escending from an 8,611-metres peak at the majestic K2 to the tidal mudflats of the Arabian Sea, Pakistan’s landscape encompasses a range of climatic zones over a straight-line distance of about 1,550 kilometres. This fascinating topography hosts diverse ecosystems comprising snow-packed mountain peaks, forests, plateaus, hills, deserts, sprawling plains, mighty rivers, hill torrents, islands and coastline. This tapestry of nature is prone to numerous vulnerabilities aggravated by climate change. Millions of under-served dwellers in these diverse ecosystems become more vulnerable with every climate shock. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), mudslides, landslides, avalanches, flash floods, cloudbursts, riverine deluges, droughts, heatwaves, forest fires, soil erosion are some of the manifestations of climate change.

Millions of people—mostly poor—living in these regions, encounter frequent disasters that aggravate their penury and heap more miseries with every climate shock. Communities living near glacial highlands, flood plains, mountain foothills, low lying urban and peri-urban areas, arid plains, deserts and the Indus Delta bear the brunt of nature’s wrath more frequently and severely than residents of urban centres. These communities are characterised by abject poverty; lack of civic services and infrastructure; degraded natural resources; and undernourishment. The development deficit deprives them of resilience against unkind twist of climate. Post-disaster recovery and rehabilitation become a remote possibility for such isolated communities.

Pakistan’s highlands—Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral—are home to over 13,000 glaciers. Rising temperatures have expedited glacial melting. The process has created over 3,000 glacial lakes, including 33 identified as potentially dangerous. Over 7 million people are vulnerable to GLOFs in mountains. Spiralling population, vanishing natural forest and chronic poverty compound these risks. More than a fifth of the population in these areas lives below the poverty line, making them particularly vulnerable to disasters.

Valleys and hamlets in Hunza, Ghizer, Skardu, Astore and Chitral hav-e repeatedly seen their rickety houses, roads, bridges, water channels, croplands and power plants being swept away by suddenly bursting glacial lakes. The Karakoram Highway, the country’s vital trade corridor with China and a popular route for summer tourists, remains disconnected for several days due to landslides and detritus of flood ravaged bridges and roads. Poor farmers lose not only standing crops but also the precious irrigation infrastructure painstakingly built over decades. Damaged roads also disrupt supply of essential goods from settled areas. Schools and health facilities become inaccessible.

Other least studied climate hotspots stretch across Pakistan’s hill torrent belt. Low elevation mountain ranges in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur in the Punjab; Dera Bugti, Barkhan, Musakhel, Kohlu, Zhob in Balochistan; Dera Ismail Khan and Tank in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; and Jamshoro, Dadu and Qambar Shahdad Kot in Sindh also bring high velocity spate flows during monsoon rains. Seasonal hill torrent flows are a source for subsistence agriculture of local communities. These communities survive on meagre natural resources. Climate-triggered cloudbursts and heavy downpours roll down boulders and tonnes of sediments to the foothills, destroying their shabby houses, seasonal crops and livestock. The British-era flood protection infrastructure is repeatedly breached by high energy floods of the hill streams.

No authority has conducted a detailed mapping of their vulnerability. Hardly any mitigation measures have been taken. The catastrophic floods of 2022 provided stark evidence of this phenomenon. Many villages remained cut off for weeks because the winding access tracks were eroded making it impossible to dispatch food, medicine and other emergency support. These are among the country’s most neglected and deprived communities, lacking access to education, healthcare, safe drinking water, sanitation and livelihood opportunities. Living in remote desolated places, their miseries barely get any camera clicks.

Riverine flood plains called katcha areas in the Punjab and Sindh are rich in food production potential but extremely vulnerable to riverine floods. Benefitting from residual moisture and shallow groundwater table in katcha plains, these communities harvest bumper grain yields, abundant dairy production and fish catch. Nonetheless their standing crops, livestock, granaries, thatched shelters are frequently ravaged by the summer surge of rivers.

Located within the floodplains, they often lack land and house titles. This denies them compensation. The 2022 floods impacted over 33 million people across the country. Much of this disaster devastated already poor rural households that possessed few resources to rebuild houses from mounds of debris.

The climate roller-coaster has also unleashed ecological disaster in the Indus Delta located at the tail of the river system of Pakistan. A once thriving ecosystem that is now gasping due to irreversible degradation triggered by climate change and hydro greed of upstream. Fresh water flows to the delta have plummeted since the 1960s when a series of storages, barrages and canals were constructed upstream. The delta receives scant water and silt to abate sea intrusion. Millions of coastal communities living in Thatta, Sujawal and Badin stand on the lowest rungs of national human development index.

It is expedient to develop a climate mitigation and social uplift plan for climate vulnerable areas and communities of Pakistan. These communities absorb horrendous disasters and shield urban populations and economies in the face of climate change.

The writer is the senior advisor on water governance at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute. He can be reached at [email protected].