Islamabad, Pakistan – As a new wave of cloudbursts, monsoon rains and floods cause havoc across Pakistan, Iqbal Solangi sits in his small house in the southern coastal city of Karachi, feeling the pain of those who lost their loved ones, land and livestock.
Since late June, a heavier-than-usual monsoon, followed by floods and landslides, has killed more than 800 people, damaged at least 7,225 houses, and washed away over 5,500 livestock in addition to the widespread destruction of crops across the country.
While the exact cause of the floods is yet to be determined, several factors could have contributed to the deluge, including climate change. Pakistan ranks among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations, but it contributes less than 1 percent of global emissions.
Solangi had ended his climate-change-forced exile from farming in 2022, but ended up losing his rice crop due to the flooding for a third time after the 2010 and 2012 floods, and found himself under a huge pile of debt yet again.
In 2012, he had moved from a tiny village on the border of the Sindh and Balochistan provinces to Karachi because climate change had made the profession of his forefathers unsustainable. The displacement brought to a temporary end three decades of farming.
“When my house and land were flooded and I was sitting high up watching it all being washed away, I decided I would never go back to it,” Solangi told Al Jazeera, talking about the 2022 floods, which affected 33 million people and inundated 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of agricultural land.
Locals collect wood from Noseri Dam near Muzaffarabad a day after flash floods [File: Sajjad Qayyum/AFP]
The Climate Rate Index report in 2025 placed Pakistan at the top of the list of the most affected countries based on 2022 data. Extensive flooding then submerged approximately a third of the country, killed more than 1,700 people, caused $14.8bn worth of damage, as well as $15.2bn of economic losses, and pushed nine million people into poverty.
In an article in August, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper wrote: “In today’s Pakistan, the monsoon has transformed from a symbol of beauty and renewal into a harbinger of chaos and despair. What was once awaited with excitement is now approached with dread.”
Last year, more floods affected thousands, and a heatwave killed almost 600 people. The gradual rise in temperatures is also forcing the melting of the 13,000-plus glaciers in Pakistan, increasing the risk of flooding, damage to infrastructure, loss of life and land, threat to communities, and water scarcity.
Agriculture remains a key contributor to Pakistan’s economy, contributing approximately 24 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), according to Pakistan’s Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The livelihood of some 40 million people is also linked with agriculture, which employs more than 37 percent of the labour force.
In an interview with Al Jazeera earlier this year, Pakistan’s climate change minister warned that the effect of melting glaciers on the river and canal networks “would have catastrophic consequences for Pakistan’s agricultural economy”.
“These people [working on agriculture] have no economic security, and given our current economic development stage, the government lacks the wherewithal to provide for such a large segment of the population if these gushing floods wash away our infrastructure and devastate agricultural lands. From an economic and agricultural standpoint alone, the potential for devastation is immense,” Musadiq Malik said.
This year, the agriculture sector has posted a modest growth of 0.6 percent, falling well short of the 2 percent target and significantly below last year’s announced growth of 6.4 percent.
A recent study published in the Nature journal says the Indus Plain in Pakistan experienced 19 flood disasters between 1950 and 2012, affecting an area of almost 600,000sq km (231,661.3sq miles), causing 11,239 deaths and resulting in economic damage exceeding $39bn. Half of those events took place after 2000.
Figures shared by PBS show a rise in the number of farmlands across Pakistan over the last few years, from 8.6 million in 2010 to 11.7 million last year, increasing in all provinces bar Punjab. However, changes in rain patterns have also impacted farmers immensely.
In the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Basharat Jamal still tills his land but says his crop has almost vanished over the past decade due to droughts.
Jamal runs a small business to supplement his income but explains that the shift from agricultural practices has landed the region in double jeopardy. The income and produce have reduced significantly, with many farmers moving to urban centres for work. In addition, some farmers now own livestock, which, due to a lack of fodder, destroy their unprotected crops.
According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25, major crops, such as wheat and cotton, contracted by 13.5 percent, restricting the overall GDP growth rate by 0.6 percent.
Farming now is like ‘gambling with nature’
For Muhammad Hashim, a farmer in Pakistan’s largest province, Balochistan, farming in an unpredictable climate is “like gambling with nature” due to the frequent floods and droughts that have forced him to migrate multiple times.
He has stuck to farming despite “watching helplessly our crops withering and failing year after year”.
“Ten years ago, we had no choice but to leave our ancestral land and migrate in search of survival,” said Hashim. “Then came the devastating floods of 2022. Everything we had rebuilt was washed away. Our fields were destroyed again. The next year, we moved again. For a brief time, we found some peace.
“I worked on my farm and at a shop. Our children were back in school, and life started to feel normal.”
According to the Migration Policy Institute, more than eight million people were displaced by the 2022 floods, including farmers who gave up on their lands and moved to cities.
A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report on the 2022 floods said: “2022 will be remembered as a critical, trying year for Pakistan, with growing macroeconomic and fiscal concerns, a cost of living crisis impacting the most vulnerable, and cataclysmic floods whose threats were multiplied by climate change.”
However, soon after, drought forced him to move again, but the “situation is worse than ever”.
“One year it’s floods, the next it’s drought,” he said, adding that if this pattern continued, his farming days would be over.
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.
