This report discusses the recent widespread flooding in Pakistan, which has affected about 20 million Pakistanis. U.S. interest in the flooding stems from the significant humanitarian and economic implications for Pakistan, and the security implications for U.S. interests in the region.
In recent years there have been a number of catastrophic floods that have resulted in a tragic loss of life. These natural disasters highlight the need to further understand the occurrence phenomena, to improve forecasting techniques, and to develop procedures and contingency plans to minimise the flood impact. This volume contains contributions from the 3rd International Conference on Floods and Flood Management held in Florence in November 1992. The volume is timely and provides an important overview for engineers, scientists, managers and researchers of the latest developments in technology, analysis and management.
Citizens’ aspirations for the future are politically important; they are linked to welfare and whether citizens engage in forward-looking political and economic behavior. How do natural disasters affect aspirations, and can governments’ social protection policies successfully mitigate any damaging effects? If natural disasters threaten aspirations, there is strong policy interest in understanding these threats and what government can do to protect aspirations. This article uses Pakistan’s 2010 floods to identify the effects of a natural disaster on citizens’ aspirations. Aspirations were significantly reduced—especially among the poorest and most vulnerable. However, by exploiting exogenous variation in access to targeted government social protection, the authors show that social protection following natural disasters can significantly reduce their negative aspirational effects. This offers a new understanding of government social protection. It not only raises social welfare in the short term by restoring livelihoods and replacing damaged assets; it also has an enduring effect by raising citizens’ aspirations for the future. The authors show not only that the aspirations of citizens matter for citizens’ behaviors, but also that government policies can effectively protect and increase those aspirations. This implies that the value and efficacy of government disaster relief programs are underestimated when aspirations are not taken into account.
No other book can offer such a powerful tool to understand the basics of remote sensing for precipitation, to make use of existing products and to have a glimpse of the near future missions and instruments. This book features state-of-the-art rainfall estimation algorithms, validation strategies, and precipitation modeling. More than 20 years after the last book on the subject the worldwide precipitation community has produced a comprehensive overview of its activities, achievements, ongoing research and future plans.
What is the state's responsibility to its people in the aftermath of a natural hazard based disaster? The book sets out to address this seemingly simple question, after large scale floods devastated Pakistan in 2010 and then again in 2011. Along the way it delves into rich detail about people's everday encounters with the state in Pakistan, uncovers postcolonial discourses on rights of citizenship and dispels mainstream understanding of Islamist groups as presenting an alternative development paradigm to the state. Based on detailed ethnographic fieldwork, In the Wake of the Disaster forces the reader to look beyond narratives of Pakistan as the perennial 'failing state' falling victim to an imminent 'Islamist takeover'. The book shifts the conversation from hysteria and sensationalism surrounding Pakistan to the everyday. In doing so it transforms our understanding of contemporary disasters.
This book is a pioneering regional work and provides a balanced approach of theory and practice in disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Pakistan. The book analytically discusses the status of DRR and draws examples and lessons from national and community-level programs and projects and events in the country. The book covers different types of disasters facing Pakistan, including geo-physical and hydro-meteorological hazards. This work incorporates and draws some of the key lessons learned from the pre-disaster and disaster phases to the post-disaster phase, providing an effective framework in the form of those lessons. The rich content is based on a selection of available documents, a consultative workshop with academicians from different universities undertaking DRR higher education programs, and the editors’ own knowledge and experience in the field. Special emphasis is given to analyzing field experiences from academic perspectives, and pinpointing key issues and the policy relevance of DRR. Disaster Risk Reduction Approaches in Pakistan is organized into three sections with a total of 20 chapters. Section one provides the outline and basics of DRR strategies applied at the national level with supporting examples from a global review. Section two specifically highlights the wide ranges of hazards experienced in Pakistan and presents examples, policy options, institutional set-ups, risk reduction strategies, and key lessons learned. The third section of the book is given to approaches and issues of DRR practices with examples of disaster responses.
This study, Indus basin of Pakistan: the impacts of climate risks on water and agriculture was undertaken at a pivotal time in the region. The weak summer monsoon in 2009 created drought conditions throughout the country. This followed an already tenuous situation for many rural households faced with high fuel and fertilizer costs and the impacts of rising global food prices. Then catastrophic monsoon flooding in 2010 affected over 20 million people, devastating their housing, infrastructure, and crops. Damages from this single flood event were estimated at US dollar 10 billion, half of which were losses in the agriculture sector. Notwithstanding the debate as to whether these observed extremes are evidence of climate change, an investigation is needed regarding the extent to which the country is resilient to these shocks. It is thus timely, if not critical, to focus on climate risks for water, agriculture, and food security in the Indus basin of Pakistan.
Catastrophic floods, droughts, and cyclones have plagued Pakistan in recent years. The 2010 flood killed 1,600 people and caused around $10 billion in damage. The 2015 Karachi heat wave led to the death of more than 1,200 people. Climate change-related natural hazards may increase in frequency and severity in the coming decades. Climatic changes are expected to have wide-ranging impacts on Pakistan, affecting agricultural productivity, water availability, and increased frequency of extreme climatic events. Addressing these risks requires climate change to be mainstreamed into national strategy and policy. This publication provides a comprehensive overview of climate change science and policy in Pakistan.
This book highlights the role that both infrastructure and governance play in the context of resilience and adaptation to climate variability and change. Eleven case studies analyze in-depth impacts of extreme events in projects, basins and regions in the Arid Americas (Unites States and Mexico), Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Nepal, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey and South Africa. They discuss the importance of infrastructure (mainly reservoirs) in adaptation strategies, how planning and management aspects should improve in response to changing climatic, economic, social and environmental situations and what the management, institutional and financial challenges would be for their implementation. Governance aspects (policies, institutions and decision making) and technical and knowledge limitations are a substantial part of the analyses. The case studies argue that reservoirs are essential to build resilience contributing to adaptation to climate variability and change. However, that for them to be effective, they need to be planned and managed within a governance framework that considers long-term perspectives and multi-sector and multi-level actor needs and perspectives.