icon/64x64/livelihoods Livelihoods

Floods: Live with water, don’t fight it

The idea of controlling floods with dams, dykes and by changing natural systems is outdated, argues Dr Hassan Abbas
<p>Indus D(Photo of Indus Delta from NASA)</p>

Indus D(Photo of Indus Delta from NASA)

Many people in Pakistan believe that “only if we had more dams” the floods would not devastate us.

But should we further dam our rivers and damn the environment for the sake of a happy, prosperous and a flood-proof Pakistan?

I begin with a few numbers. The average flow in Indus Basin, famously the five rivers, is approximately 180 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year and almost 75% of it flows during the monsoon.

Past civilizations here were built around the flowing waters – and not vice versa. But so called “water experts”, equipped with borrowed money, engineering and technology, now do the complete opposite. Instead of building our modern civilisation around the flowing waters, they built the waters to flow around it. They tried to tame the mighty rivers through the Tarbela and Mangla dams and make deserts bloom with diversion barrages, flood protection dykes, link canals and so forth. They finally tried to tame the Indus which had flowed wildly for the past 40 million years or so. But this has not quelled the floods.

Why we can’t store flood water

Back to the numbers – the Tarbela dam can hold 12 bcm, Mangla 7 bcm, all other smaller ones combined, another 3 bcm. Kalabagh, if it is ever built, would add a modest 6 bcm. But we are up against 135 bcm during the monsoon.  And once the dams are filled, the river is wild again. The 1992 floods downstream of Mangla killed over 1,000 people and affected over 4 million more. While we may argue about the pros and cons of dams, at least they can’t stand in the way of floods.

On top of this, dams lose their storage capacity as they fill up with silt and cannot perform as effectively beyond a couple of generations. But worst of all, dams, diversions, and flood protection dykes deprive wetlands, marshes, riverine forest and groundwater dependent ecosystems of water. These natural ecosystems are like sponges, they absorb water during the wet seasons and gradually release it during the dry season and they perform the most important function of breaking the flood peaks during torrential downpours.

In the short term, it may be an advantage to dry up lands along the rivers and put them to “productive” use. And when these low lying areas are protected by dykes we complacently built dwellings and other infrastructure. In the long run, however, loss of these ecosystems means lost capacity of the river basin to absorb water and break flood peaks. Diversion barrages exacerbate silting process in the river channels which results in rising river beds and reduced flow capacity.

Consequently today, even normal flood events, well within the design capacity of the engineered-system, often spill over the dykes. No wonder the same magnitude of floods in 1929 and 2010 had different consequence such as river avulsions in Sindh.

Perhaps technology and borrowed money gave us more power than our limited knowledge could safely handle. We wrecked our river systems without even knowing. We forgot that a desert is a desert because forces of nature are incessantly at work to expel water from that region, and a river is a river because the forces of nature are continuously pushing the water into this path.

On the one hand, misfortunes befell the poor communities, now stuck in the deserts, when the engineered systems fail to provide them with sufficient water.  On the other, ‘floods’ are surrounding people now living in the empty river beds, dried wetlands, and active flood plains, when ‘usual’ waters of monsoon are just passing by.

The concept of fighting and controlling the floods through changing natural systems is out-dated. The world’s leading water experts argue that the “change-fight-control” approach has to gradually, and systematically metamorphose into a “conform-adapt-manage” approach.

Currently, we are sucking our rivers dry by diverting all we can into the agriculture sector, and yet, agriculture demands more water. But to restore our wetlands, marshes, forests and other ecosystems, we need to put the water back into the river. The dilemma is how can we do that without jeopardising the country’s food security and agrarian economy.

Comments (27)

The famous Baloch poet Ata Shad had given this advice a quarter century ago:

سیلاب کو نہ روکیے رستا بنائیے
کس نے کہا تھا گھر لب دریا بنائیے

“Don’t stop the flood, give it the way instead;
Who had asked you build your house in the river bed?”

The famous Baloch poet Ata Shad had given this advice a quarter century ago:

سیلاب کو نہ روکیے رستا بنائیے
کس نے کہا تھا گھر لب دریا بنائیے

“Don’t stop the flood, give it the way instead;
Who had asked you build your house in the river bed?”

You have identified the constraints, irritants, negatives, pitfalls but have not offered a solution. Ee have to store all rain water and let it flow to sea in controlled manner. The water that flows in monsoon should flow in 12 months. Storage is the only solution.

My next article will discuss an integrated suite of solutions. Storage is just one of them, and we don’t necessarily need dams for it. A flowing river is a healthy river and creates a healthy environment. I will discuss the potential and possibilities that we have in the Indus Basin whereby a flowing river can produce more food and generate more commerce than a dried out and constrained one,

You have identified the constraints, irritants, negatives, pitfalls but have not offered a solution. Ee have to store all rain water and let it flow to sea in controlled manner. The water that flows in monsoon should flow in 12 months. Storage is the only solution.

My next article will discuss an integrated suite of solutions. Storage is just one of them, and we don’t necessarily need dams for it. A flowing river is a healthy river and creates a healthy environment. I will discuss the potential and possibilities that we have in the Indus Basin whereby a flowing river can produce more food and generate more commerce than a dried out and constrained one,

A paragraph seems truncated by some error -Here is the complete text:-
“Consequently today, even normal flood events, well within the design capacity of the engineered-system, often spill over the dykes. No wonder the same magnitude of floods in 1929 and 2010 had different consequence such as river avulsions in Sindh.”

