Floodwaters welcomed in Indus delta

After the destruction elsewhere, there is now joy and hope for those at the mouth of the Indus river.

REVITALISED: The floods have brought an ecological windfall. A scene near Thatta, Sindh Province.

Ali Hussain's sun-beaten face cracked into a broad smile, revealing a set of ferociously rotten, red-stained teeth corroded by years of chewing tobacco and betel nut. He had been asked his opinion of this year's flood.

“We're happy with it, of course,” the fisherman said, standing outside his house on the mud flats of the Indus delta. “We've been waiting for this water for the past 14 years.” The curse of the rest of Pakistan has been a blessing for the delta, a maze of mangroves and shabby fishing villages at the mouth of the 3,000-kilometre river. Here, the fresh water that ravaged the rest of the country is bringing new life and renewal.

Fish catch is up

Fishermen report an abundance of fish. Catches are up 20 per cent in the last month, and could rise another 50 per cent as the season progressed, said Ahmed Ullah of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, which has 5,000 members on the delta. “For other people the floods have been bad news. But for us it was the only way to defeat the sea,” he said.

Perhaps more significantly, the floods have brought an ecological windfall. Decades of building irrigation and hydro-electric dams further up the Indus drained the river of its force, allowing salty fresh water to infiltrate the delta. Mangrove plants on the mudflats perished — the acreage was halved between the 1950s and 2009 — while nearby farming land became uncultivable.

Now the swell of fresh water — known locally as “

mithi ”, or sweet water — has injected new life into the sagging ecosystem. The provincial government says the mangroves are growing again as the salt water is pushed back.

“We have a new defence against the sea,” said Mohsin Chandna, head of the Sindh coastal department, as he weaved a small boat through the creeks of the delta, pointing to thriving mangrove nurseries.

A revitalised delta could, in time, turn marshes into agricultural land and herald a return of birds and other wildlife. Keti Bunder, a shabby little port that has been slowly dying over the years, could be revived. “Suddenly things are changing very fast,” said Chandna.

Further up the coast in Karachi, where 50,000 refugees are sheltering, doctors also see a silver lining to the flood.

Although many live in squalid conditions, with poor sanitation and hygiene, Dr Nighat Shah of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Pakistan said it was a golden opportunity to improve healthcare among rural women.

“Many of the women we're seeing have never been seen by a trained doctor before. It's taken everyone by surprise that this kind of poverty exists today.” The greatest upside, however, may occur on the lands that have been ravaged by the floods. The enriched soil is expected to produce bumper harvests in some parts of Pakistan. “The challenge,” said U.N. official John Long, “is how to support the people who live there between now and then.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010