2. RESEARCH

- ECONOMY -

Karachi is a culturally rich city that accepts everything and everyone, rapidly becoming the economical backbone of the country by the variety of both macro- and micro scaled private enterprises. Although it may sound very positive, the very fast-growing density and unbalanced organization between public and private sectors created a loss of cultural identity in the city, people sending money to the outsides of the city result in crumbling infrastructures directly impacting the quality of life of its citizens.

The lack of efficient urban programming throughout the years brought several systemic issues endangering Karachi’s population even more. The very extensive economical activity of 23 million people in Karachi, both formal as informal, creates a immense production of income but also uncontrolled production of disposable products. People need innovative and sustainable solutions.

- CLIMATE CHANGE -

Overall, climate change has caused a series of debilitating effects on the weather in Karachi, with a rise in average annual temperatures, increase in heat wave days, rise in sea levels, and a decrease in winter and summer rainfall in the arid plains and coastal areas.

According to a recent study by the Karachi Urban Lab, titled 'Designed to Fail? Heat Governance in Urban South Asia: The Case of Karachi', Karachi’s temperature has increased by 2°C - 4ºC at night and 1.6°C during the day over the last 60 years — an increase that is substantially higher than the global temperature change.

Given these alarming statistics, it is crucial to examine Karachi’s urban development discourse and future visions of smartness, especially in relation to heat. This, however is not the only problem. Next to the heat, the overall humidity is also stepping up, transforming the city of Karachi into a huge furnace.

- HEAT WAVES -

In 2015, a very deadly heat wave took place in Karachi, killing about 1.300 people.

This loss of human life is not only a result of extreme temperatures of 45+ degrees, but rather a combination of different aspects like water shortage, electricity cutouts, heat island effect, poor soil permeability, etc.

Karachi’s rapid growth has heightened people’s exposure and vulnerability to heat. At least half of all Karachiites live in informal settlements, with little access to infrastructure and vital services.

However, in July 2015, Karachi experienced low air pressure phenomenon, which stopped the air circulation and led to extreme overheating of the densely built-up areas. Extreme heat lead to rapid drought of land, followed by heavy rains resulting in flooding because of poor absorption of water by the ground or drains.

- NEED FOR SHADE -

When all the previous climatic factors are summed up, you run for cover.

Any form of shade or cover, whether they are trees or sheets tied overhead, it helps reduce the felt temperature by an average of 4°C to 5°C.

The problem is, it has become increasingly difficult to find cover in this concrete jungle. Karachi is hot, not only because of the aerial temperature, but also its humidity, exacerbating the felt temperature, making it even hotter.

The urban heat island effect, land surface temperature, air temperature, relative humidity and land cover with vegetation are the core factors that must be taken into account to ascertain the spatiotemporal patterns of urban heat islands. The complex interaction of global heating, urban warming and further use of heat-retaining materials in cities have made citizens’ lives difficult.

- POPULATION -

Officially, Karachi inhabits 16 million people, while the real numbers reach up to more than 23 million people. The population density varies from 1.000 and up to 3.600 people per square kilometer or around 2 people per square meter. With this population density, Karachi is facing various issues today. However, the density itself is not the main problem here.

As mentionned above the official and unofficial numbers of population vary drastically, and more than 7million people apparently do not exist according to the government.

Although these people may be considered illegal or irregular in some situation, informal citizens represent 56% of the National Gross Domestic Product.

Karachi is responsable for

25% of Pakistan national GDP

70% of the National Income Tax Revenue

95% of the International Trade

30% of Large Scale Manufacturing

Inside the formal percentage, Karachi’s informal economy is

56% of the 25% of national GDP percentage

40% of the 70% of National Income Tax Revenue

53% of the 95% of international trade

17% of the 30% large scale manufacturing

FLOODS

Flooding is a global phenomenon which causes widespread devastation, economic damages and loss of human lives.

In Pakistan, it is the single most damaging natural hazard, with 21 major floods having ravaged the country between 1950 and 2010. According to an Asian Development Bank report, around 8.887 fatalities were reported in this period. Financial losses were up to $19 billion (2010).

The 2010 mega flood impacted the lives of nearly 20 million people, or 10 per cent of the country’s population. This mega flood alone is estimated to have caused losses worth $10 billion (or 5.7% of that year’s Gross Domestic Product) in lost productivity due to damages to infrastructure, agriculture and ecosystem services. During the following five years, a major flood event occurred at least once each year, affecting millions more. During this summer of 2022, a new flood hit Pakistan, killing thousands and obligating millions to migrate from their livelihood to survive.

