Geologists are agreed that the River Indus during the earth's warm period, ending about 6,000 years ago, was more powerful and more prone to flooding than today. However around 4,000 years ago, the climate cooled. The Indus Basin became choked with sediments, eroding off the Himalayas and the building of levees caused the river channel to silt up. This, so maintain many river specialists, has had the unexpected effect of making Pakistan's river prone to even bigger floods when the levees eventually break.
However, Dr James Dalton, water management advisor to the IUCN, maintains that "building levees also brings huge benefits and is essential for managing agriculture, but such systems cannot cope well with extreme events."
Professor Martin Gibling of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada indicates that global warming may be impacting on the intensity and frequency of floods and taking us back to the Indus of 6,000 years ago: "Although many factors are involved, monsoon intensity is especially sensitive to the surface temperature of the Indian Ocean. During times of cooler climate, less moisture is picked up from the ocean, the monsoon weakens, and the Indus River flow is reduced." Professor John Clague, from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, an expert on the Asian monsoon, is reluctant to point to global warming as the only factor responsible for floods in recent years: "There is huge uncertainty... and this is a matter of heated debate amongst scientists at present."
Professor Rajiv Sinha, from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, argues: "What all the climate models predict is that the distribution of monsoon rains will become more uneven in the future. Total rainfall stays the same, but it comes in shorter more intense bursts. What we've done is apply a system from the West that just doesn't work [in South Asia]. That problem has been made worse by deforestation. Trees protect the headwaters from erosion. But over the past half a century, more sediment has been flushed down the rivers as forests have been cut". Be that as it may, there is agreement that the countries where the Indus flows, especially downstream Pakistan, must implement some measures to reduce the impact of flooding, notably ensuring that a certain area around the river banks remains free of abodes and developing an infrastructure that can withstand floods.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan the debate today remains focused on comparisons of destruction between the 2010 floods and the 2011 floods. Two major differences between the two years floods need to be acknowledged right off. First, the 2010 floods impacted on large tracts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Sindh, while the 2011 floods remain focused on Sindh. The reason: the 2010 floods were not an outcome of rains in Sindh but the outcome of rains in upcountry areas. Additionally, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) data reveals that the floods of 2010 impacted in Sindh on areas distinct from those during the 2011 floods or, in other words, the area inundated as well as the flood victims in Sindh are different this year around. Last year 84 districts were affected by floods in upper Sindh out of a total of 121, while this year the number is 23 in lower Sindh. And secondly there does not appear to be donor interest in providing assistance to the flood victims in spite of the fact that the flood narrative is being reported in the international media. And local interest also remains weak compared to last year.
The destruction this year, as noted, is Sindh-specific, so laments many a resident of Sindh, which accounts for allegations that those parties not heavily represented in the Sindh Assembly including the PML (N), Awami National Party (ANP), and PML (Q) are using the floods for political point-scoring. Several members of these parties have publicly challenged the government's damage/loss figures and accused the government of deliberately overstating the damage. In this context, it is critical to note that preliminary estimates of the scale and extent of destruction are available, even though a needs' assessment study would have to be completed before the actual damage statistics are considered irrefutable. The Joint Rapid Needs Assessment commenced on 10 September in Sindh. NDMA, WFP's Vulnerability Assessment Mapping (VAM) unit and Office of Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations are co-ordinating an assessment. On 9 September, the first co-ordination meeting was called in Hyderabad, Sindh. Over 300 NGO representatives attended. Information provided included the co-ordination structures and details of the assessment. PDMA Balochistan has notified the humanitarian community of their plan to roll out a Joint Needs Assessments.
The scale of destruction is comparable to last year's floods or so maintain several PPP MNAs. NDMA claims that the recent rains in Sindh have affected more than 5 million people (31 percent women), among them communities still recovering from last year's floods. The disaster has reportedly taken the lives of over 200 people (39 percent women and children), and destroyed or damaged nearly one million houses, and flooded 4.2 million acres of land. In addition 1.596 million acres have been affected which would reduce paddy output by 2 million tons and cotton by 2.2 million bales. The number of houses damaged is 1.2 million. The number of cattle perished is 8364 while estimates of total loss give the figure of around 7 billion rupees. The numbers, of course, continue to rise. In contrast, last year between 14 and 20 million people were displaced, cattle perished were 55,000 and total estimated loss was 10 billion dollars. Given that the government including the Prime Minister had given a preliminary figure of over 20 billion dollar loss last year, with the needs assessment scaling it down to 10 billion dollars, few would lend credence to the 7 billion rupee loss being estimated this year.
Whatever the actual figure of loss, the fact remains that the President's call followed by the Prime Minister's to the international community to assist the flood victims has not been heeded. The only assistance that has been delivered is 50,000 dollars from China, the rest remains pledged. Thus China, Iran, Japan, the US have so far not converted their pledges into disbursement. Local and international NGOs as well as United Nations are engaged in what is being defined as a cluster approach namely provision of tents to medical facilities to clean drinking water and food. The 7 billion dollars accessible to NDMA is in use and the NDMA Chairman insists that the amount is sufficient to meet the province's September needs.
Whether it is donor fatigue, concerns over allegations of the rich landlords cruelly breaking levees to protect their lands while inundating entire villages (like last year), hijacking of food assistance by dishonest officials (a charge supported by evidence of massive increase in the price of commodities including fuel in the flood-affected areas), lack of transparency in aid distribution (with rampant charges of assistance being extended on a political basis) or the global financial meltdown, the fact remains that the federal government urgently needs to take some measures to not only change public and donor perception of indifference by the public's representatives. But such exhortations have been made numerous times in the past three years and invariably fall on deaf ears.