Floods in Pakistan and Proposed Policy Choice : A Literature Review Based Study

This paper focuses on the damages done by the flood in Pakistan during year 2010. Pakistan is a developing country which depends upon its agriculture sector at most. Floods always damaged the economy and population at large scale. The disaster of 2010 monsoon flood was massive which killed more than 1700 persons, affected more than 20 million of population and 20 percent of land and a loss of billions of dollars to the country through damage of crops, livestock, cattle and family lives. Essential infrastructure including roads, bridges, dams and markets were severely damaged and many became useless. The United Nation survey assessed that around 10.1 million people were in need of shelter and humanitarian assistance. Around 3.6 million people require assistance in food, more than 1.1 million houses were completely demolished and crops on approximately 2 million hectares were damaged or lost. Flood had sever affect on people’s homes, livelihood and assets. Most of them do not know when they again will be able to resume the normal life. Finally, I have tried to find out some suggestionsto mitigate the effects of floods in coming years


INTRODUCTION
Floods always cause a huge loss of human lives, properties, cattles and live stock.It destruct the roads and other physical assets.The floods of 2010 did the same in Pakistan.The economy is still striving to recover the damages.The areas which affected during the floods of 2010 are still lacking behind in socioeconomics and educational terms than the areas which were not affected at that time.The people of who were already around the poverty line already including small farmers and unskilled labors were affected dominantly.
These floods pushed the government and other agencies to help the needy and work for displaced Pakistanis.Government of Pakistan shifted its resources from other sectors to rehabilitate the affectees.The estimated cost of the floods of 2010 is shown in table 1.The table above reveals that agriculture suffered most of the loss while housing and transport and communication sectors were also affect very badly.Floods strike near the harvesting season of cotton, rice and maize etc while it also affected the onset of Rabi crops i.e. wheat, maize, sugar cane and vegetables etc. while is case of housing it damaged the 392,786 houses and around 728, 192 were destroyed.It is estimated that around 80 percent of the farmers beard a loss in the farm of 50 percent loss of their crops.The most affected districts of Muzaffargarh and Rajanpur in thePunjab, Nowshera and D.I.Khan in KPK, andJaffarabad, Jacobabad, Shikarpur and Thatta inSindh.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
It have been observed that frequency of natural disasters is increasing worldwide since the beginning of this century.
According to Nott (2006) the causes of flood can be divided into two physical (climate forces) and human influenced (urban development and vegetation clearing) categories.Most of the floods are due to natural forces worldwidely and in most of the cases it is due to prolonged rainfalls.Cutting trees has changed the patterns of floods which is due to the human impact.Flood cannot be considered as natural disaster until it damages the human lives or property (Nott 2006).
According to the study conducted by the International Flood Initiative (2003), floods are causing the most of the water related natural disasters which are not only damaging human and material assets but also the cultural and ecological resources.
Ariyabandu and Wickramasighe (2005) observed that women are more affected than men due to their family responsibilities.Moreover women have more knowledge and skills to deal with such natural disasters but most of the time they are ignored in policy making.
According to Sinclair and Pegram (2003) stated that floods cannot be prevented but their effects can be minimized by introducing advance warning systems.More over many poor people live near river banks because these are the only unoccupied areas available for poor populations.These people are at more risk not only due to their location but also due to lack of financial resources they own.Despite making huge investment in its water sector, Pakistan is still vulnerable to flood hazards (Mustafa 2002).Pakistan suffered from major floods in 1950, 1956, 1973, 1992 and 2010.Each flood affected more than 10 thousand lives (Mustafa 2002).The flood of 1992 cost more than 3 percent of total GDP and in 2010 it affected more than 20 million people and cost billions of rupees (GOP 2011).
Floods causes many socio-economic and political dimensions which further give birth to many complex problems.Some of the problems are displacement of people, infrastructure damages such as destruction of roads, crops and loss of cattle and livestock.These destructions delay the ongoing development and political processes (Theron 2007).Theron (2007) further added that these destruction results into shortage of food in long run.

SOLUTIONS FROM EXISTING LITERATURE Emergency Communications and Disaster Management
According to Gene Gapsis ( 2009) effectiveness of all efforts can be increased by adopting multiple modes of communication.Local authorities and communities should join hand to hands with each other to make an effective response plans.These plans then should be implemented and monitored effectively.Focus of these plans should be humanitarian rather than political.These channels should be reevaluated and tested during non-emergency times.Communication channels can be made effective by:

Establishment of Community Emergency Committees:
The duties of this committee should be to build up teams which may effectively communicate each other.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS):
This system can explain the locations of the communities and the time taken to perform safety measures.This can be done by effective mapping.
Emergency Calling systems: This system can be utilized by dial up telephone system.This system can provide information to the communities regarding the facilities available to them in their surroundings.This system can effectively be used to warning regarding the floods in advance.

Mitigating Physical and Psychological Health Effects
Jacqui Jones (2009) pointed out about the physical and psychology effects of floods and how they can be mitigated.Norris (2001) conducted and survey of 50,000 individuals and pointed out that physical damages often lead to psychological harms in the communities.Jacqui Jones (2009) concluded that disaster management is a heavy burden for any economy in the world.More over the recovery of physical and mental damage is always a big challenge.It is need of every country to respond quickly to utilize the available health facilities to recover the people from these stresses.It is also the duty of private agencies and government to work together to provide medical and mental health facilities to affectees.

