Pakistan’s escalating susceptibility to climate change-induced calamities necessitates immediate and comprehensive interventions, as the growing incidence of inundations, increasing temperatures, and worsening water quality jeopardize the nation’s food security, water resources, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Experts at a roundtable discussion, ‘Floods in Pakistan: Building Resilience and Insights for Future Planning,’ organized by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Islamabad, stressed the urgent need for integrated responses to these interconnected challenges.
While deluges have dominated national discourse, rising temperatures, diminishing forest cover, and inadequate governance capacities represent equally significant hazards, undermining the country’s resilience. This highlights the crucial role of policy execution, proactive administration, enhancing national water storage, sustainable water resource administration, improving early warning mechanisms, and bolstering local capacity to alleviate the effects of catastrophes.
Climate change expert, Dr. Pervaiz Amir, emphasized that climatic extremes in Pakistan encompass more than just inundations. Soaring temperatures and vanishing winters endanger food, water, and biodiversity. He urged increasing the nation’s forest cover from less than 1% to at least 40% and building dams to capture monsoon rainwater, along with water diversion projects to arid regions.
Dr. Ghulam Rasul, advisor at the China-Pakistan Joint Research Center on Earth Sciences, echoed these concerns, noting that climate change has exacerbated heatwaves and floods in recent decades. He advocated for vertical urban development instead of horizontal expansion and the clearing of natural waterways. He also called for integrating climate projections into urban planning.
Disaster risk capacity building expert Syed Ikram underscored the need to align human capacity with international best practices, suggesting governance principles that empower communities as first responders. He recommended investing in tourism infrastructure as a dual-use resource during emergencies and integrating data and AI technology into climate disaster strategies. Altaf Sher, president of Alkhidmat Foundation, Islamabad, supported this perspective, citing the recent devastating Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) events in the north.
Former Planning Commission member Dr. Tahir Hijazi noted that resilience-focused programs should not just mitigate flood risks but also capitalize on their potential benefits, such as fisheries and run-of-river hydropower. Dr. Imran Hashmi, associate professor at NUST, highlighted the detrimental effects of declining water quality on public health, particularly from microplastics and microorganisms. He advocated for locally developed solutions to manage waste and sewage.
Flood recovery expert Yasir Riaz cautioned that inundations, once considered rare events, are now occurring much more frequently. He attributed the devastation primarily to insufficient local capacity rather than climate change alone, emphasizing the importance of fostering resilience at individual, community, and institutional levels.
Dr. Mujtaba Hassan, head of Space Sciences at the Institute of Space Technology, noted that updated scientific research is often excluded from disaster policies and early warning systems. He advocated for the integration of atmospheric and climate science into national preparedness plans.
Mirza Hamid Hassan, former federal secretary of water and power, highlighted Pakistan’s reliance on external warnings, including India’s unannounced water releases, which violate the Indus Waters Treaty. He advocated for developing indigenous forecasting and disaster management capabilities, reiterating that floods can be beneficial if proactively managed.
IPS Chairman Khalid Rahman concluded the discussion by emphasizing that floods in Pakistan are driven by both climate change and human activities, necessitating integrated solutions. He noted that capacity-building must span from local communities to national levels, ensuring short-, medium-, and long-term strategies work in concert to protect people and resources.