We observed different types of floods in Pakistan, such as coastal floods due to the uprising of sealevel or continental floods, occuring because of heavy rains due to fast evaporation of continental waters. These are caused by the very poor infiltration of water into the earth, heat enhances the phenomenon of evaporation and poor soil permeability. Finally, flash floods, occuring because of continental flood together with heavy rains, if the urban fabric can’t handle the amount of water coming downstream, flash floods will occur, endangering the lives of everyone staying in its way.

Since 2010, floods have become the most impactfull climatic phenomenon. We observe that since this same year, floods have become a systemic issue repeating every year, being the source of many problems for the citizens of Karachi. Most of the people affected are economically vulnerable and as Karachi thrives by its informal communities, the impact on the city is very neat.

33 million people have been displaced due to the flood this summer. We observe a yearly movement of people leaving the city to come back as it is economically attractive and rentable to live and work in Karachi.

We found out that these migrating group are called Internally Displaced Persons (IDP)

- NALAS -

During the flashfloods, the most impacted parts of the city are the nalas, as these nalas are the principal stream for water evacuation. These nalas used to be natural drains that brought the continental water downstream to the rivers and later on to the Arabian Sea.

We will focus on flashfloods in this project, as we see the potential to design a project that could fit the need of informal communities to be resilient against floods and rise awareness on how exposed they are to floods.

We observe from this table, that what used to be natural drains became nalas, responsable for the sewage and drainage of water. A lot of waste ends up in this nalas, perpetuating the problem of backlog and encroachment. From previous research, we conclude that the mapping of nalas became a very important tool to understand the situation of water management in Karachi.

During the research, we came across the common belief or myth that mass-migration would be at the core of the pollution of the nala’s. These is taken as an empirical fact, as before 1900, Nala’s were used as stormwater drainage and split sewages where black water was treated to grow vegetation. After the independence in 1947, a mass-migration took place, attracting more than 800.000 people from India and Afghanistan to Pakistan. People were attracted by the ecnonomical hub that Karachi became and for most of the people migrating, Karachi was the place to be.

This mass-migration put the social fabric under pressure all throughout Pakistan, and made Karachi enter the list of Hypertransforming cities. After The year 2000, following various economic, diplomatic and climatic issues, a new group called IDP’s or Internally Displaced Persons are constantly on movement, few migrate but come back to Karachi a soon as they can afford it.

Inside the group called IDP’s, millions of people come back to Karachi to find the livelihood they seek for, the most vulnerable between them have no other choice than seek for vacant plots to live or build on. Although most of them do have good proffesional lives, most are still living in informally constructed buildings in area’s where housing is illegal.

- IMPACT -

Inside the group called IDP’s, we find people living in vulnerable conditions, most of the people impacted by the floods are uninformed communities and citizens. Unaware of the danger and/or the impact that the flood could possibly have, vulnerable dwellers migrate from which they loose their life investments, and because of the abscence of help, the more vulnerable citizens end up losing their life.

Before the last flood occured on August of 2022, there had been 29 neglected flooding reports in 1 month. The floods is responsible for 8 burst dams, severe damage to bussinesses and bank headquarters.

Water raised 126 cm high in 3 hours, dragging everything with it for more than 10km, forcing people to flee or stay, with all the consequences attached to it.

- GOVERNMENTAL CONCERN -

1. CONTEXT

GOVERNMENTAL CONCERN The Government is aware of the issue and are concerned about the lives beeing taken from these climatic phenomenons such as floods and thrive to tackle these issues for more than a decade now.

In an interview with Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, he empathetically shared his concerns and advices, but all throughout the interview, the foreign minister is consistently pointing finger to the rest of the world. We could frame his position in his conclusive sentence were he said ;

Foreign Minister of Pakistan

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari- 36 -

‘... the citizens of Pakistan are paying the price with their lives “We consistently see climate devastation in the forms of floods, for the industrialization of the rest of the world monsoons, extensive droughts, extreme heat waves,... And frankly, that has resulted in this climate change.” the citizens of Pakistan are paying the price with their lives for the industrialization of the rest of the world that has resulted in this climate change.”

We do conclude from his positioning, that the government is NOT responsible for the damage caused by climate change and therefore, only focus on the impact rather than the causes of floods. This argumentation is also based on the following facts:

Although Pakistan is 31st in the list of worldwide CO² emissions by country, being responsible for only 0.5% of the global CO² emissions, Pakistan is ranked 8th and going this year to the 5ft position of countries affected by climate-change related phenomenons.

This duality brings the government to a serious reality, the fact that they cannot change the way they affect climate change, but only change the way they protect themselves against these climate-change related phenomenons.