Multisectoral Flood Resilience Framework for Pakistan: Insights from the Floods 2010 and 2022
摘要
Floods are one of the catastrophes of natural hazards which humans have ever facing. Due to climatic irregularities and unforeseen monsoon heavy rainfalls, Pakistan is one of the severely affected countries with floods throughout its history. Current research focused on the two very disastrous and catastrophic floods of Pakistan i.e. 2010 and 2022 floods. These floods affected millions of people, their belongings, standing crops, inundated extensive land area, infrastructural damages etc. The flood of 2010 was the worst in Pakistan’s history, which flooded many parts of the Gilgit-Baltistan, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The economic losses were counted about $43 billion and over 20 million people were directly affected. Nearly 2,000 people were also killed. On the other hand, the flood of 2022 was due to the massive and extreme monsoon rainfalls affecting mainly the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces. The economic losses and damages were recorded over $30 billion with above 33 million affected people. Nearly 1,700 people were also killed. It is unfortunate that Pakistan still faces a greater risk of such extreme flooding and weather events due to climatic fluctuations and hydro-physical disruptions, largely because the country is one of the eight countries most severely affected by the climate change. Therefore, this research work briefly attempts to make a comparative assessment of the damages and losses of both disastrous floods and uses existing literature with a special focus on framing out the implementable, useful multisectoral flood-resilient policy measures to combat the flood challenges, risk reduction, mitigation, and promote the flood-resilient community in the country.