Evacuation Behavior
According to Serena Charleton (2009) a very critical aspect of flood prone areas is the evacuation of residents.Many residents refuse to leave their homes even after the warning orders.This is psychological phenomenon that many people refuse to leave homes.Strategies can be design to deal with such issues.This can be done by understanding the behavior of people about this.Policies to counteract after refusal may be designed.This can be done by sharing old stories of victims and publishing the pictures of victims in local communities.

Vulnerable Populations in Disaster Situations
Chelsey Andrews (2009) identified the most vulnerable population during floods emergency and what measures can be taken to mitigate the losses.Lien (2009), however suggested that portraying a segment of population as weak may portrait that they are different from other and donot have the ability to face the challenges.This, instead of solving the problem, may actually lead to another problem.Lein further added that people who are more prone to the disasters, usually have more resistance.He further defends the informally settled people of Bangladesh who actually help each other during bad time.(Lien, 2009).
Every person in the world have equal right to survive and avail health and safety facilities during and even after the crises.Kiefer, et al. (2008) says that " having a thorough understanding of the more disadvantaged and vulnerable portion of the community will allow community leader to shape programmatic approaches to enhance their region's resilience" (p.62) to disasters.By having the knowledge of local communities, their weaknesses and strengths means having better option to manage the floods.

Crime during Floods and Storms
Research findings of Courtney Decker (2009) denotes that crime and fear of crime is greatly influenced by the voluntary control networks and their standard.These are the residents of local communities who themselves reinforce the fear of disaster and crimes (Lewis & Salem, 1986).Crime is a social issue which can be reduced by providing awareness to the communities and educating them about current figures in other parts of the world.

Water Supply and Sanitation in Disaster Management
Clean water supply and sanitation are also considered major issues during flood disasters according to Jaimie Golob (2009).Jaimie Golob concludes that several strategies can be adopted to solve these issues.He suggested that each household should have a plan during disaster time to get the clean water.More over community agencies and groups should also be available to help the individuals.During the time of emergency, the focus should be directed towards three things of providing clean water, basic sanitation and the hygiene education.Communities should be educated to purify water at house levels.

Mitigating Housing Losses
Houses are always at great risk during floods.Amy Campbell (2009) denotes that sustainable flood management can provide a better environment to the communities by working more effective.Developed countries are working to mitigate the houses losses and developing countries can learn lesions from them to reduce these losses.

Mitigating Livestock Losses from Floods
According to Susan Wells (2009), food is essential part for livelihood.Livestock is a major portion of human being food.During disasters, animals and livestock is at great risk.In order to maintain the supply of livestock, first we have to focus on the supply of food of the livestock.Small drains can be built to drain the flood water to save the cattle food and agriculture crops.Bangladesh adopted the same strategies to mitigate the affects on live stock.Moreover plan grounds at higher level areas can be built to keep the animals there during disaster days.Sen and Chander (2003) include: • An emergency committee consisting of local people should be formed • Safe shelters for the animal during flood time should be built by involving local community.
• As soon as the intimation news of flood is released, animal should be shifted to safer areas.
• The community should have arrangements for appropriate transport, suitable for specific animals.• There should be a transport system for the animals to evacuate safely

Agriculture Sector and Floods
According to Asib Ahmed (2011) after disastrous losses of Aus, jute, deep water Aman or T. Aman occurrence, farmers need additional amounts of seed or planting material of Rabi crops (especially HYV seed of wheat and vegetables).For overcoming the loss of crop, farmers need training for suitable cultivation.Suitable crop rotation helps farmers to increase production by using additional amounts of seed (including HYV seed, where appropriate), fertilizer and other inputs.There is need to supply the additional amount of credits (or rehabilitation grants) so that flood affected farmers can grow rehabilitation crops, purchase cattle or in some cases, fodder, or increase production of their normal kharif or Rabi crops in the following season.Also, the agricultural loans of flood-affected farmers need to be rescheduled.Provision of long-range forecasting of the seasonal flooding is essential before the beginning of the season, and the information should be accessible to farmers.It is essential that the Ministry of Agriculture and its component (Directorates, Boards and Institutes) should be prepared at all times to deal with an emergency caused by flood affecting agricultural production.

POLICY OPTIONS FOR PAKISTAN
Floods in Pakistan always caused great destruction mostly due to poor management and lack of precautionary measures.It is not possible to stop the natural disasters but their effects can me minimized by taking certain measures like.
• There should be a disaster management fund introduced and monitored at government level.Individuals should also be encouraged to generate such funds at community level.• There should be an effective early warning system at community level involving local volunteers.This system should be updated and evaluated during normal days.• There should be some local health care centers which may help the affectees during emergencies.
• During floods time, crime rates in Pakistan usually increases, special measures be taken to reduce such cases by involving local communities.• During floods time, there should be a system of clean drinking water supply for individuals and animals.
• Flood affects to populations should be minimized by building certain barriers to stop the water entering into cities and villages.• There should be safe houses built for the animal during emergency times.
• New and effective drain system to evacuate the flood water should be built.
• There must be stock of seeds reserved for the farmers to utilize during flood times.More over farmers should be provided with easy credits to grow their crops for next season.• Crops which are less prone to floods such as sugar cane and rice be encouraged in these areas.
• The process of aid distribution should be corruption free and well managed.

Table shows that
Sindh was most adversely affected by the floods in 2010 while Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Balochistan also suffered huge losses.Losses at AJK and GilgitBaltistan were small relatively.Sector wise breakdown of cost of floods of 2010 is presented in table 2.