The recent floods in the agricultural hub of Pakistan have been tragic, resulting in the death of people and livestock and destruction of standing crops. There are varying estimates of how much economic loss has been caused. Rough estimates by experts put total damage anywhere between $25bn and $40bn.
Minister for Food and Agriculture, Nazar Mohammad Gondal, says some 20 per cent of the country's total cropland has been inundated, causing a loss of $2.8bn.
This is obviously going to impact on the country's textile and sugar industries.
Experts expect inflation to exceed 12pc in the coming months, which will obviously hit the most vulnerable segment of the population the hardest.
A substantial amount of farmland has been inundated by flood waters and millions of acres of pulse and rice crops have been washed away, which may lead to shortages and high prices.
Initial estimates are that 600,000 tonnes of wheat have been ruined in the flood. Along with wheat and fodder, other crops lost are cotton, sugar cane, summer pulses, rice and tobacco.
And it is the loss of rice that is possibly the biggest blow for agriculture and income. Basmati rice is Pakistan's largest agricultural export and provider of foreign currency, and after last year's bumper crop, the flood is simply devastating. Last year, for example, Pakistan had a bumper crop of 6.7 tonnes of milled rice, and they exported about 5.7 million tonnes.
The official record reveals that about 1.5 to 2 million tonnes of rice, will not be available now.
What is needed to build agriculture back up is for the water to recede during what's known as the Rabi season, from September to October, so next year's crops of pulses, wheat and oil seeds can be planted. The Food and Agriculture Organisation states that around 200,000 cows, sheep, buffalo, goats and donkeys have already been confirmed as dead or missing - but that number could run into the millions.
For many rural Pakistanis, their wealth is in their livestock, with most families having at least a dairy cow, a goat and a few chickens per household.
It is obvious that given how difficult it is to get food to people who are literally clinging to life on minuscule tracts of dry land, it is virtually impossible to get fodder to livestock.
The massive inundation has made grazing fodder almost non-existent so, in short, livestock will rapidly die and Pakistan will require veterinary assistance as well as food to prevent the rapid spread of disease. The loss of cattle may also affect supply and prices of dairy products.
The situation may deteriorate further if farmers miss the winter sowing season, which starts in September and continues until November.
The losses cannot be recouped but we can salvage some losses because of increase in soil fertility. There are many disruptive effects of flooding on human settlements and economic activities. However, floods (in particular the more frequent/smaller floods) can bring many benefits, such as recharging ground water, making soil more fertile and providing nutrients in which it is deficient. Flood waters provide much needed water resources in particular in arid and semi-arid regions where precipitation events can be very unevenly distributed throughout the year. Freshwater floods, in particular, play an important role in maintaining ecosystems in river corridors and are a key factor in maintaining floodplain biodiversity.
The soil fertility in Pakistan was on the decline. The silt deposited by the floods would enrich the soil. Most of southern Punjab was in the brackish water zone due to over-pumping of water. The water level had gone down and salts have crept up. The floodwater that soaked most of the affected areas would bring the water level up and the salts would again go deep in the soil.
Deforestation has been the main cause of devastation caused by the floods. In the hilly areas, the landslides caused most of the damage because the hills were denuded after cutting trees that stop soil erosion. More dams would have reduced the intensity of the floods by storing a large quantity of water, but the flash floods caused by torrential rains could only be stopped if we plant trees along the water courses and do not denude the hills.
Floods happen when water breaks free of its banks, or boundaries, and drenches land that is usually dry. Because seventy-five per cent of the earth is covered by water in the form of oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, rainforests, swamps, glaciers, and springs, floods are common and expected occurrences. But throughout history, humans have chosen to live near bodies of water for their considerable benefits: the fertile soil left when the waters recede, easy access to shipping and trade, fishing, cooking, bathing, washing clothes, plentiful drinking water, and the aesthetic value of the waters.
But there are drawbacks to living by a river or lake or ocean: the land onto which their waters spill is called a floodplain and people who live on floodplains must, as the name implies, be prepared for the eventuality of a flood. Even when dams, dikes, and seawalls have been built to reduce the severity of a flood, the water contained in one place often floods the land upstream or downstream.
When floods descend on populated areas that are insufficiently prepared, they become natural disasters. The severity and lethality of floods in such places is dependent on weather, the ground's ability to soak up moisture, and the people and buildings in the area of the floodplain.
In the daily course of the water cycle, 4,200 billion gallons of water (out of the 40,000 billion gallons which exist in the Earth's atmosphere) fall to the ground as precipitation, 2,800 billion gallons evaporate into the air, and 1,400 gallons soak into the ground or run back into bodies of water, continuing the cycle.
Particularly heavy rains can result in abnormally high water levels; heavy snowfall can cause damage in the spring when rising temperatures cause snowmelt. The ground in a particular area may become saturated, causing unabsorbed water to pool, when a warm or cold front stalls over it, dumping a large amount of precipitation, or when a quickly moving storm keeps passing over the same area in a phenomenon called "training," drenching the land below.
River floods often build gradually and can be measured by scientists, who pay attention to rain and snowfall and calculate the rising water levels and ground saturation to make a prediction about when, and if, a river will overflow its banks. If a season has been especially rainy or snowy, conditions are ripe for this largest and most severe type of flood. People are usually prepared if a timely warning is issued to them. Our experts say that the recent floods could not be predicted as these occurred due unusual disturbance caused by climate change.
The floods in the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab were due to the combined effect of the melting of snows and heavy rains in their catchments areas. Flash floods devastated most of the mountainous areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Kashmir.
River floods are extremely dangerous because the power of the water builds as the water levels rise. Pressure builds, especially at the bottom of the river, and as the water rushes along the riverbed, whirlpools may form. The river can act like a cannon, spitting out tree trunks and other objects at high speed. The raging water carries with it the debris it has collected along the way: uprooted trees, mud, rocks and much else.
Unlike most river floods, flash floods happen suddenly. Because they can occur anywhere - from mountains to deserts - and at any time, they are difficult to predict. They can be triggered by huge storms dropping a lot of precipitation in a relatively short time, like when a storm stalls or repeatedly passes over the same area. Pakistan, unfortunately, faced the impact of high flood in its rivers, plus heavy rains in the flood-affected areas.