• Fishermen celebrate biggest fish and prawn catches in a decade

• Experts warn the reprieve is only ‘temporary’ without urgent water management reforms

THATTA, Pakistan 

Pakistan’s monsoon season left a trail of destruction across the country this year – killing more than 1,000 people, sweeping away livestock and crops, and forcing around 3 million from their homes. Entire areas in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were submerged as rivers burst their banks and towns disappeared under floodwater.

Yet amid the widespread destruction, the southern coast witnessed a rare resurgence. The once-dying Indus Delta has sprung back to life, as floodwaters revived fisheries, nourished farmland and restored ecosystems that had been shrinking for decades.

“After a decade, the Indus Delta has released so much water into the sea,” said Iqbal Hyder, a community leader and social worker in the coastal belt. “It has benefited both fishing and agrarian communities in a way we haven’t seen in years.”

Fishermen, in particular, have been celebrating a season they had almost given up hoping for.

“It’s the first time in 15 years I’ve seen fishermen smiling because of such massive catches of fish and prawn,” Hyder told Anadolu.

Thrill was especially high over the returning “palla,” a prized species that swims upriver from the Arabian Sea to breed. Once so abundant that fishermen gave them away to locals for free, the fish had become rare as water levels in the Indus River and Delta dwindled.

The coastal rice crop also flourished this year – another unusual gain.

“Usually, we would not have enough water for the rice crop during its sowing season,” Hyder said. “It’s been so many years since farmers not only have enough rice for themselves, but also to sell.”

Saeed Ahmad Sethar, senior vice president of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, told Anadolu that the water influx is also rejuvenating dying mangroves and slowing relentless sea intrusion that has swallowed thousands of fertile acres and displaced coastal settlements in recent years.

Biodiversity revival

Covering 6,000 square kilometers (2,316 square miles), the Indus Delta is among the world’s 40 most biologically rich ecoregions, home to mangrove forests, wetland habitats and marine nurseries.

“The Indus Delta is a unique and important part of Pakistan’s ecosystem. It supports a rich variety of life, helps protect the coastline, and provides essential resources like fish and water purification,” Karachi-based ecologist Rafiul Haq told Anadolu.

He warned that reduced river flow, climate change, and human activity have severely undermined its ecological functions.

But this year’s floods briefly reversed that trend. Freshwater pushed back encroaching seawater, revived aquatic species and helped restore wetlands and mangrove forests – all vital for maintaining biodiversity, stabilizing the coast and storing carbon.

The delta, he added, is essential for the marine food chain. Many species of fish, crabs and shrimp are born in the delta’s calm waters before moving into the open sea.

The floodwaters have also recharged depleted groundwater reserves, Haq said.

Temporary reprieve

Agricultural experts caution that the relief is fleeting.

“This one-time reprieve will certainly not suffice to reverse a phenomenon that has been eroding the local lands for at least three decades due to water shortages,” Sethar said. “But it will still provide a temporary sigh of relief to the Indus Delta and its ecosystem.”

He said agriculture has been unable to maximize the benefits of the water abundance because of outdated irrigation methods and poor distribution systems.

“Nature is giving us chances time and again to improve ourselves. If we adopt modern water management and proper distribution practices – ensuring minimum level of continuous freshwater supply to sea, we do not have to rely on floods to fill the delta and stop erosion,” he said.

Another challenge, he added, lies in managing floods to minimize damage.

Haq agreed that the benefits will fade unless freshwater inflows are regular.

“These benefits could be long-lasting as long as the floods continue to occur periodically,” he said. “However, if their frequency decreases, the benefits might be temporary, and the ecosystem might degrade again over time, particularly in regions where groundwater salinity is an issue.”

Damming and irrigation

Environmentalists warn that decades of upstream diversion – through dams and an extensive canal network – have starved the delta of the water it needs to survive.

“The upstream diversion that continued for over a century has led to an ecological disaster in the Indus Delta,” Islamabad-based water expert Naseer Memon told Anadolu.

He noted that the delta’s active area shrank from 13,900 square kilometers in 1833 to just 1,067 square kilometers today – a staggering 92% reduction. Seventeen active creeks have dwindled to only two.

Memon warned that new upstream canals planned for corporate farming would further suffocate the delta.

For a long-term solution, he said Pakistan must uphold the minimum water flow to the sea outlined in the 1991 Water Accord.

“The Indus Delta’s restoration is a national obligation,” he said. “An embargo on new upstream diversions is desperately needed for this national asset to survive.”