Case study: Pakistan Floods, River Indus, 2010
- Created by: itsnicole
- Created on: 27-11-16 18:37
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Where is Pakistan? Southern Asia - to the west of India and to the southeast of Afghanistan
The river was the River Indus - source of the river is in the Himalayas
Areas that flooded: south of Punjab, east of Balochistan, north of Sindh, northern Pakistan near Pakistani - Administered Kashmir
Approximately 40% of Pakistan was affected by the floods - areas of heaviest flooding were the Kalabagh Barrage, Chashma Barrage and Guddu Barrage as these areas were on either side of the river so they were the closest areas
Causes of the floods:
- The causes were anthropogenic meaning that human causes combined with physical causes
- There were monsoon rains as 274mm of rain fell in 24 hours (the typical ANNUAL rainfall in Pakistan is only 222mm)
- Deforestation in the Indus basin because trees were felled for fuel, building or to make way for farmland - reduced interception and increased surface run off
- Leaves and embankments were designed to protect areas from flooding however they causes the river bed to silt up and become higher than the flood plain so there was a greater flood
- Huge sediment loads from the Himalayas as fast flowing melt water caused erosion leading to the the River Indus becoming full of silt - the silt deposited on the river bed and reduced the capacity of the river which caused floods
- Finally irrigation channels were used to diver the water from other rivers to farmland which in turn added more water to the River Indus and increased its discharge
Short term effects:
- 23% of the crops were destroyed
- 200,00 cattle died in the…
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