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THERE is an ongoing shift in the concept of ‘flood management’: from ‘fighting the floods’ we are now ‘living with the floods’. Nature observers say that the floods are not our adversary, and it is human interference that has converted their benevolence into malevolence. For millennia, human beings and floods led a harmonious coexistence. But as population numbers swelled, rivers were chained and tamed to grow more food and fibre. The construction of dams, barrages and canal networks required regulated rivers. Conversely, attempts were made to trammel rivers by erecting embankments to direct their course. Nonetheless, mighty rivers have violently defied these barriers to reclaim their natural paths that had been deliberately changed — the result has been misrepresented as ‘floods’.
The Indus, one of the world’s largest river systems, is fenced by about 7,000 kilometres of flood-protection embankments and around 1,400 spurs. But these structures have only added to the ferocity of the floods. Engineers have used everything in their arsenal to control flooding, but failed miserably to do so. Pakistan has experienced several deluges since its inception. The raging waters have claimed thousands of lives and damaged countless settlements. However, the frequency of super floods has declined over recent decades.
As the lowest riparian, Sindh is the ultimate destination of all riverine floods in Pakistan. Compared with Punjab, the Indus in Sindh flows on a ridge and causes raging floods. British engineers introduced river bunds under the Sukkur Barrage project. The province now has around 2,000 km of river bunds to contain flood flows.
The floodplains, commonly called the katcho area, are spread over two million acres, and include abandoned river channels, forests, roads, settlements, public service structures and farmland. Traditionally, katcho communities, said to comprise millions of people, would leave their homes before the onset of the monsoons and, until the waters receded, relocate to elevated areas. The floodwaters would leave behind tons of fertile, nutrient-rich soil and a recharged aquifer, and farmers would have to do little beyond sowing seeds for a bumper harvest. The coming of the monsoons in this riverine area was regarded as the river’s blessing which gave the inhabitants of the katcho crops and dairy and forest products in abundance.
Embankments have not tamed the waters.
Before the Tarbela Dam was built, Sindh’s katcho area experienced floods of at least 300,000 cusecs — with larger ones of 500,000 cusecs occurring in three out of four years. However, the flood regime has been lost to reckless damming and diversions of the Indus, rendering vast stretches of the floodplains parched. It has been pointed out that influential elements have used the bureaucracy to replace forests with farmland demarcated by illegal bunds. This has resulted in the katcho area morphing into large settlements, with modern facilities like roads and schools and other built structures replacing the original topography.
The construction of new bridges on the Indus have also flouted the principles of flood management. While providing much-needed connectivity, the selection of the sites for these bridges had more to do with the wishes of those with clout rather than any technical merit. The alignment of the bridge connecting Larkana and Khairpur districts was changed several times to appease local influentials. The bridge connecting the two districts is 1.22 km long, whereas the riverbed between the two embankments is 13 km wide. Similarly, the Kazi Ahmed-Amri bridge is 1.32 km long against the 9 km-wide belly of the Indus. Bridge pillars impede flows and cause back-flows and spillover that inundate settlements. In 2010, the time lag between the Sukkur and the Kotri barrages was 400 hours against the normal flow time of 72 hours.
As this writer has highlighted in a previous article, these factors were highlighted by a Supreme Court commission tasked with probing the causes of the 2010 floods. The commission report read, “the local and provincial governments have themselves indulged in encouraging illegal acts promoting encroachments. Unauthorised and technically unsound public works have been executed by local authorities. All such encroachments have contributed to obstructions in the flow of water, resulting in the flooding of many areas. The governments must correct that and ensure that no encroachments are permitted and no acquired lands are sold or leased out. Actions should be initiated by governments to remove all encroachments with a firm hand”.
Pakistan ought to adopt a new approach to flood management. Flood is not the culprit; flood managers are responsible for flood disasters.
The writer is a civil society professional.
Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2025
