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he floods of 2022 and the ongoing floods have been national emergencies. Caused by extreme monsoon rains, melting glaciers, flash floods in mountainous areas and riverine flooding in the plains, these have been made worse by upstream inflows and dam releases. These countrywide disasters have captured the world’s attention.
Alongside these national events there is another story relentlessly repeated every year: urban flooding. In all our major cities, monsoon rains submerge streets, paralyse transport, disrupt daily life and damage homes and businesses. In 2022, and again this year, the problem looked more dramatic because the rainfall was unprecedented. But the truth is that urban flooding is not an occasional problem tied to nationwide floods. It is a chronic, structural issue.
Urban flooding happens when intense rainfall overwhelms a city’s capacity to drain water. No amount of ‘development’ can solve it. The only remedy lies in how we plan cities, how we manage them and how we make them resilient to the changing climate.
Causes
Urban flooding occurs when city drainage systems cannot cope with intense rainfall. This is often because stormwater drains are poorly designed, clogged with waste or narrowed by encroachments. Unplanned urbanisation and concretisation of cities leaves fewer porous areas for rainwater to soak into the ground, so water accumulates. In some cities, river or stream backflows compound the problem, e.g. the Ravi near Lahore and Nullah Leh in Rawalpindi.
Climate change exacerbates the problem. It brings more frequent, high-intensity downpours that can turn a nullah into a torrent within hours. Our cities, unprepared for erratic weather, are not equipped to handle extreme rainfall events.
How cities fall short
Pakistan’s high vulnerability to climate change stems from weak state capacity, poor planning, governance gaps and limited disaster preparedness. These issues have always existed, but climate change has exposed them more clearly.
In Karachi, heavy monsoon rains regularly submerge areas like Shara-i-Faisal, Saddar and the DHA. The city’s clogged drains leave no place for the water to flow. In Rawalpindi, cloudbursts can turn Nullah Leh into a raging stream, flooding nearby neighbourhoods—a hazard residents have lived with for decades. Lahore experiences both rainwater ponding in urban areas and the Ravi spill into peri-urban settlements.
Drainage infrastructure in these cities is outdated. Open nullahs are cleaned before every monsoon and some encroachments are removed. However, the waste soon returns because there is no long-term solid waste management system. Even moderate rains overwhelm the drains, causing hours of waterlogging and paralysing parts of the city.
The expansion of housing societies has worsened our climate vulnerability. Construction continues on areas originally meant to act as reserve forests, river floodplains or natural drainage zones. Restaurants, bridges and commercial developments have been built directly on natural drainage channels. By cutting off these natural buffers, urban development has made cities more exposed to flooding.
Across our cities, the same patterns of urban flooding recur every year. Rainfall fairly regularly exceeds the capacity of existing infrastructure. Stormwater drains and sewage systems are often clogged. Urban sprawl continues to spread into natural drainage areas. Solid waste blocks many channels meant to carry water. When rivers and nullahs overflow, they add to the pressure on the already fragile systems. The problem is made worse by weak planning and poor enforcement, which allow construction in hazard-prone zones and leave cities vulnerable year after year.
Climate change amplification
Climate change is not a natural phenomenon. It is a man-made disaster, the direct outcome of how we live and consume. Pakistan has already faced record-breaking monsoon rains, heatwaves and floods on an unprecedented scale. This year, we are again witnessing intense, localised downpours that overwhelm cities within hours. We are no longer bracing for a catastrophe or predicting what might happen in the future. We are living through it now.
Climate change is making weather patterns more erratic. This makes it harder to predict and prepare in advance. Forecasts are becoming less reliable and the weather model is shifting towards unpredictability. Another impact of climate change is the rise of short but very intense weather events, such as cloudbursts. These events are difficult to control because the rain falls in a short period but with extreme force. The rainfall itself may last only a few hours or even minutes, yet its impact remains around for much longer. Water might stagnate in streets and low-lying areas for days or weeks, spreading disease and causing serious problems for mobility and access.
In this sense, climate change is not only increasing the volume of rain but also changing its nature. It turns the everyday weakness of urban drainage into a much larger crisis.
Climate-resilient cities
Every year, monsoon brings the same disruption. Every year, the response is reactive. Our cities cannot continue to operate in this cycle of crisis. We have to start rethinking how our cities are designed and managed.
City governance nowadays rests largely with provincial governments. Authority over a city is extremely siloed and fragmented across various agencies, so no single body feels responsible for long-term urban issues like drainage. There is an urgent need to shift this model of governance to one that gives cities accountability and ownership over their systems.
The Environmental Impact Assessments need to be reimagined. They need to be more than checkboxes in the planning process—often a single form filled in haste with little thought and procedure. Instead, an EIA should be the foundation of decision-making; it should be an entire planning process. No housing society, road expansion or commercial development should be able to proceed without a serious assessment of how it will affect flood zones, natural drains and water absorption throughout the city.
Another priority should be the unglamorous work of maintenance. Cities often rush to announce new drainage projects. What they need most is consistent upkeep of existing systems. Mapping, documenting and cleaning drain networks would go further than laying new pipes or concretising natural streams. In most cases, simply keeping existing drains clear would allow them to carry away monsoon water more effectively.
There is a dire need to integrate green infrastructure. Porous areas, urban forests and buffer zones near natural drainage channels can help absorb water. Tree plantations stabilise soil and reduce surface runoff. Green public spaces also help cities cope with extreme heat, which often follows floods. Climate adaptation requires a holistic approach, identifying hotspots of heat and flooding and preparing for them through natural and local interventions. This requires moving beyond traditional “master planning” or rigid land-use planning. Instead, cities need ‘climate action plans’ that are practical, people-centred and forward-looking.
Pakistani cities need to put people at the centre of planning, especially vulnerable communities. A just transition must guide how we think about climate resilience. We cannot afford to act in panic and disarray every year when monsoon rains flood and paralyse our cities, bringing loss of life, property and livelihoods. Instead, we must respond with foresight and care.
Extreme climate events and erratic weather require a holistic, long-term approach, one that is driven by both urgency and sensitivity because the only certainty at this point is that these events will become more frequent and more intense.
The writer is an urban planner and researcher based in Islamabad. She leads the Sustainability Lab at atomcamp, working at the intersection of data, climate change and cities. She completed her master’s in urban management from Pratt Institute, New York, on a Fulbright scholarship.