The Pakistan floods of 2010 and 2022 were two major flooding episodes which occurred in Pakistan during the summer and early autumn monsoon seasons those two years. The 2010 floods were concentrated into a couple of weeks in late July and early August. They affected 20% of Pakistan, primarily in the south and east. Nearly two million homes were destroyed, over ten million people were displaced and there were 1,985 deaths. Tens of millions were impacted to one extent or another in a very densely populated country.[1] The 2022 floods were worse still. They lasted between mid-June and October and were so abnormal that climatologists believe they must have been linked to climate change and the heatwave that struck other parts of the world during the same period. As in 2010, the worst affected regions were in the south and east. The official death toll was 1,739 people, but tens of thousands were injured, millions of homes were damaged or destroyed and eight million people were displaced. The regularity of these floods is leading to migration out of the regions which are being regularly impacted by monsoon floods.[2]
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Pakistan floods of 2010 and 2022 chronology of events
Pakistan is prone to major flooding for a number of reasons, some longstanding, some more recent. Firstly, the country lies along the southern shores of Central Asia and the Indian Ocean and is exposed to frequent monsoons between May and October every year. These can bring heavy rainfall. Secondly, the country has numerous long and wide rivers with numerous tributaries, particularly so the Indus River which runs through a large part of Pakistan. The Indus Basin Irrigation System is one of the largest drainage systems in the whole world.[3]
These are longstanding issues which expose Pakistan to flooding, but they have been compounded by modern developments. Climate change is increasing the amount of glacial melt which comes down from the Himalayas every year and this is leading to increased chances of flooding as the water table is raised even before the monsoon rains arrived.[4] Then there is the issue of more explicit human action. Excessive construction in the world’s fifth most populous country has led to vast amounts of concrete being laid down in regions where water would normally drain into the soil. That water needs to go somewhere and it tends to accumulate into areas where it contributes towards the likelihood of flooding.[5]
Flooding is now an almost yearly reality in Pakistan, but 2010 and 2022 were two particularly devastating years. In 2010 the monsoon flood rains were particularly intense in July and August. Almost twice as much rain as is normal fell in those two months. Simply put, this created two much water for the rivers and land to deal with and huge parts of central and northern Pakistan along the course of the River Indus, from Peshawar in the north to Karachi in the south, was inundated with flood waters. Over 20% of the country was impacted. Twenty million people were affected, ten million were displaced and two million homes destroyed. The official death toll was 1,985. There was also billions of dollars of damage inflicted in the economy.[6]
The 2022 floods were worse again, in large part because they lasted so much longer. That year the floods were exacerbated by a major heatwave which covered much of the northern hemisphere that summer, particularly in Europe and in China. When a heatwave hits one region, the water which is soaked up into the sky and held there must come back down again.[7] In Central Asia much of it came down as torrential rain over Pakistan in the late summer and through the autumn of 2022. As in 2010 the worst affected regions were in the south and east, with an unusually large pocket of damage in the east around Lahore. The official death toll was 1,739 people. Over 12,000 people were injured, millions of homes were destroyed and over $15 billion dollars’ worth of damage was inflicted on the Pakistani economy in what has been identified as one of the worst natural disasters in history.[8]
Extent of migration caused by the Pakistan floods
There has been vast migration within Pakistan as a result of flooding in 2010, 2022 and other years. Tens of millions of people have been displaced. Some of this is temporary and some of it is permanent. In many instances, because of the general poverty of the country, people simply return to where they were displaced from once the floodwaters have receded and start building again, aware that the floodwaters will come again in one, five or ten years. In other instances the migration is more enduring. The flooding which has occurred in recent decades has destroyed significant amounts of farmland in ways which mean it can no longer be used for agricultural purposes. As this has happened some rural communities have been decimated as younger people leave for the cities in search of work and a more secure future. Placing figures on this is fraught with difficulty, as Pakistan is a developing economy in which mass urbanization would be occurring even if there were no flooding.[9]
Demographic impact of the Pakistan floods
The demographic impact of these floods has been mixed. Firstly, there is the immediate loss of life, which as we have seen stretches into the thousands. Then there is the displacement, but, somewhat surprisingly, most people tend to simply evacuate to places of safety a short distance away, sometimes moving as little as five or six kilometers. They then return to their places of origin afterwards. This is the story of an estimated 88% of those impacted by those floods. Just 12% of people have tended to relocate permanently. Nevertheless, in such a vastly populous country, where tens of millions of people have been impacted by flooding in 2010, 2022 and other years, this still represents millions of people moving.[10]
They have generally drifted to cities like Karachi, Lahore, Faisalbad, Peshawar and Islamabad. The population of these has grown enormously in the last fifty years, none more so than Lahore in the east of the country where the flooding is often quite intense. In 1970 there were just over two million people here. That figure reached five million shortly before the end of the twentieth century. As of the 2017 census there were eleven million inhabitants, but the estimated population in 2024 is nearly fifteen million.[11] Thus, we have here a city which is growing in part because of flooding and yet the growth of which is also contributing to the man-made factors causing massive flooding in Pakistan in the first place.[12]
See also
Explore more about the Pakistan floods of 2010 and 2022
- Floods in Pakistan: A state-of-the-art review at Natural Hazards Research
- Reflections on the 2010 Pakistan Flood at NASA Earth Observatory
- Causes of 2022 Pakistan flooding at Climate and Atmospheric Science
- Pakistan's disastrous floods uproot refugees and citizens at UN Refugee Agency
References
- ↑ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/PakistanFloods
- ↑ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-30347-y
- ↑ Chi-Cheng Hong, et al., ‘Causes of 2022 Pakistan flooding and its linkage with China and Europe heatwaves’, in Climate and Atmospheric Science, Vol. 6 (2023).
- ↑ https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/06/28/washed-away-pakistans-melting-glaciers-threatens-millions-with-dangerous-flooding
- ↑ https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/09/why-pakistan-drowning
- ↑ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/PakistanFloods
- ↑ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00492-2
- ↑ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-30347-y
- ↑ Hassam Bin Waseem and Irfan Ahmad Rana, ‘Floods in Pakistan: A state-of-the-art review’, in Natural Hazards Research, Vol. 3, No. 3 (September, 2023), pp. 359–373.
- ↑ https://www.theigc.org/blogs/climate-priorities-developing-countries/how-rural-poor-populations-fared-pakistans-2022
- ↑ https://www.citypopulation.de/en/pakistan/admin/punjab/716__lahore/
- ↑ https://dialogue.earth/en/climate/why-lahore-floods-and-how-to-stop-it/