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The repeated floods of Akistan are often presented as the inevitable tasks of nature. Yet this year, this year indicates a different reality that causes destruction, that these are not purely natural natural disasters, but are the product of extraction development and environmental neglect. The Indus and its assistants have long been snatched from their natural floods, which deprive the property of immovable developments and forests and wet areas that once absorb more water. This has resulted in mass destruction.
Three years after the devastating flood of 2022, we have changed very little into the rule of our rivers. Forest harvesting has been continued, urban expansion presses are deep in the flood -affected areas and the infrastructure is designed to keep in mind the short -term economic benefits rather than environmental flexibility. The result can be predicted: Millions of people have been displaced, the fields of the fields are destroyed and another reminder is that Pakistan’s flood crises are not in the rivers itself, but rather how we manage them.
This year the scale of destruction indicates the point. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the week of rain rains mobilized land sliding and floods, which flowed into the valleys in Swat, Dir and Baner. By mid -August, the number of provincial casualties had fallen into hundreds, bridges and roads were destroyed and all settlements were disconnected from rescue centers. As soon as this increase went into the flow, Punjab entered the crisis. More than 3,900 villages were submerged in Multan and Muzaffargarh districts, forcing nearly two million people to flee their homes. A wide range of cotton, rice and sugarcane crops were washed. Livestock was damaged in hundreds of thousands. By early September, the flood crust reached Sindh, reached around 9 September and indicated widespread evacuation from Sindh as well as low -lying areas. At the national level, more than 900 lives were lost and more than four million people were affected. These are not only the consequences of heavy rainfall but also the results of a system that has left communities exposed and defense.
The encroachments have also eaten in areas where the purpose of the rivers is to spread safely. In Punjab, push for real estate has been particularly harmful: Residential colonies have expanded the floods of Ravi and other rivers, which is shrinking the space available for seasonal overflows. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the downside, hotels and tourism -related construction lines are endangered by the river, tightening channels and when water increases. These projects produce a short -term profit, but at a lot of environmental costs. Pashtuns and Lewis, which are often taken as a protective measure, create a false sense of security. Once violated, they channel the flood waters directly into the bullet up zone. This cycle is not accidental, but a direct result of short -term planning to end long -term plans.
Along with Sindh and its assistants, the river forests once made natural buffers that absorb seasonal flow and slow down the flood strength. They are only alive in pieces. According to WWF Pakistan, the country loses 11,000 hectares of the forest every year, mostly cleansing for agriculture, housing and commercial schemes. This stable erosion of forest cover is not just environmental damage. It also represents the elimination of environmental defense, which once stabilized the soil and reduced the speed of flood water. With forests instead of fields and concrete, each monsoon gets less resistance in its path and destruction is more severe.
The state flood approach revolves around destruction rather than preventing destruction. Each monsoon season brings out an emergency announcement, relief camps and compensation packages. But these are the answers to the destruction that have already been issued, not the steps that reduce the first place. The thing that is missing is environmental rule and a recognition that the rivers need to be expanded, to strengthen the forests and absorb their flow to the wet areas.
Experts have long pointed out that Pakistan’s regulatory architecture is illegal for such work. Environmental impact reviews are often unreasonable, which are designed to meet donor or legal requirements, rather than developing development decisions. Large projects, whether highways, industrial zones or urban residential schemes, move forward with little respect for their overall impact on the river system. Even where there are legal provisions, the implementation is weak: along the river as well as harmony and illegal construction are constructed and replaced. The result is that the short -term dominates the economic privileges. Residential colonies on the flood field promise immediate return to developers, hotels on the river route immediately attract taxes, and mega infrastructure projects generate political capital. Each of these decisions goes away from environmental defense that can reduce floods. Not only is it an administrative neglect, it is also a logical consequence of the governance model that views the rivers as obstacles to development rather than maintaining the living system.
Unless the policy reacts are converted into an active environmental responsibility with reaction relief, the sample will be repeated: limited to rivers, increased floods and destructive disasters. The question is not whether heavy rains will come, but will Pakistan’s governance framework continue to ensure that they will end in the tragedy?
To understand why Pakistan’s floods repeatedly spiral in national calamities, we need to move beyond the rain chart and relief stature. The main problem is squeeze-ivism. Executiveism not only cuts the trees or the narrow sense of crossing on the flood fields, but also as a governing logic that treats rivers and controls the channels.
The roots of this logic are deep. Indus basin was reorganized under colonial rule as an irrigation machine. Barris and canals redirected the rivers to maximize agricultural production, which turned the basin into one of the world’s largest irrigation regions. The language of governance has barely changed. The rivers are seen as a resource, not as a living system with environmental locks. Each back, brown infrastructure, or mega -dam promises to master the water, but in practice, this intervention restricts the river to a time until its natural additions return with more power. The floods then become an inevitable result of the policies made to control the rivers.
The development agenda of the state has pursued this style of thinking. With little respect for environmental consequences, infrastructure is chased for political discipline and immediate withdrawal. Barris and highways are inaugurated as a symbol of development. Their effect on wet areas, groundwater recharge and flood flexibility is often overlooked. When environmental diagnosis is done, they are considered as a technical checkbox rather than a deciding framework. Executiveism not only acts as physical exploitation but also acts as eliminating environmental complexity from the planning process.
In many modern projects, this pattern is seen. The dispute around the Ravi Urban Development Authority has so far been documented. It considers residential colonies on Flood Plane, which has been marketing modern property as non -immovable projects, but in reality, many buffer zones that make cities safer. In Swat, hotels stand uncertainly on the river, tightening natural channels to achieve tourism income. Large dams have been suggested as water shortages and energy needs, but they also deepen the state’s dependence on the river control model.
Environmental spaces that resist commodities, forests, wet areas and rivers. The cost of absorbing floods or maintaining biological diversity does not enter the cost of cost. This eraser relieves rivers of flexibility because their environmental functions are hidden to measure development.
After that, floods are not just nature’s work but also design products. They create a crisis that exposes the bankruptcy of the Extractive Governance. Unless the rivers are recognized as the maximum conduits for profit, each monsoon will re -offer the same cycle: growing water, violated Lewis and a nation counting their losses.
Shehir Khan is a development and communication professional based in Lahore
