Carson Bonner, Campus Carrier deputy news editor

Lily Verren, Campus Carrier staff writer

Eight weeks of flooding in Pakistan have left one-third of the country underwater, 32 million citizens displaced and has limited access to clean water. While Pakistan experiences an annual monsoon season, it usually is not as catastrophic as this year’s. 

Ahsan Iqbal, the minister for planning, development and reform in Pakistan, said in an interview with the Reuters news agency that the cost to rebuild flooding damages this year will exceed $10 billion. For Pakistan and the rest of the world, this is more than a natural disaster; it is an indicator of environmental, geopolitical and economic change.

Pakistan’s monsoon season ordinarily lasts from early June to mid-August, resulting in about 65% of the country’s annual rainfall. This is vital for agriculture, a sector that makes up 25% of the country’s GDP. This season, however, has been historically heavy, largely to climate change. Although Pakistan emits less than 1% of the world’s greenhouse gases, it is the eighth most vulnerable country to climate change, according to the European Union.

“The warmer the air, the more water it can hold,” Zachary Taylor, associate professor of environmental science, said. “With the warm air, instead of the rains moving through, they tend to rest in one area, resulting in flooding like what Pakistan is experiencing right now.”

While short-term floods will recede into the Indian Ocean, long-term effects can include typhoid outbreaks, water shortages lasting for several months and limited medical access as hospitals work to rebuild. While few countries have yet to reach out to give aid to Pakistan, there are several who are providing much-needed supplies for temporary relief, including Switzerland, Germany, China and the United States.

“What people need there right now are resources,” John Hickman, professor of international affairs, said. “They need tents, they need blankets, food [and] lamps. Switzerland and Germany are offering a little help, which they usually do as part of Northern Europe, but the country with the most geopolitical [reason to give aid] is China, because they have sort of alliance with Pakistan against India.” 

The flooding in Pakistan has provided China with an opportunity to further solidify its status as an ally of Pakistan. The country has sent over 3,000 tents for displaced refugees, as well as offering monetary aid for the beginning of the restructuring process.

The destruction of so much infrastructure has led to intense economic ramifications and Pakistan, one of the most impoverished nations in the world, is now looking to the rest of the world to provide aid to help rebuild and get the country back on its feet. How countries decide to assist may make or break the economic outcome once the flooding has ended. 

“One thing that economists — they call it the dismal science for this reason — [point out is] that there’s often not solutions to difficult questions like this,” visiting assistant economics professor Josh Martin said. “There are often just trade-offs.” 

Direct foreign aid can be temporary boon for citizens, but it can have disastrous long-term consequences.

“In Haiti, [after the 2010 earthquakes], you had this huge wave of worldwide support in order to reach out and help stabilize the country,” Martin said. “Some very non-trivial portion of the population worked in rice farming at the time; they had a big comparative advantage because of where they were situated in the world. A lot of those rice farmers who would have otherwise gone back to work and been able to sell their products like they were post-the earthquake are suddenly having to compete with the free imports from all these countries.” 

He said that countries looking to help should be wary of the potential unintended consequences of providing support to the citizens.

Pakistan scored a 48.8 out of 100 on the 2022 Economic Freedom Index (EFI), which for a large part measures how well the government can define and enforce property rights for individuals and businesses. That places the country in 153 out of 177 countries measured. A low score on the EFI can also indicate the legal institutional weakness in the country.

The strength of financial institutions in the country can have a profound impact on how likely the population and local economics are going to bounce back from stress on the economy. 

“Let’s say that you have a rural farming area, and then you have a natural disaster come through and completely wipe out something like this,” Martin said, “As people return, you want them to have an incentive and the security in knowing that if they return, what was theirs remains theirs. If you have a system of government that is unable to protect the property rights, then people are far less likely to come back, or if they do come back, have the ability to flourish.”

That migration affects far more than simply the newly vacant regions of the country, as well. 

“Not only does [the flooding] stress the infrastructure in that place, but then you have [more than] a quarter of a million people moving,” Taylor said. “So, wherever they move, they’re going to need places to live, and doctors, schools, and water and all that stuff, too. That happened [in the United States] with Hurricane Katrina.”

To mitigate the consequences of that large migration in such a short period, it’s incredibly important to safely get people back to where they once were, so that regional stress does not cause a chain reaction and spread to the rest of the country.

“Once the short-term suffering is alleviated as best as it possibly can be…we probably want to make sure and pay close attention to the legal and financial institutions of the country,” Martin said. “[That way] people can come back and continue to flourish in whatever way that they can.”

Recovery from a natural disaster on this scale is going to be a struggle for Pakistan, especially if flooding like this becomes more common. According to Taylor, as the climate continues to change, hurricanes, heavier monsoon rains and prolonged monsoon season will be more likely. What would ordinarily be considered a thousand-year flood may be expected on an annual basis, not just in Pakistan, but in other parts of the world. Pakistan’s flood may be unprecedented, even compared to the 2010 flood, but it by no means will be the last natural disaster of its kind.