Pakistan's floods: is the worst still to come?

Nature looks at the causes and consequences of the flooding of the Indus river.

Kate Larkin

Fleeing the floodwaters in Pakistan.Umar

Qayyum/XinHua/Xinhua Press/Corbis

It is over two weeks since the floods began in Pakistan, and the rains are still falling.
Already termed the worst flooding to hit Pakistan for 80 years, this deluge has affected
millions of people, and so far over 1,600 have died.

With the impacts of the flooding likely to continue well after the flood waters have retreated,
Nature examines the escalating humanitarian disaster.

What is the main cause of the intense rainfall?

It is weather, not climate change, that is to blame, according to meteorologists. An unusual

jet stream in the upper atmosphere from the north is intensifying rainfall in an area that is
already in the midst of the summer monsoon (see animation showing the growing extent of
the flood waters). "What sets this year apart from others is the intensity and localisation of
the rainfall," says Ramesh Kumar, a meteorologist at the National Institute of
Oceanography, Goa, India. "Four months of rainfall has fallen in just a couple of days."

Has human activity exacerbated the flooding?

Yes. The high population growth rate in Pakistan has contributed to a rapid deterioration of
the country's natural environment. This includes extensive deforestation and the building of
dams for irrigation and power generation across tributaries of the Indus river. Years of
political unrest have also left their mark, and flood waters are transporting land mines,
posing an extra danger to the relief mission.

Is the humanitarian crisis larger than the 2004 Asian tsunami, as some media
reports have claimed?
 Click for a larger version of this image. JRC

Not in terms of the death toll. With 1,600 people reported dead, this remains 100 times less
than the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami. However, the scale of the tragedy continues to
increase, with around 14 million people in immediate need of emergency aid. Many of
Pakistan's bridges and roads have been destroyed, and severe weather is grounding
helicopters, slowing relief efforts.

On 11 August the UN and its partners launched an appeal for aid, and the World Bank has
announced a grant of $900 million for relief and reconstruction.

What about disease?

The harsh reality is that waterborne diseases are linked to floods — and with cholera
outbreaks reported in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, this flooding
event seems to be no exception. The fear is that a lack of sanitation will see the fatal
diarrhoeal disease spreading. And stagnant water may pose other threats. "The Pakistan
floods and stagnant waters may also cause an increase in malarial cases," says Sandy
Cairncross, public health engineer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

How can Pakistan prepare for floods in future?

"There is currently no effective water management strategy to speak of in Pakistan," says

Shah Murad Aliani, country representative for the International Union for Conservation of
Nature in Pakistan.

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Such a strategy will include building adequate flood defences along the Indus River, where
most of southern Pakistan's population live, and improving flood forecasting systems.
International efforts on this front include the European Commission Joint Research Centre,
which is developing and testing a Global Flood Detection System to monitor the floods from
space.

How will climate change affect the region in future?

"As the atmosphere gets warmer, the carrying capacity for moisture will increase," says
Kumar. Put bluntly: if Pakistan's climate warms in the future, rainfall will increase.
There already seem to be more extreme rainstorms than ever before across the Indian
subcontinent. A 2006 study indicated that this trend may be set to continue — though the
researchers did not unequivocally link this to climate change 1.

But many researchers believe that the present flooding may be part of a longer-term trend.
"Climate change will be a small but steady contributor to rainfall in the region," says Jeff
Knight, climate variability expert at the UK Met Office Hadley Centre. 

Devastating floods have been ravaging Pakistan for over a month, but despite widespread suffering, the
media coverage of this disaster has been casual at best.

Nearly 20 million Pakistanis have been displaced from their homes and put at risk for water born disease,
yet the American media seems to have marginalized the issue, impeding the flow of supplies and
donations needed to provide aid.

Some believe that "the West and Europe have adopted Islamaphobia, which obviously has clouded
humanitarian concerns" (Huffington Post).

