https://www.dawn.com/news/1693231/health-of-the-indus
Health of the Indus
Zofeen T. Ebrahim, June 5, 2022
THE Indus is dying, and it is dying downstream Sukkur, was the unanimous verdict of filmmaker Wajahat Malik and his five friends after traversing the once mighty river on a raft.
To get first-hand knowledge of the health of the river, the six adventurers started off on March 30 and were given a warm send-off by the locals at Hamzigond in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Kharmang district. They covered an estimated 2,300 kilometres of the entire 3,180 km length of this transboundary river on a raft over 45 days. They reached Kharo Chan in the delta, where the Indus meets the Arabian Sea, turned west and ended their journey at Karachi’s Marina Club.
Theirs was an odd group: three paraglider pilots, one of whom is a karate champion, two white water rafters and one ace swimmer, who could double as a rescuer in case someone fell into the sometimes raging waters — or so they thought. The team had second-hand wet suits (these barely protected them from the frigid glacial waters in the north for more than a minute if anyone fell into the river) helmets, life jackets and a sturdy raft. They could have gone with better gear, but had limited resources.
Though this was not a high-performance, data-intensive computing mission undertaken by environmental field researchers, scientists or anthropologists using state-of-the-art equipment, the six were nevertheless able to see a kaleidoscope of images of the ecological, environmental and socioeconomic devastation of Pakistan’s lifeline wrought by climate transitions, as they slowly moved south.
They witnessed, and were able to film, the impact of both water shortage, as well as the poor quality of what little was available, on the lives and livelihoods of people living along the river. The reckless dumping of poisonous effluent into the river by factories, hotels and restaurants were some ‘disturbing’ images that were etched on their minds and captured by their cameras.
Whichever town they neared, they would be greeted by islands of floating trash. The flotsam included plastic, bottles and in particular, styrofoam. Little wonder studies say that the Indus contributes 164,332 tonnes of plastic waste (that enters the sea) annually and is the second most plastic-polluted river in the world. The first, third and fourth polluted rivers in this category are in China.
But what was most vividly witnessed was the interaction of local people with natural systems, and the resilience of both against manmade climate-induced disturbances and the realisation how critical this was to understanding the river’s ailments.
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https://www.dawn.com/news/1693184
Indus annually delivers 10,000 tonnes of macro-plastics to Arabian Sea: WB
Amin Ahmed, June 5, 2022
ISLAMABAD: The River Indus delivers around 10,000 tonnes of macro-plastics to the Arabian Sea each year, according to a World Bank survey made available on Saturday.
The survey, titled ‘Plastic Waste: A Journey Down the Indus River Basin in Pakistan’, is a first-of-its-kind field study undertaken along the Indus river basin to quantify the amount of waste, particularly plastics, leaking into the river system.
It warned that the perennial presence of plastic waste in the Indus and its tributaries is a recent addition to the already extensive list of threats to water quality, ecological health, and environmental sustainability in Pakistan.
Nine sampling sites were selected for the study based on multiple criteria including geographical location, population dependent on the river, tourism or industrial activity, and trans-boundary importance. Sites were selected along the tributaries of the river as well as on the Indus itself, encompassing the entire river basin.
The field survey was conducted across nine locations along the Indus river and its tributaries, spanning 2,032 kilometres.
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Gautam
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