A paragraph seems truncated by some error -Here is the complete text:-
“Consequently today, even normal flood events, well within the design capacity of the engineered-system, often spill over the dykes. No wonder the same magnitude of floods in 1929 and 2010 had different consequence such as river avulsions in Sindh.”

I completely agree with Dr. Hassan Abbas. Rivers support living ecosystems all along their course; they may not be simply treated as water transportation channels.

I completely agree with Dr. Hassan Abbas. Rivers support living ecosystems all along their course; they may not be simply treated as water transportation channels.

Restoring wetlands appears to be a very good and practical solution.indeed no one has the right to destry the 4 billion year old legacy bequethed to us in form of species and biomes in the name of dams. Dr Hassan Abbas has provided a bird’s eye view of the problems and their solutions. Hats off to him

Restoring wetlands appears to be a very good and practical solution.indeed no one has the right to destry the 4 billion year old legacy bequethed to us in form of species and biomes in the name of dams. Dr Hassan Abbas has provided a bird’s eye view of the problems and their solutions. Hats off to him

Dr Hassan Abbas has enlightened us by creating this awareness. Although I’m not an expert on water, I think that we must not repeat the mistakes done in the past, rather we should strive to find solutions based on the lessons learnt from these mistakes. If we keep on ignoring the environment, one day it may be too late and our future generations might have to pay a heavy price for this.
The last two hyperlinks are worth reading as they give an insight into the contemporary knowledge about this issue. Lets see what solutions the author offers in his next article.

Dr Hassan Abbas has enlightened us by creating this awareness. Although I’m not an expert on water, I think that we must not repeat the mistakes done in the past, rather we should strive to find solutions based on the lessons learnt from these mistakes. If we keep on ignoring the environment, one day it may be too late and our future generations might have to pay a heavy price for this.
The last two hyperlinks are worth reading as they give an insight into the contemporary knowledge about this issue. Lets see what solutions the author offers in his next article.

Hassan you should also research that where would have Pakistan stood if the existing dams were not there from irrigation, agriculture and energy production point of views. Pak is almost declared a “Water scarce” country just because we failed to build more reservoirs- not because of advise by experts like you but because of ignoring experts who hold opp views than you, callous attitude of our ldrs and corruption. Thx God people didn’t blindly followed your approach in the past or else today we would have been w/o the dams that exist nor there would have been any irrigation sys for our agri based economy. Our agriculture sys would have been rudimentary. 100 % water would have been drained into Arabia sea. Your view is more of an environmentalist and going by your views there shouldn’t have been industry too. Where the world has reached in development today it is all at the cost of disturbing the mother nature. I think if we want to preserve nature then we might have to go back to pre-industrial revolution era. I think there is a need to strike a balance in every approach to benifit from the nature and preserving it at the sane time

Hassan you should also research that where would have Pakistan stood if the existing dams were not there from irrigation, agriculture and energy production point of views. Pak is almost declared a “Water scarce” country just because we failed to build more reservoirs- not because of advise by experts like you but because of ignoring experts who hold opp views than you, callous attitude of our ldrs and corruption. Thx God people didn’t blindly followed your approach in the past or else today we would have been w/o the dams that exist nor there would have been any irrigation sys for our agri based economy. Our agriculture sys would have been rudimentary. 100 % water would have been drained into Arabia sea. Your view is more of an environmentalist and going by your views there shouldn’t have been industry too. Where the world has reached in development today it is all at the cost of disturbing the mother nature. I think if we want to preserve nature then we might have to go back to pre-industrial revolution era. I think there is a need to strike a balance in every approach to benifit from the nature and preserving it at the sane time

Finally a professional’s realistic view about dealing with natural processes. But how will the readership absorb this non-absurd preposition in this age of absurdity?
Please correct the caption of the title photo from Indus Valley to Indus Delta.

Finally a professional’s realistic view about dealing with natural processes. But how will the readership absorb this non-absurd preposition in this age of absurdity?
Please correct the caption of the title photo from Indus Valley to Indus Delta.

With all these dykes, bridges, dams and road network, we have effectively intruded upon natural hydrological regime. We need to come up with some solutions. How about not lining the canals and thus increasing the infiltration into vast acquifers of Indus plains, How about diverting some of flood water thru cholistan to abandoned Hakra, Ghagra?. Just some wild suggestions. But I think we need to designate the riverine low land Kutcha area as protected area where habitation of humans should be stopped

With all these dykes, bridges, dams and road network, we have effectively intruded upon natural hydrological regime. We need to come up with some solutions. How about not lining the canals and thus increasing the infiltration into vast acquifers of Indus plains, How about diverting some of flood water thru cholistan to abandoned Hakra, Ghagra?. Just some wild suggestions. But I think we need to designate the riverine low land Kutcha area as protected area where habitation of humans should be stopped

A good article from Dr Abbas. However we need to understand that whatever the human being do, will be a interference in mother nature. Furthermore, with current level of population of the world, we can support without construction of dams and canal systems. Can you feed your current 220 million population of Pakistan, can you think feeding without terbella and Mungla dam and other irrigation system? I don’t think so. Then what should be done then? Only solution is to find such designs which are least disturbing the nature.

Add a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.