The history of disastrous floods in Pakistan since 1990 records several human tragedies in our floodplains. Yet, historically valleys of the Indus nurtured floodplain agriculture for nearly six millennia. One reason for the anomaly is the battery of barrages, dams and head-works that has been constructed all along its drains to increase productivity.
The failure to develop a management strategy for variations in riverine discharge has led to disempowerment of communal actors in national drainage management. People living in floodplains evolved traditional strategies of utilizing flood waters and alluvial deposits over centuries. These procedures were employed by the community without interference by the administration and government. Pre-modern governments concentrated on disaster mitigation, damage control and rehabilitation to whatever extent they could manage. The communities neither expected floods to be caused by executive actions; nor required help during the disaster. Governance in the modern age is expected to control a flood that it is often responsible for itself, and manage the devastation it causes as well.
We have a long history of ‘breach of trust’ on the part of state actors, as in the 2010-11 floods. Influential people arranged the breach of protective dykes at places where it could save their properties at the expense of others. Second in terms of importance, perhaps, but first in terms of occurrence is failure of administration to organize the discharge in rivers so that there should be no need to breach the protective barriers. A third is the executive failure to develop relevant risk reduction or damage control procedures. An eleventh hour decision in case of an emergency is influenced by political considerations. This not only allows for interference by influential persons, but it also precipitates knee jerk reactions.
In order to avoid repetition of disaster, flood control strategies have proved inadequate in practice but they are also flawed in theory. Weather projections can prove inaccurate, and ensuring a balance between water security and excess supply often becomes difficult for the bureaucracy. Executive mismanagement will always have the excuse that a particular deluge brought torrential supplies beyond manageable expectations. Thus it is essential to develop profitable breach procedures where a discharge may be used to advantage. This is possible with breach strategies in which the alluvium is used for crops, and overflows are used for local storage in village ponds, gabar bands and desert irrigation.
In the foreword of the flood report 2010-11 it had been suggested that “the policy framework must shift from response to disaster risk reduction and preparedness.” A policy of breach options based on past experiences, topography and local community survival strategies can reduce the opportunity of political maneuvering in crisis situations. Political interests can be negated or countered when brought into debate prior to a crisis. Even if influential people prevail in places, preparedness would be ensured, thus allowing communities to develop their survival mechanism. If brought to the table before the crisis it should also be possible for traditional wisdom to suggest time tested options.
Some modern solutions are also essential because ‘development’ structures are causes for making small watersheds within the riverine structure and human intervention in the river management. One major non-aquatic intervention is a network of roads that has become more intrusive and extensive with the construction of our motorways. The major aquatic intervention is the canal irrigation system. Both these interventions cut off segments of space especially when levies have been breached in the Kacha region. A breach strategy should thus take into account the free flow/marginal restrictions that affect the quantity of excess discharge that may be accommodated if a breach is made at one point rather than the other. Failing this the flood devastates the canal, road and rail networks also. This is a more significant problem, as suggested in an earlier essay on “Integrated Management of National Resources” and needs the coordination of several arms of state.
The most pressing of national needs is to integrate the management of water resources at the communal level all along the river. The needs of the upper riparian and the lower riparian are fairly well known but we fail to remember that of the 160 mountains above 23000 feet in the world a quarte are in Pakistan, another quarter in China with Nepal and India bringing up the rear with a mere 29 and 27 respectively and Bhutan in the tail with five. Now compare the size of China and India where the distance from the highest peak to the sea is many thousand miles as opposed to barely a thousand for Pakistan. What is the equation between the riparians in these countries vis a vis the highest and lowest point of land in the country?
Also consider the variety of small ecological watersheds that exist between Khunjrab and Gawadar or K2 and Karachi; or more to the point Atabad and Left Bank Outfall Drain near Karachi. Communal solutions are needed to link the agricultural progress and village safety of the communities that constitute our agrarian backbone. Riverine life, water storage and agriculture need small scale solutions to feed the national need.