists including Dr. Pervaiz Amir, Dr. Ghulam Rasul, Dr. Syed Tahir Hijazi, Syed Ikram ul Haq, Yasir Riaz, Dr. Imran Hashmi, Dr. Mujtaba Hassan, and Altaf Sher. Khalid Rahman, chairman IPS, also participated in the session, chaired by Mirza Hamid Hassan and moderated by Ameena Sohail.
Dr. Amir highlighted that climate extremes in Pakistan go beyond flooding, with increasing temperatures and vanishing winters jeopardizing food, water, and biodiversity. He stressed the need to expand the nation’s forest cover significantly. He also advocated building dams to capture monsoon rainwater and implementing water diversion projects to arid regions.
Expanding on these recommendations, Dr. Rasul noted that climate change has magnified heatwaves and floods in recent years. He recommended vertical urban growth and clearing of waterways, urging the integration of climate projections into urban development.
Syed Ikram emphasized the need for governance structures that empower communities as initial disaster responders. He suggested investing in tourism infrastructure for dual-use during emergencies and incorporating data and AI into disaster management strategies.
This perspective was echoed by Altaf Sher, who detailed the devastating effects of recent Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) in northern Pakistan.
Dr. Hijazi noted that resilience-focused plans should not only protect against inundations but also leverage their advantages, pointing to fisheries and run-of-river hydropower.
Dr. Hashmi outlined the health risks from deteriorating water quality, advocating for domestic solutions to waste and sewage management.
Yasir Riaz warned that inundations are occurring far more frequently, attributing the devastation to inadequate local capacity and urging resilience-building at individual, community, and institutional levels.
Dr. Hassan noted that current research is often not integrated into disaster protocols and early warning mechanisms, advocating for the inclusion of atmospheric and climate science into national preparedness plans.
Hamid Hassan highlighted Pakistan’s reliance on foreign alerts, advocating for domestic competence in forecasting and managing calamities, reiterating the potential advantages of actively managing inundations.
Concluding the discussion, Khalid Rahman emphasized that flooding in Pakistan stems from both climate change and human activity, requiring comprehensive remedies. He noted that capacity-building must extend from local to national levels, ensuring that short-, medium-, and long-term strategies function together to safeguard people and resources. #