Pakistan: After the Bitterness of the Floods Comes ‘Sweet Water’

Zofeen Ebrahim IPS News 31 Oct 10;

KETI BUNDER, Pakistan, Oct 21, 2010 (IPS) - Pakistan’s recent catastrophic floods has had many alternately worried and depressed, but the indigenous community that calls the mudflats between the creeks of the Indus delta home has been having a decidedly far different reaction.

Flashing a smile that reveals a mouth stained red from years of chewing ‘ghutka’ (a concoction of tobacco, betel nut and flavourings), 70-something Ayub Dablo says: "With so much sweet water, our land will become green again."

Dablo lives with his extended family in Trippin, a small village on the mudflats of Hajamro Creek in the Indus delta, just where the 3,200-km long Indus River meets the Arabian Sea. Around the village here in Sindh province, which has about 50 people, a large swathe of fertile soil stands barren.

After an unprecedented spate of torrential rains in late July, floods inundated a fifth of Pakistan, affecting 18 million people. But as the government continues to scramble to help the hundreds of thousands of people who remain homeless because of the floods, the mood here is all sunshine.

Trippin villager Ismail Janyaro’s leathery face breaks into a hundred lines as he beams at visitors. "God has finally heard us," he says, waving an arm at the parched land around him. "We’ve been waiting for this spurt of fresh water for over a decade now."

His words are echoed by Tahir Qureshi, senior advisor of the Coastal Ecosystem, Coastal and Marine Programme run by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "No doubt the floods have brought much misery along the Indus," says Qureshi, "but as an environmentalist, I find it a blessing in disguise." Now, he says, the riverine agriculture and the fisheries will thrive.

Bakhshal Lashari, director of the Institute of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering at Mehran University of Engineering, in Jamshoro, Sindh, also says that these floods will benefit the delta for at least two or three years. "The recharge of groundwater near the coastal area will not allow the sea to move upward," he says.

Fisher Mohammad Hassan Khaskehli swears that if the river waters the delta uninterrupted, Pakistan would never have to import grain.

The Indus delta, home to the sixth largest mangrove forest in the world, spans some 600,000 hectares along the coast of Sindh province. It has 17 major creeks and innumerable minor ones, as well as mudflats. It has been declared a Ramsar Site – a wetland habitat with species of international importance – and has a wildlife sanctuary.

According to the Ministry of Environment, mangroves here used to cover a total of 26,000 square kilometres. But natural causes and human exploitation reduced freshwater supply to the area, in turn resulting in the depletion of the mangrove areas to just 2,600 sq km.

Seeing the swollen Indus, Janyaro, 74, is reminded of the old days and recalls, "The delta was once very fertile and lush. There were acres of banana plantations, red rice paddies, olive trees, coconut trees."

That was also a time when migratory birds like the red cranes, swans, and geese came to the delta in droves, says veteran journalist Iqbal Khwaja, who has roots in Sindh. He says that the degradation of mangrove forests, loss of fresh water supply, and the change in climatic pattern not only disturbed the nesting and breeding patterns of birds, but also resulted in the birds changing their routes completely.

Optimism, however, has come to the delta since the recent floods. Says Mohammad Ali Shah, head of the non-government organisation Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum: "The delta’s sagging ecology has been revived. Since the early 1990s, the water coming from the Indus to this part of the country was a mere trickle or sometimes not even that. The recent deluge has recharged the aquifers and replenished the fish stock."

Still, he cautions that while this one-time injection of fresh water will keep the delta in good health for some time, what is needed really is "a constant supply of fresh water".

Engineer Lashari also says that to control seawater ingress, a minimum supply of river water is a must.

Over the years, manmade irrigation networks (of which the Indus Basin has one of the largest in the world) and hydropower dams had drained the Indus, allowing little water to reach the sea. This resulted in the sea intruding inwards. According to Qureshi, the sea has come "54 kilometres upstream along the main course of the Indus into Sindh."

Delta people like Dablo themselves know that a continuous flow of sweet water into the Arabian Sea is needed to breathe life back into the delta. Or as Dablo puts it, "When the sweet and salty water mix, it gives sustenance to the delta."

There are many benefits of fresh river water flowing into the sea, explains IUCN’s Qureshi. For example, he says, "it maintains the salinity level in the sea, and gives a boost to the marine food web".

"Flood water also brings with it huge quantities of sediment rich in nutrients," adds Lashari. "This silt not only pushes the seawater back, but also increases the fertility of the soil so important for sea organisms."

Khwaja observes, though, that with the recent floods, the topography and geography of the creeks have also changed markedly. He comments, "This may mean some (human) settlements may have to be relocated." (END)