You don't have to be a political analyst to see that more social and political unrest isn't what this region
needs. People are suffering, and as fellow humans and activists, it is our duty to do what we can.

Here are 5 things you may not have known about the Pakistan floods. Become informed, and then
take action!

1. The United Nations has rated the floods in Pakistan as the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent
history. Already, more people have been affected in Pakistan than the 2004 South-East Asian tsunami
and the recent earthquakes in Kasmir and Haiti combined.

2. The Pakistan flood may be linked to the fires in Russia. Although the unfolding disasters seem far
apart, they are actually being driven by the same meta weather system, according to a report from
National Geographic. Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the Boulder, Colorado-based National Center
for Atmospheric Research, told the organization, "That's because the monsoon – a seasonal wind system
that brings rain and floods to Pakistan and much of the rest of Asia in summer – also drives the circulation
of air as far away as Europe."

3. Only a fraction of the people needing aid have been contacted by emergency crews. In the 10
days following the initial flood waves, the government managed to distribute only 10,000 food packs,
which contained a box of dried milk, and a few bottles of water and Pepsi. These packages were meant to
"feed" 80,000 people, leaving 1,720,000 without any type of aid.

4. The Pakistan flood may be linked to global warming. In an unprecedented move, the Organization
of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has come forward to formally blamed the flooding in Pakistan on "global
warming," angering some denialists (CNSNews.com). "Indeed, the Islamic world is paying a heavy price
resulting from the negative repercussions of climate change," said OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin
Ihsanoglu at an emergency meeting in Saudi Arabia.

5. The destruction is enormous, and preys on the weak. Reports indicate 62,000 square miles of land
have been affected -- about one-fifth of the entire country. Of the 15 million people seriously affected,
about 50 percent are children.

Take Action!

Care2's Kristina Chew recently provided suggestions on how to take action to help those suffering in
Pakistan:
The New York Times's Lede blog has a list of organizations that are working to provide disaster relief to
Pakistan.    If you've any doubts about how relief funds are being used, see the Oxfam website, which
provides answers to questions such as 'Will providing more aid reduce support for the Taliban?' and 'How
do I know my donation will not be lost to corruption or diverted to an extremist organization in Pakistan?'

Care2 Coverage of Pakistan Floods:

Why is Pakistan Being Left Behind?

Why Aren't We Doing More For Flood-Ravaged Pakistan?

Millions Of Pakistanis Homeless Due To Widespread Floods

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Read more: homeless, media, pakistan, global warming, floods, climate change, natural disaster, united
nations, sustaintmc, russian fires

The current flooding in Pakistan is mainly due to climate change (Report, 9 August). It is the
unusual climate-change-led seasonal cycle of land temperature in Pakistan that has exacerbated
the monsoon rainfall and produced the hugest volume of water in the northern mountainous
region of the country ever recorded in the history, causing floods in the Indus river basin.
Various scientific studies have already shown that the monsoon regions of the world will be
affected by climate change more than any other regions on Earth. 

It is high time that the world in general and carbon-emitting industrial countries in particular
showed responsibility and extended help to Pakistan not only in relief activities for the flood
affectees at the moment, but also for developing a sustainable adaptation mechanism in the
country to mitigate climate-change-led calamities of such kind in future.

Syed Mujahid Ali Shah

University of Greifswald, Germany

• The people of Pakistan may be in God's hands now that swathes of Sindh lie under water, but
for decades they have been in the hands of an Islamabad coterie who have failed to deliver
autonomy or basic rights to its citizens. Pakistan's problems are regional problems and they lie
rooted in bad governance. Islamabad's attempt to centralise a state around Wahhabism promoted
institutionalised Islamic extremism and destroyed traditional values of tolerance. Globalisation
offers a chance to shrug this off and support the viable self-determination of Sindh, Baloch and
Punjab peoples within a Pakistani state – a state that, if reformed, could bring security and a new
model of governance to the region. It's time the international community recognised this and
listened to Pakistan's people instead of its jet-setting leaders.